Founded in 2008. The Landscape Juice Network (LJN) is the largest and fastest growing professional landscaping and horticultural association in the United Kingdom.
LJN's professional business forum is unrivalled and open to anyone within within the UK landscape industry
LJN's Business Objectives Group (BOG) is for any Pro serious about building their business.
For the researching visitor there's a wealth of landscaping ideas, garden design ideas, lawn advice tips and advice about garden maintenance.
Replies
Phil
is there anyway reviewscan be added to our network page directly by customers
Yes we have a Testimonial Page - which we feel is similar as we have both members and customers.
see www.britishmolecatchers.co.uk
Cheers
webmaster BTMR - our motto....
"We dont make a mountain out of a molehill"
Hi all,
Would like to reiterate this SEO stuff is what was presented at an FSB meeting... it seems to make sense!
I believe there is various freeware available to provide the function but as google is used for 80% of searchs l suggest google places is a key element.
This gives an intro
http://www.themarketingspotblog.com/2010/09/how-to-maximize-your-go...
Review Abuse:
If you use sites like google places, the person leaving the review has to register and log in with their google password; if you have gmail, google adwords or any google taking over the world account you'll already have registered. This reduces abuse... but it is also a down fall to the system that a customer may have to pre-register prior to leaving a review but l suppose it helps cut down the fraud.
Here is mine as an example...
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/place?hl=en&rlz=1C1GGGE_enGB385GB...
Your website could link to it "click here for customer reviews".
Other providers like TouchLocal gives you HTML code to link reviews left on their directory site to be mirrored on yours. They use Facebook accounts as the security.
The problem is if you have multiple places for customers to leave reviews your diluting or asking too much of your customers! I asked the presenter about this problem, he said look at where most of your business is coming from, get the reviews there but also try to keep Google Places as a key site.
Phil, would a customer review addtion to LJN members page accounts be useful? These could be linked to our websites with a big LJN banner, raising the profile of LJN and promoting reviews without fraud!
Thanks guys for your input,
john and gary have registered with free index and asked by guy to paste the review link to my site.
Webmaster i have looked at your site.
My concern is when you add reviews to your site are they genuine or self written,as gary rightly says you can spot self written reviews and testimonials.How will google differentiate genuine from self written.
My web designer,has come back to me and said, allegedly this rumour was started by the review sites to gain extra links, which i have just given them.
anyway I think reviews do give you extra credability.
John www.acegardenservices.co.uk said:
Yes but it allows unreasonable clients to then bad mouth you. If, for example, they have misunderstood something, and it can happen where they are completely in the wrong, you as a businessman and sole person responsible for your empire MUST be able to control what goes on the site.
It is there as your advertisment after all, and if you are short of work you'll soon figure out where you are going wrong and improve things to keep your clients happy.
I don't chase work on freeindex so that particular system wouldn't work, but I do paste some honest responses from clients onto my site
http://danfrazergardening.co.uk/Testimonials.aspx
I'm no sure about Freeindex but some systems allow you to respond to reviews.
The example previously used about decking could have been simply responded with the facts > 'we advised Mr Ben that the height he wanted for the proposed decking would interfere with his DPC and would lead to damp problem in his home. We made other suggestions.... blah blah'
If you have faith in your services and strive for excellence then you shouldn't be afraid of this. It's a cowboy deterant.
A review for me suggests that things don't always go to plan, we've all experience that. My initial reaction is oh no, this is bad for me. On reflection l now value this review more than those that said it went all perfectly because it's real.
Craig did a fantastic job, creating front and back gardens that exactly reflected our priorities. They are low maintenance and stylish. He worked closely with me, taking my ideas for forms and materials and turning them into reality. He also manageed to build my husband's dream shed. It takes up a tiny space but inside is like a tardis. When some design ideas didn't quite work first time, he came back to try to improve them. As a bonus, we were delighted when our front garden, without us having entered it, was awarded second place in the drought garden category in the local horticultural society annual awards.
Too open to abuse IMO
A very large firm with high turnover of jobs may be able to withstand the odd bad comment, a bit like feedback on ebay. If you've got 1,000 feedback with a couple of negatives it doesn't mean a lot. An individual with 10 feedbacks and 2 negatives spells danger.
Many people will smile and nod and be totally fine face to face but once they get behind a computer the anonimity unleashes a very different person.
Customer testimonials, customer references plus pics of previous work should suffice surely.
Delighted that this discussion has been started as I've been thinking of ways around this testimonial / review scenario myself of late.
Excellent point Gary hence my reason at moment to simply using a testimonial page on my website
On Facebook I have been able to embed a review page which is all fine if your client is on facebook and secondly post the review there (some are reluctant and prefer to hand write or type).
I find the testimonials on Linkedin fab but I recently come across Genbook which looks interesting. They've an appointment systems and review system which you can embed and they appear to have teamed up with Constant Contact Email marketing company.
Has anybody used there services and if so what was the result? Know of a similar company or one you would recommend?
Like the idea of having all your client database in one place, simplifies newsletters (which I've yet to do), calendar appointments and reviews I should think!
Gary @ Acer Paving & Landscaping said:
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