Yahoo! has just launched a Yahoo! Neighbors nationwide after a trial run in some major metropolitan areas. Neighbors is essentially a community-based message board that’s connected to Yahoo! Local, which has proven itself to be a great source for business reviews, driving drections,local events and more. Every town in the USA can now hold in-depth conversations on local topics, adding a whole new element of community interaction to Yahoo! Local.
If you have a brick and mortar store or service a particular region, Neighbors could be a great way to give your business additional exposure. By contributing to local discussions, you can build your company’s reputation. Offering useful information on this forum will help position your business as the authority and build customer trust. Yahoo! even makes it easy to link to your Local Business listing within posts.
Discussions on Yahoo! Neighbors have great potential to rank well in search engine results, as well. If Yahoo! Answers is any idicator, these discussions will likely appear high up in the results for local search queries. The online conversations held on the Yahoo! Answers forum have carried a lot of weight in the SERPs and there’s no reason to believe that Neighbors won’t have the same power.
Give Yahoo! Neighbors a shot. The service is based on user input, so it will only get better as more people contribute.
