Admin Blog

 

In the last 19 days, we have had 30 reviews in our business review section.  I am happy to see the Business Reviews finally getting some attention. Early on when the reviews were not getting attention, I was dreading it might have been a colossal mistake.  The Press Enterprise story this week helped, but the increase has been happening all month.

Business are listening, at least I hope they are.  They are not all wonderful testimonials either. Ask Zip fusion, Carls Jr. Eeeek!!, I have cringed at some of their reviews.

Here are a few things I would like to see. Maybe I have to be more aggressive to get it done.  Maybe the members can help.

 

• 1. I would love to see business get behind the reviews and actually ask more customers to review them. Yes, I am guilty of not doing this. I own Eastvale Computer Services and I really do not ask for reviews as I should, but I need to.

 

• 2. Tell your local customers about the site. If they do not live here, at least tell them to read your reviews. Make a link directly to your review page so they can read it.

 

• 3. Perhaps offer coupons for reviews. Have them present their review for a discount. Something like that. You can always very membership by doing a member search on the forum. Use your creativity that got you in business in the first place and think of an incentive.

 

• 4. The site is giving you good placement in Google and we are giving you a great opportunity to promote your business. Throw us a bone and help promote the site at your checkout area. I see lots of business cards and flyers. None of which can help your business. WE CAN.

 

• 5. "Good placement in Google"? you say. Try doing a search for Pizza Nova Eastvale, Pura Salon or pita pit Eastvale. This site comes up first. Actually your business reviews might come up first. Gee, I hope they are good :) To do that, to get your local business like Pita Pit location for your local community tops in a search on Google will take quite some time. Lots of time has been put in to get this to happen.  Utilize this resource. It is free with a big red bow on it.

 

I have been told I am undercutting my advertisement sponsorships by doing this for businesses for free. No, advertisements here get the big views. Sara's Sassy K-9's received (as of the 19th of June) 19,653 views of her banner this month. That's 1,034 per day. Couple that with her  telling people about the site and ASKING for reviews from her customers equals one busy dog groomer. So her $65.00 advertisement spot is a small price to pay.

So, I hope you all understand why we absolutely do not permit blatant business promotions in the forums. There are far better ways to get your business noticed than just a cheap plug....aahhem, that will get deleted as soon as we see it. Think about it.

  

I had a good time at the BBQ. The softball game was a blast.  Getting the field reserved from JCSD was a good thing because as soon as we pulled up (about 12:40) there were people showing up to play. They were cool about it when I said we had the field reserved and played on the south side.

The BBQ was designed to have people who are on the forums to finally meet each other in person and put faces to names, that's why is was not promoted outside the forums.   There were about 20 of us there. I was really hoping for more actually judging on the poll we took of who would be there but dampened my expectations about 1:00, hoping we would have enough players to play ball.

We'll plan a few of these get together, but will be more informal and may not spend the money (yes this did cost money to reserve the shelter and the field). For those that missed this, please try and come to the next one. And for those that keep whinning they cannot meet new people here, you missed a perfect opportunity!

I added a new search tool.  You can find it on the top right corner of the site. Start typing and it displays the results.

 

I changed the site a bit. One of the reasons is the Press Enterprise is doing a story on the site this week and I have been tinkering with the idea of a tabbed interface for a while. Seems like a good time to do it since we'll get more visitors.  There is plenty of room to add new items as I have a few more tabbed positions I can fill.  The bouncy tabs are pretty cool too.

We have always had a problem in the forums. With 840 members now, we have always had to rein in business from getting cheap plugs in the forums. One of the reasons we do not want this is to protect the other members. When there are 20 unread posts we do not want 15 oth them to be solicitations, offers, "announcements" or "specials". I am sure you can understand. Here are a few tips.

Signatures. Place your website or your profession in your signatrure. The more you post, the more it's seen. But be a good poster too. Constant one word or meaningless postings just to get exposure will backfire. Please follow the rules for signatures.

 Business Reviews. Put your business or review others.  Our search engine numbers are terrific. Especially after a full year of submitting.

Articles. Write an article for the site.

User profiles. You can place as much info about your business in your user profile, then in your signature, place a link to your profile. Instant advertising.

  We submit our sitemaps to all the engines regularly.

Help get more people on the site. The more people oin the site, the more people will see you.

The original post is here.

WOW, looks like we may get a good turn-out! Looking forward to seeing everyone and finally putting faces to names. Few thoughts though.

I have been approached by a few organizations and business to do stuff at the BBQ. The answer is no. We do not want to turn this into a marketplace for businesses or causes or groups or whatever. Just a frieldly get together where we can play ball, meet eachothers families and hang out.

Bounce C Bounce rentals is supplying a bouncer to keep the kiddos busy, but if we do not get enough volunteers, we may cancel it. We're not watching anyone elses kids. We have a few volunteers for the bouncer duty. Please help and volunteer.

This BBQ is being promoted on the forums only. You can read the post here.

According to Google, more and more people are finding the site from searches for businesses.  Here are the latest search queries that people clicked on to get to our site. The reason? Our business reviews. over 4,000 pages from this site are indexed in google nightly and they pick up pages. So, your reviews are being read. If you are a local business, please take note.

The reviews are public and, obviously, are ranked in Google. You must be a member of the forums to create a review or submit a business. Keep your customers happy.

 

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"yogurt licious"
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pizza nova corona

 

Her mom Sylvia wrote a few articles for us  which I placed on the front page.  I asked for another one in June after the finals, win or lose. Eastvale will be represented well.

Vbulletin Software, who is our forum software is getting a nice upgrade in May. The release is almost final and we will upgrade the forum shortly after. Here are some cool enhancements coming:

Blogs - We will have a blog area on the site. Users can blog, pontificate and express their opinions on whatever they want. Enter at your own risk people!

Photo Albums - Users will have their own photo albums in their profile.

Groups - Are you into collecting old microwaves? Start your own group and allow others to join in. Basically it is a one thread type of topic in that group.

User Profile Enhancements - You will get to be as creative as you want with colors, backgrounds and other cool design elements in your profile.

The problems: Our board is heavily modified, so please bear with us if there are issues.

This admin blog is to address questions, post updates on the site and generally be a source of communication, both to the forum posters as well as the public site. Sometimes we want to say a few things top people, posters, businesses, but in the forums, it may not be the appropriate place, so, here is the place we can communicate that stuff.