Lookaly Blog - What's happening on Lookaly

We’re proud to announce that Lookaly won ‘Best Mobile App’ at this year’s DANI Awards.

It was a great night at the Hilton, Belfast and the awards show featured other great NI digital talent from the likes of iON, Bluecube, Belfast Giants and more.

Have you downloaded our free iPhone app? It helps you find the best places nearby including restaurants, cafes, bars and takeaways. Download our iPhone app here.

Big thanks to DANI for the award.

We’re excited to announce that we’ve started listing cinema times on Lookaly.

If you’re anything like us, you find it an inconvenience to look up a movie on several cinema websites to see what time suits you best.

Now you just need to go to our cinema listings and you’ll see every cinema and every movie so you can compare times across multiple cinemas.

Do you think we can make this service even better? Then let us know and we’ll make it happen.

Like we’ve said from the start, we rely on your feedback so we know what to do next and what to improve.

We received this review from sgough in the app store for our iPhone app.

sgough was totally right. Having to log in or register is not a great first user experience.

So as soon as we could afford to, we made the necessary amendments to the iPhone app and now it’s live in the app store.

First time users no longer have to register or log in to use the app. You’re only required to log in to write a review or upload a photo.

Tell your friends they can all now use the app for free.

Help us and review our iPhone app

You can help us out by reviewing our app.

1. Search for ‘lookaly’ in the app store.
2. Scroll down to the ratings.
3. Tap ‘write a review’.

Give us feedback

If you have an idea for us let us now via the Lookaly feedback site and we’ll add it to our list for future development plans.

What does it mean to be number one in your town?

Best of Bangor

Here is a quick insight into our analytics for Bangor.

The percentages you see represent the click throughs i.e. 12% of people clicked through to Makhulu 5

As you can see it makes a big difference being first, or even in the top three.

Restaurants in Bangor

Now take a look at the restaurant listings in Bangor.

Again it helps to be at the top. You can’t see it here but after the first 10 listings the click through rate is down to less than 1%.

How do you get your business to number one?

Provide a good service and encourage your customers, Facebook fans, website visitors and Twitter followers to write good honest reviews of your business.

If you haven’t already done so, add or claim your business on Lookaly for free.

Just a couple of weeks ago we announced our predictions for the Fate Awards based on your Lookaly ratings.

Now we’re going to look at some of the Belfast Business Awards nominations and predict who will win these categories based on your ratings again.

Best bar or pub

Winner: Laverys

Best restaurant

Winner: Mourne Seafood Bar

Best cafe or coffee shop

Winner: Rhubarb

Best city hotel

Winner: Ten Square

View the full shortlist of nominated businesses here.

Keep an eye out on April 14th for the real winners.

Who do you think should win?

We thought it would be fun to make some predictions for this year’s Fate Awards winners.

The Fate Awards are Northern Ireland’s ‘Best of’ awards for a range of categories including restaurants, bars, hotels, which also happen to be the most popular categories on Lookaly.

What we’ve done is looked at the short list of nominees and compared their Lookaly star rating to see who would win if we were going by your reviews.

Here are our predictions.

Please note these are only predictions based on Lookaly reviews and not the actual winners. Winners will be announced 15th April 2011.

Best classic bar

Winner: The Empire Music Hall

Best gastro pub

Winner: Cafe Vaudeville

Best style bar

Winner: Apartment

Best regional bar

Winner: The Rabbit Rooms

Best restaurant (critic’s choice)

Winner: No. 27 Talbot Street

Best restaurant

Winner: Made In Belfast

Best newcomer

Winner: Hooligan

Best hotel

Winner: The Merchant Hotel

Best regional restaurant

Winner: Balloo House

Best regional club

Winner: Betty Blacks

Best live venue

Winner: Empire Music Hall

Best gay venue

Winner: Dubarry’s Bar

Would you agree?

Who do you think this year’s winners will be and what do you think of the shortlist?

Dean Langasco of I Love Mondays, local innovative marketing specialists, has put together some interesting Facebook research.

Dean has taken the top 50 restaurants in Belfast from Lookaly, looked at their Facebook page (if they had one) and then ordered them by the number of Facebook fans they have.

Top 10 restaurants in Belfast by Facebook fans

1. Failte
2. Deanes
3. Bourbon
4. Cayenne
5. James Street South
6. La Boca
7. Made In Belfast
8. The Barking Dog
9. Nick’s Warehouse
10. Me:nu

Of course we know that the more Facebook fans doesn’t equal great food and great experiences, but the results are interesting.

Read Dean’s article in full here.

Is your business on Facebook? Do you actively engage with your fans?

The winner of our photography competition, a £200 photo shoot with DM Foto, is Kerry Woods.

Kerry’s photo in the Lough Shore cafe was the one that won it, selected at random.

Thanks to all who uploaded a photo to enter and a big thank you to DM Foto for sponsoring the prize.

Two years and 6,000 reviews later, we’re pleased to announce that Google has recognised Lookaly.com as a reliable review source and have added star ratings to our search result listings.

How does this affect things?

For users

If you’re searching for somewhere on Google keep an eye out for our star ratings so you get an overview of how good a place is before you click through.

For businesses

It’s now more important than ever to make sure your business receives good reviews on Lookaly.

When people are searching for your service on Google, they’ll be scanning down the results to see what sort of star rating you receive from Lookaly and other review sites before clicking through to read those reviews.

Thanks!

Thanks for all your useful reviews that have brought us this far and keep them coming.

To celebrate the launch of our latest iPhone app release, we’re running a competition for one lucky person to win a £200 home photo shoot.

What you win

Darron Mark of DM Foto (one of Northern Ireland’s top photographers) has generously sponsored the prize that will include the following:

• Professional home photography session (lasting approx 1hr)
• Free 12×16 acrylic wall mountable print
• Opportunity to purchase further prints/digital images from website
• Available to shoot anywhere in Northern Ireland
• Package worth in excess of £200

Perfect for a photoshoot at home with your family, loved ones, or even a very generous gift.

How to enter

Add a photo to Lookaly between now and 1st March 2011 to be entered into the draw.

You can add a photo via the website or iPhone app – all photos will count.

One lucky winner will be selected at random on Wednesday 2nd March.

We’ll announce the winner via Facebook and Twitter, so keep an eye out.

Terms

The following terms apply:

• Northern Ireland entrants only
• This prize cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer with DM Foto
• DM Foto reserves the rights to use photographs taken for further advertising purposes
• Photos uploaded must be of or be associated with the business listing they are uploaded to

Good luck!