Recommendations for working with cartographic systems are given by Vladislav Sinchugov, Head of Social Media Advertising and Reputation Management Department at Ashmanov & Partners. He worked with major brands BOSCH, Clarins, Royal Canin, Almaz-Antey, IL Patio, etc.

Reading time: 4.5 minutes

Tags: Optimization, SEO, Yandex, Google, trends

What is the article about?

• Let’s talk about the features of map services in reputation management.
• It is important for every company to have cards in their systems. Or not? Let’s deal with this issue.
• A large number of indicators affect the formation of a rating in maps. Let’s list them, dwell on common mistakes when working with maps and give recommendations for a strategy for promoting a company’s website.

Who is this article useful to?

• For marketers, to understand the trend of work with cartographic services and build a strategy for promoting the company in maps.
• For content managers, ORM managers to understand the principles of working with ratings and reviews in maps.
• For beginners in SEO and search engine marketing – to understand the basics of online promotion.

What role do map services play in reputation management?

A company’s reputation on the Internet is formed on a variety of sources and platforms. These are forums, blogs, social networks, your own website. Sorcerers play an increasingly important role in reputation. Of the 15 organic search positions, about 7 may turn out to be “sorcerers”. The mapping systems Yandex.Maps, GoogleMaps, 2GIS also belong to this kind of special search engine services.

The evolution of search in maps is as follows: first we looked for addresses, then we began to enter the names of organizations into the search. The next stage of the search was the type of activity, and now visitors to cartographic systems are looking for products.

What does a company card look like on card services?

The posted company card on the services contains the following information:

• number of reviews
• ratings
• block with photos
• price list or menu with prices (if we are talking about a catering point)
• social networks of the company, etc.

You can also place an order in the card if you want and put a tick “the owner monitors the relevance of information”, which will allow potential customers to trust you even more.

Who needs to use map services?

According to Yandex, most often they look for restaurants, bars, fast food, supermarkets, gas stations, hotels, pharmacies, clinics, hospitals, beauty salons through maps.
It is imperative to use cartographic systems for those organizations that have a physical address. It is also recommended to use cards for those who can be found by commercial queries, for example, “flowers 24 hours”, as well as businesses whose clients choose a company by geo-location: tire service, beauty salons, barbershops, hairdressers, gyms. For fast, inexpensive goods and services, where the decision to buy is made quickly, this is also a must for successful work.

Chips and secrets of Yandex.Maps

The audience more than 50 million active users of Yandex.Maps every month. The share of Moscow and the Moscow region is 46%. The most solvent segment of the audience – users aged 25 to 44 – makes up 70% of users of Yandex geo-services.

Yandex is actively working on gamification of services… Users receive notifications and offers to leave a review after visiting certain places, and for activity you get additional points. The system is constantly adapting and improving so that users themselves leave content there and have more recent and relevant information.

With the latest updates in September 2020, Yandex.Directory appeared 2 new metrics:

1. Loyalty index, which shows how often customers return to the company.
2. Company rating, which is an aggregated assessment of the quality of the organization’s work and its popularity.

To get a rating, a company must score from 3 to 5 ratings. At the same time, the rating is not determined as the average value of all ratings, but is compiled using a special algorithm that analyzes the reliability and objectivity of the assessment.

What constitutes the company’s rating in the cards and how to influence it?

It is important to remember that the rating is not an arithmetic average. More than 800 parameters affect the rating of each card. Here are the main ones:

According to Repometr, customers choose higher ranked companies.

• Branches with a rating above 4.5 have an audience reach 3 times more than branches with a lower rating
• The number of targeted actions for affiliates with a rating of 0 is about 20 times lower than for affiliates with a rating above 4 stars
• On the cards of the organization with a rating from 3 to 4 stars, users perform on average 2 times less targeted actions.

The rating value changes regularly. This is due, among other things, to the emergence of new reviews. Here are some guidelines, which will help improve the rating of your company:

• Increase the flow of ratings. For example, provide visitors with free Wi-Fi in the establishment and include it in the Directory along with other information about your organization (opening hours, website, phone number).
• Encourage customers to leave ratings and reviews on cards. For convenience, use the QR code with a link to the form where you can leave feedback. You can also use special stickers / plates at the reception desk right in the office.
• Work with negative and positive reviews – your caring attitude to the wishes and opinions of customers will have a positive effect on this indicator.

Common mistakes when working with maps

We have prepared a list of the most common mistakes when working on reputation in cartographic systems. It is important to pay special attention to them. After all, if you do not own the card, the data can be corrected by anyone, including your competitors.

1. Lack of response to negative reviews
2. Only respond to positive reviews
3. Out of date responses to reviews
4. Exact address not specified
5. Incorrect / outdated operating mode
6. The absence of a site in the card
7. Lack of phone numbers in the card
8. Unattractive photos or no photos at all
9. Not all branches are registered
10. Low rating with low activity

We wrote here about how to deal with fake negative reviews.

Conclusions and general recommendations for the implementation of ORM services

• Anyone with a physical address must use mapping systems. Register everywhere (Yandex, Google, 2GIS) and update the data for all your branches on all services.
• Use Brand Analytics, YouScan, Toweco, Repometr tools to monitor company mentions on maps.
• Not all references are made to these systems, so it is important to periodically conduct manual monitoring.
• Don’t forget to respond to positive comments if resources are available. What to say in response to a positive review, they wrote here.
• Do not forget to interact with the site administration. Write to support if you have any troubles with removing reviews and demand to understand the situation if you have the necessary evidence of their veracity.

End of the report.

Question to an expert: Can a service for performing simple tasks for Yandex.Toloka reward affect your reputation?

“It is possible that this may be one of 800 parameters that affect the results of the issue. Yandex and 2GIS regularly conduct various offline events aimed at correcting data on maps, working hours, and signs. It is logical that the rating of an institution increases with constantly updated and relevant data about it ”