When you sign up for a listing on any of our regional guides, you’ll be set up with a microsite that includes a description of your business, photos, deals, events, social media links, and more. Read on to learn more about the amazing features that come with each listing.
Add Up To 20 Photos: You can log into your online account and add up to 20 photos, change the order in which they appear, add captions, and remove photos whenever you’d like.
Market Your Events For Free: Simply add your events through your account login and they will display on your microsite and also be listed on all of our regional events calendars from Albany to the Adirondacks.
Add PDF Files: Through your microsite, you can upload unlimited PDF files. This is not only a fast, convenient way to get forms and brochures out there for your clients, it also is very search engine friendly. Ask your printer to send you a PDF of your brochures, property maps, directions, reservation forms, menus, etc… then easily upload them to your microsite to make your listing work better for you.
Add Unlimited Coupons & Hot Deals: Two of the most popular sections on our sites are the coupons and the lodging hot deals pages. Take advantage of this feature and keep your hot deals and coupons up to date.
Self Service – Update Your Own Business Information: When you log into your account, you can browse the phone numbers, addresses and descriptions that we have listed for your business and can modify them on your own. Need help? Just call our office at 518-743-9424.
Opt In Or Out Of Reviews: When you sign up for a listing, you are automatically opted into reviews. You can opt out anytime by calling or emailing us. We highly recommend that you opt to receive reviews and manage them as we’ve developed this system to counter the national review sites.
More On Reviews:
Why reviews on our local guides are to your advantage:
It is our intention to paint the best picture of our community as possible in a world where reviews exist and are integral to the decision-making process. Without reviews on our local guides, including LakeGeorge.com, Saratoga.com, Albany.com, Adirondack.net, GlensFalls.com, CliftonPark.com and others, visitors would go elsewhere to find them and would end up seeing more negative reviews on the review sites due to their stringent hands-off policies.
Why we began allowing business reviews on the website:
We decided to allow business reviews after a Saratoga B&B nearly lost its business to false accusations on a national review site. I thought “I would never have allowed it; it was obvious that they were lies and any local would know it as the assertions were blatantly false.” There were many bad reviews within one day (an obvious sign that it’s all the same person or party). There is limited recourse with the national review sites.
We believe that by having reviews we can manage them in a better way for our clients:
- We limit reviews to one per user per six months.
- When proven false, we remove reviews quickly; this was done in many cases over the past year.
- We notify you, the business owner, via email of anything less than satisfactory so you can respond immediately, a quick “owner’s response” is critical to maintaining a good reputation.
By building your online reputation through reviews on our regional guides, you will win in the end. I feel that reviews for businesses are a necessary evil. It’s not fun to stick it out. Believe me I didn’t want to do them, but felt we had to. We have two customers – our clients and the visitors to the site. If we don’t give both of them what they want, we will all lose in the end. Thank you for your time and for working with us. I welcome your thoughts, suggestions and any input so that we can serve you better.
What to do if you have a negative review:
Determine if we can remove the review: it is fraudulent or fake? Or does it contain profanity or threats, personal insults, reports of violent criminal activity, commercial e-mail addresses or phone numbers, text entirely in ALL CAPS, hearsay or content not relevant to the business?
If not, you have a choice to make: do you want to manage your reputation on this local website, which is optional, or risk managing your reputation on national review sites, which is not optional?
If you decide to manage your local reputation, please do the following:
- Sign up and respond to the negative review immediately. Imagine the person is in a large room with thousands of people and stated that complaint. How would you respond? Courteously address the issue, explain why the situation happened, and paint a rosy picture.
- Solicit positive reviews from real customers and regular clients.
- We highly recommend that you also look at reviews of your business on Yelp, Yahoo Travel, TripAdvisor, Google My Business, and Angie’s List.