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I placed a comment on Greg Sterling’s writeup of the Yelp issue pointing him to my post.

In a reply to my comment Greg Sterling says , and I totally agree:

“There also need to be clear rules at these sites to that SMBs understand the “Hows” and the “Whys” of these systems and they’re not surprised by something they thought was OK.”

This triggered a thought process which reminds me of a discussion I often have with prospective clients and other interested parties.

I believe in links! In fact I believe links are often more important than content.

So I’m often asked “why do these sites want to link to you”? To which I reply “because we give them content”.

• Directories: the content they want is business listings
• Article sites: the content they want is information
• Press release sites: the content they want is news
• Content exchanges with other sites: the content they want is… content (and links back too)

So lets be perfectly clear about the motivations of these free sites. They’re not free! They need the critical mass of listings, articles, news, reviews or whatever to continue to be “free” because they’re selling advertising!

Sure, the business who lists their site for free isn’t paying, but we’re paying. Every time we click an ad, watch a video or in other way interact with an advertiser we’re paying for the site’s operation and we wouldn’t be there without the content.

Traditional print publishers have had hundreds of years to get used to the idea of their responsibility. Online publishers fewer than 20. Unfortunately it appears Yelp is about to learn this lesson in court.

So, it ain’t free. It’s barter. Our content, their links — and they’re the ones getting paid.

Update:

Great quote from TechCrunch:

“Their goal is clearly to make businesses need Yelp, but not to expect a lot of help when it comes to disputes. Complain all you want, you’re just proving that you need Yelp more than they need you.”

And another update from the comments of the original post in response to Dave Ingram of Brown Book:

“I think you make one particularly interesting point which I missed in my rant.

The idea of businesses recommending one another is an offline behavior and attempts to squelch it online only serve to enforce an unnatural order.

Think of every networking group you’ve ever been in. I’m a member of BNI, for instance, and even though I might not have ever used the guy in our group who sells granite, you can bet I’ll recommend him because I know him.”

I got this link by email from one of our clients (for Botox, San Francisco folks can’t go wrong with Dr. Roy Kim – yes, it’s a blatant link-drop) and it got me going on a pet peeve of mine:

Small Business owners giving up control over their own online destiny.

From the SFGate (San Francisco Chronicle Online): Merchants angry over getting yanked by Yelp

This article brings to a head a few issues of significance from professionals like us and from the service providers.

Businesses like those in the article have come to rely on Yelp for the connection to buyers. If only it were just Yelp…

…There’s Insider Pages, Google maps, WordPress and many other free services on which may small businesses rely and which have completely opaque and oftentimes arbitrary rules and enforcement thereof.

There are a couple of significant challenges for small businesses online which are related but not always connected:

• Ignorance of Technology
• Control of Brand (or loss of)

Aaaaaargh! Makes me want to scream. Really.

Greg Sterling constantly points to the need for education as one of the biggest impediments to small business acceptance of online marketing and I think he’s right. But the problem is, the ignorance that comes with a lack of education is really hurting small businesses.

Look at these poor saps in the Yelp article. Even if they knew what they were doing was wrong — and I’m sure they didn’t fully understand the rules, the emergence of these new yellow pages replacements is completely inscrutable to small businesses. As the recent local search ranking factors study (which I intend to write some more about) from David Mihm shows, there’s not even agreement among professional practitioners.

And then The New York Times stirs the pot with an article regarding Incentives for video reviews. You mean there’s something wrong with incentivizing reviews?

And then there’s my dearest Ms. Laycock berating those complaining about failings of a free service (Twitter).

For me it all leads back to a central frustration I feel from small businesses: they understood the Yellow Pages. You pay more, you get a bigger ad, you get more calls. How hard is that?

The problem with online is that many of these services on which the business must rely are free. And since they’re free there’s no repercussions if they don’t work, or don’t work as intended. And worse still there’s no way to get a realistic grasp of the totality of the rules nor an appeals process when one accidentally crosses the line.

So with all these problems how do you effectively use internet marketing for small business ?

Simple – you go back to the basics. You don’t rely on raw technology and you definitely don’t get caught up in “They’re doing it so should I”.

Oh, and you don’t fall for a slick sales pitch from the likes of SEOMatrix, Yodle (formerly Natpal), or LinksHog (or one of their hundred other names).

The problem with many practitioners and many small businesses either doing it themselves or outsourcing is that they get caught up in the flavor of the week. There are some very smart discussions about regarding how you rank well in Google maps, the value of reviews and the sites on which they live. But…

All that doesn’t matter if you, the small business owner, don’t control your own destiny!

Here are a few clues that the sales pitch you’re hearing isn’t going to allow you to control your own destiny:

• Use of the word “Proprietary”
• Mention of “Optimized Landing Pages” (hint: if they optimize a landing page they own, they’re not optimizing your site )
• Inclusion in proprietary “Directory” listings — don’t get me wrong, directories are great but the ones we like are the ones whose listings don’t go away when you stop paying
• Switching costs – in other words you have to pay to leave
• Mention of ownership of “thousands of sites“

In short, if you’re looking for small business internet marketing, or even if you’re in a niche with higher returns and you need plastic surgery internet marketing or any other internet marketing remember one thing:

• If it doesn’t increase the search engine positioning of your site look twice — make sure you understand the outcomes and that the reward is worth the risk.

So make sure you cover the basics before before you try the flavor of the week and if you don’t understand the pitch ask more questions. And if you don’t believe the answers get a second opinion.

Just to be clear all of these distribution methods have value: reviews, directory listings, blogging, video optimization, even pay per click.

Please be sure you know the reward and most importantly be sure the click you buy lands on your site or makes your phone ring!