Yell your review

Yell.com has launched an online review facility for the UK’s restaurants and bars. The move follows the local business search engine’s acquisition and integration of the TrustedPlaces local review website.

Yell hopes that the move will deliver a range of benefits to its two million advertisers, many of whom are small businesses.

Sokratis Papafloratos, UK head of social products at Yell, explained how these reviews “represent a powerful and cost-effective tool to promote goods and services online, connect with consumers, gather valuable customer feedback and generate new business leads by driving online traffic and word of mouth.”

According to Nielsen data from 2009, 70% of UK Internet users claim to trust recommendations from strangers online, with eMarketer research from this year suggesting that consumers are 12 times more likely to trust a review by their peers than descriptions by the businesses themselves.

In keeping with this, Papafloratos stressed: “Word of mouth has always been a powerful advertising tool, especially for local businesses, and is now being generated more and more online, with consumers using peer testimonials to make purchasing decisions.

"In this context, our new review facility will help our advertisers achieve a stronger online presence."

Putting the initiative in a wider strategic context, Papafloratos described it as “a key stepping stone in our continuing mission to make Yell.com the most trusted and comprehensive source of local information."

As part of this launch, Yell is also building a network of local and national charities who will receive 25p per review from the search engine when nominated as the charity of choice by the contributor.

Gabriel Savage, 26.10.2010