Today I thought it a good idea to write a post meant to get the brain juices flowing more than a strict SEO technique. Sometimes it’s nice to think aloud without holding back on your ideas just to get to the good little nuggets tucked away in your own brain.

I’ve been thinking really hard about a post Stephen Espinosa wrote on Reviews and how they affect local ranking (if you haven’t yet, go read this, then come back). Add to that Andrew’s post this week announcing that local.com is now accepting reviews, and we can see the need to promote ourselves with reviews. But how do we get these reviews? We could make them up, but where’s the fun in that? Let’s consider a few ideas, and perhaps we will come up with something.

Web Based

Let the Client Give Them To You
When you consider local SEO/Internet Marketing, it seems that the most prevelant business model is that of a service provider instead of product offerings (this probably isn’t the case, it just seems so). That being said, it would be conducive to have a page on your local site to convince people to leave a testimonial about the great stay at your hotel or incredible job you provided on their lawn. Compile these, and submit them to various review-based services (hey, it’s not like you are lying, you are just spreading the good word that was given to you). Please be sure to have a disclaimer somewhere that says you will use these as you see fit.

Point Them In The Right Direction
Perhaps you could go one step futher and direct people from the page on your site directly to the various local profiles that your SEO has setup among local sites. Provide a few instructions on how to start an account and vote for their favorite spots or service (yours, of course). The caveat of this is the idea that you are making people go through the hassle. You may lose a few votes this way. Also, you are exposing your visitor to a whole world in which they could easily get lost.

Hard Copy

Here, Take My Card
This idea was brought to me by a friend. Wherever your place of business, you almost always have a «front desk.» Why not print a bunch of postcard with a list of review type sites where your business currently has a profile. You can hand them out at the front desk, or as a piece of material that you send your current clients. Again, you are putting a bit of work on the visitor, but a lot of them will be doing this anyway.

You Mind Filling this Out?
There’s always the bunch of pads you see at some places asking for email addresses. Now I’m not against getting email addresses for the right business type, but why not replace that pad with one for testimonials for a little while?

Got Any More?
These are just a few ideas to get those reviews stocked up. I hope it gets you thinking of ways to gether some more. If you have any more, please feel free to comment them here.

With this, and any other post, please read the disclaimer.