Travel Review Sites
TripAdvisor is the world's largest travel site with more than 50 million unique visitors each month. TripAdvisor for Business is dedicated to helping the tourism industry connect with these potential customers. Business owners can claim their listing and there is a resource library to help optimize it and create the best possible impression on travelers who are researching their trips and making travel decisions.
Reviews can be posted for Hotels, Restaurants, Vacation Rentals, and Things to Do.
TravBuddy is a site for people who love to explore the world around them. You can use TravBuddy to record travel experiences in travel blogs or share travel tips with travel reviews. Review topics are Hotels & Accommodations; Sights & Attractions; Restaurants, Cafes, & Food; General Tips & Advice; and Nightlife & Entertainment.
VirtualTourist is a worldwide travel community where travelers and locals share travel advice and experiences. As one of the largest sources of unbiased, user-generated travel content in the world, VirtualTourist is the premier resource for travelers seeking an insider’s perspective. This travel review site has 1.7 million travel tips from 1 million registered members on more than 72,977 locations (as of 2009). There is a section of the site specifically for hotel reviews and another consisting of travel guides on a variety of topics including Things to Do, Hotels, Restaurants, Nightlife, Shopping, Local Customs, Tourist Traps, Sports & Outdoors, and Favorites. Reviewers can also create pages and upload photos along with their reviews.
Local Businesses Review Sites
Yelp was founded to help people find reviews of local businesses and has more than 22 million local reviews. In addition, business owners or managers can set up a business page (free) where they can communicate with customers, both privately and publicly; track how many people view their business page; add photos, a detailed business description, up-to-date information, history, and specialties; and recommend other businesses.
Insider Pages was created to help people find the best local businesses through recommendations from their friends and neighbors. People share reviews of local businesses in a large number of categories. Millions of people visit the site each month to get the Insider scoop on local businesses.
Similar to Yelp, this site has reviews for many categories of local businesses. Businesses can also sign up for a business listing — basic listing is free. A basic listing can include up to 5 category-specific data fields, additional information about services offered, contact and basic descriptive information, and a website link.
Restaurant Review/Discussion Sites
www.chow.com, www.chowhound.chow.com/boards
Chow has a restaurants database where you can find restaurant reviews. You’ll find the basic information about the restaurant (location, type of food, etc.), as well as quick reviews and links to further discussions on Chowhound, a discussion board where people swap information about restaurants, cooking, food and drink. The Restaurants database isn’t meant for discussion and debate; that’s what the discussion threads are for. The database is meant to hold straightforward information and quick reviews. Anyone can add ratings and reviews, or edit the reference fields once they have logged in.
Dine.com is a premier resource of unbiased reviews and information on thousands of restaurants. All the reviews come from visitors to Dine.com — not paid reviewers. Restaurant owners can create their own site on Dine.com, enabling them to update information, upload photos, create an online menu and get feedback directly from customers. Dine.com allows users to give reviews of businesses to help potential customers make informed decisions prior to spending their money. It's also a great way for business owners to market their services to the local community.
Urbanspoon is another popular restaurant listing/review site. Business owners can add their restaurant to the site or claim it if it is already listed. Urbanspoon does review all new listings before they are posted.
The goal of Roadfood.com is to help foodies find restaurants with great local color and the best regional specialties through unbiased reviews. You can review an existing restaurant or add a new one. There is no provision for a business listing — listings can only be added as a review.
Local Search Listings
97% of consumers search for local businesses online. Google, Bing, and Yahoo all offer free local business listings which appear on their search results page. If a customer in your area is searching for a product or service you offer and enters a city and state in their query, your listing will show up above the rest of the search results.
All the local listings allow you to enter your complete contact information including your business name, description, hours, website, email, phone, etc. In addition, you can upload your logo, photos of your products, business, or employees. Google also allows a YouTube video to be uploaded.
Customers can review your product or service and you have the opportunity to respond.
Location-based Apps
Foursquare is a location-based service that lets people with smartphones ‘check in’ at various locations. Foursquare users earn points for each location they check into and the person who has the most check-ins at a location is ‘elected’ the ‘mayor’ of that venue. Users can also announce their location to their foursquare friends or broadcast it publicly with Twitter and Facebook. Businesses can claim their venues and create special offers or discounts to find new customers and engage with current ones.
Yellowpages is a local search tool that helps users find and connect with local businesses, events and attractions via online, mobile, or television.
Register for your free listing at http://adsolutions.att.com/advertise-with-us so that you’ll be found when customers are using the internet to search for your product or service and encourage your customers to leave a review on their experience with your company.
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