Couzin Gradiva - Five Stars: Putting Online Reviews to Work for Your Business

This comprehensive book shows savvy business owners and marketers the techniques for getting the absolute most from online reviews. Apply these winning strategies and proven processes to gain visibility and customers.

Andrew Shotland, localseoguide.com

Five Stars spills the secrets for getting, managing, and leveraging customer reviews to influence stronger reputations, higher pricing, and positive purchase decisions. Smart marketers will open it again and again as they implement the invaluable advice. Its a goldmine!

Barbara Findlay Schenck, Author of Branding For Dummies and Small Business Marketing Kit For Dummies

Your online reputation is in the hands of your customers. Make great use of this book in understanding how that might work best for you.

Chris Brogan, Publisher of Owner magazine and Coauthor of Trust Agents

As more people rely heavily on online reviews to make decisions about everything from where theyre going to eat dinner to who theyll choose to sell their homes, business owners and professionals can no longer afford to ignore what customers are saying about them online. While the thought of monitoring and managing so many sites is daunting, this guide provides a handy road map to turning your customers opinions into an effective marketing tool. This book is a worthwhile investment for any business, whether it has an online presence or not.

Gwen Moran, Award-Winning Small Business Expert and Author

Senior Acquisitions Editor: Willem Knibbe

Development Editor: Dick Margulis

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Associate Publisher: Chris Webb

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Compositor: Maureen Forys, Happenstance Type-O-Rama

Proofreader: Rebecca Rider

Indexer: Jack Lewis

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Cover Designer: Ryan Sneed

Cover Image: iStockphoto.com/asiseeit

Copyright 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

ISBN: 978-1-118-68944-8

ISBN: 978-1-118-76335-3 (ebk)

ISBN: 978-1-118-76321-6 (ebk)

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Dear Reader,

Thank you for choosing Five Stars: Putting Online Reviews to Work for Your Business .This book is part of a family of premium-quality Sybex books, all of which are written by outstanding authors who combine practical experience with a gift for teaching.

Sybex was founded in 1976. More than 30 years later, were still committed to producing consistently exceptional books. With each of our titles, were working hard to set a new standard for the industry. From the paper we print on, to the authors we work with, our goal is to bring you the best books available.

I hope you see all that reflected in these pages. Id be very interested to hear your comments and get your feedback on how were doing. Feel free to let me know what you think about this or any other Sybex book by sending me an email at contactus@sybex.com . If you think youve found a technical error in this book, please visit http://sybex.custhelp.com . Customer feedback is critical to our efforts at Sybex.

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Chris Webb

Associate Publisher

Sybex, an Imprint of Wiley

For Ferdal and Puffulfluf, my vilde chayas. May the wild rumpus never end! With all my love. gc

To my dear friend Kelly Ryer, who is an inexhaustible source of beautiful music, clever life hacks, and great ideas. jg

Stories from real-world businesses shaped this book. We are grateful for the generosity of business owners and marketers who shared their triumphs and tribulations with us: Shane McWeeny, Adam Sperling, Kathy Setzer, Armando Cosio, Eddy Polon, Russ Palmer, Michael Mandis, Searah Deysach, Sharon Couzin, Alex Smith, Patti Ernst, Steven Lawrence, Eden Marchant, and many others who shall remain anonymous but whose input is equally treasured by us.

Thanks to the academics and professionals in the online reviews, reputation management, and social commerce industries who offered us a wealth of insider knowledge and tipsMatt McGee, Mike Blumenthal, Greg Meyer, Kit Yarrow, Bing Liu, and representatives from the reviewscapeMorgan Remmers and Katrina Hafford of Yelp, Cheryl Reed and Lesley Thompson of Angies List, Alison Croyle and Barbara Messing of TripAdvisor, Rick Berry of Demandforce, Richard Anson of Reevoo, Neville Letzerich of Bazaarvoice, Michelle Wohl of Revinate, Michaella Kissack of BrandsEye, Elaine Olshanetsky of ResellerRatings, Mike Waite of Market Metrix, Chris Campbell of ReviewTrackers, Ali Alami of Judys Book, Jon Hall of Grade.us, and Brent Franson of Reputation.com. There is nobody more helpful than the kind soul who proffers an introduction, connecting a question with an answer. Many thanks to Alex Robinson, Sharon Farb, Anthony Severo, Phil Rozek, and Rafael Baptista for their assistance.