Your Business in Someone Else's Blog Post

A page you did not write

Search for your business's name and, somewhere on the first page, there is often a post you did not write.

A food blogger's visit from three summers ago. A neighbourhood forum thread asking whether you are any good. A list of favourite places on a city guide site.

Most were accurate when written. Then the hours changed, the menu changed, the prices went up and a second location opened.

The post stayed, ranking near your own site, and people read it as if it were written yesterday.

Where mentions turn up

• Personal blogs about food, families, neighbourhoods and weekends out.
• Community forums where people ask for recommendations.
• Facebook groups for a neighbourhood, a school or a hobby.
• City guide and news sites with lists of favourites.
• Wedding, parenting and travel sites that write about suppliers.

The second matters more than it looks. A forum thread asking about a business can rank for its name for years, and the answers in it are often guesses from people who have never been.

Finding them

Search your business name in quotation marks, then with your town, then with words like review, closed and prices.

Look past the first page. Search your phone number and any old address or old name too, since older posts use whatever was true then.

Set up a Google Alert for the business name, which emails you when new pages mention it.

And ask new customers where they heard about you. Some will name a post you have never seen.

Opinion and fact are different

Read each mention for two separate things: what the writer thought, and what the writer stated.

The broth was too salty is an opinion. Leave it alone; arguing with taste never ends well, and it is not your post.

Cash only, closed Tuesdays and twenty minutes from downtown are facts. Facts that were true once and are not now can be corrected, and most writers are glad to.

Thanking the writer

When a post gets you right, say thank you: a short comment on the post, or an email if comments are closed.

Sharing it on your own Facebook page or Twitter account, with credit, is a thank-you as well, and it puts the post in front of people who already trust you.

Do not offer anything in return for a good post. If you invited the writer or covered the bill, the post should say so, since the rules on misleading advertising expect that kind of connection to be disclosed.

Correcting politely

Corrections go best by email, privately, before anything public.

Thank the writer for the post. Name the one or two facts that have changed, say when they changed, and link to the page on your site where the current details are.

Ask whether they would consider adding a short update. Do not ask them to change their opinion, and accept a no gracefully.

On a forum, reply once, openly as the business, with the correct fact and a link. Never post as a pretend customer; it is misleading, and it is usually spotted.

A worked example

A Vietnamese restaurant with about forty seats, in a row of shops near a college, has a busy lunch trade and a growing dinner one.

Three years ago a local food blogger wrote a warm post about its pho and its spring rolls, noting that it was cash only and closed on Tuesdays.

Since then the restaurant had started taking cards and moved its closing day to Monday. The post still ranked third for the restaurant's name, above its Facebook page.

Staff kept meeting customers who had stopped at a bank machine on the way, and every Monday a few hopeful diners tried the locked door.

The owner emailed the blogger, thanked her for the post and gave the two changes, with a link to the restaurant's hours page. She added an update at the top within the week.

The restaurant also put its hours and the cards it accepts at the top of its home page and on its Google listing, where the old post had been doing that job instead.

Your site should answer the same questions

Mentions show what people want to know before they come: hours, payment, parking, whether to book, whether children are welcome, whether there is anything vegetarian.

When a blog answers a question and your own site does not, the blog becomes the source, and its answer ages while yours never existed.

Put each of those answers on your own site, in text, where search engines and visitors can find them. Then a searcher who reaches you directly gets the current version.

When a mention is unfair

Occasionally a post is inaccurate and hostile, or a forum thread runs on with claims that are simply untrue.

A calm, factual reply, once, from the business, usually does more than any argument. Readers notice who stays polite.

Anything that looks like a serious false allegation is a question for a lawyer, not for a late-night comment.

Keep a list

A simple spreadsheet is enough: where the mention is, when it was written, what it says, whether it is still accurate, and what you did about it.

Check it twice a year. And whenever something changes, such as hours, address, name or phone number, go down the list and email the writers whose posts still rank.

The counter-case

Some businesses are rarely written about, and a search turns up little beyond their own listings. A quick look twice a year is all that needs.

A single old mention with a minor error may not be worth chasing, especially if it ranks far down. And some writers never reply, which is their right.

Wherever mentions do rank for your name, though, find them, thank or correct politely, and make your own site answer the same questions.

The first afternoon

1. Search your name in quotation marks, past page one.
2. Search your phone number and old address.
3. List each mention and what it says.
4. Thank the writers who got it right.
5. Email a correction where facts have changed.
6. Answer the same questions on your own site.
7. Set a Google Alert for your business name.

Step six is the one that lasts. A writer may never update a three-year-old post, but a searcher who reaches your own site will find the current answer waiting.

Putting practical answers on your own site in response to what others write follows the same logic as reviews that mention parking or location.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.