Our 5 Tips On Google Reviews
Warning – The fourth tip is going to sound a little crazy !!
It’s not enough to just set up your website and Google my Business and then wait for your happy customers to start leaving five-star reviews.
Ignoring your GMB profile may result in unwarranted customer complaints instead of genuine reviews.
According to research, businesses that proactively request customer reviews will achieve higher star ratings (an average rating of 4.34 stars) than those that wait for unprompted reviews (an average of 3.89 stars).
Many business owners struggle to get reviews from customers.
Getting them can involve emailing a review shortcut link and even signing up with reputation service companies who set up review email campaigns requesting customer feedback.
The reason why reviews are crucial is that they do bring more business!
They make up 17% of the local ranking algorithm.
You will appear higher in the Google search and map area for local business searches.
When you appear in the local map area, your reviews show and help trust potential future customers.
They will be assured that you are worth clicking on for more information.
This increases the click-through rate on your site ( CTR), sending signals to Google that you are the right business to be suggested for the search query they just made.
Be Proactive By Asking For Reviews.
By requesting reviews, you’ll get more accurate feedback from your customers.
If you don’t ask for them, your reviews will be from customers who are motivated to leave a review, and it is usually from people who have a customer service issue and want to make it known.
By being proactive in asking your customer for reviews, you get good feedback, and you can also prevent a couple of negative reviews from damaging your online reputation.
Of course, not all reviews are going to be 5-Star Reviews.
But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Negative or bad reviews can also create structured opportunities for business improvement and to lift their business profile.
Positive reviews can give you better guidance on what you are doing right to continue doing what complements your business.
Having regular reviews is beneficial for local SEO purposes; it gives consumers your recent reviews, and they see and trust the social proof about your business.
They want to get current reviews about your business now and not be reading feedback from over 12 months ago.
New online reviews come in handy as marketing materials to have on your social media profiles and website.
The 5 Best Google Review Practices – Google Review Strategy 2021
When you do get google reviews, make sure you optimize the reviews.
Why would you want to do that?
There are things you can do with your reviews to help your SEO ranking.
When you get higher in Google rankings, it will help you turn online browsers or potential customers into actual customers.
You’re going to convince them to take action, such as:
- Call you
- Visit your business in person
- Go to your website for more information.
Five Google Review Tips.
Tip 1)
Encourage your happy customers to leave photos with their reviews.
This is very important, especially if you have a visual business.
When customers take photos and include them with their reviews, it is a powerful way for potential customers to visualize what an actual customer experienced and saw with their own eyes.
It is proof that people can trust what they will experience with you
People care about honesty, and showing a picture that backs up a written review will carry a lot more weight than just written text.
Reviews with photos also carry more weight, and they will show up first in your Google reviews.
Tip 2)
Start giving responses to every single review you receive.
By responding to your reviews, it allows you to put your personality in front of potential customers.
It shows the human face of a business and the effort and cares you take with your customers.
When you have a positive review left for your business, take the time to respond in a personal manner.
Don’t just say “Thanks”; make an effort to keep the connection with that customer.
Would you mind mentioning that you are glad that they are happy with the product or service they received? This is also adding keywords to your response.
For example, if you are a plumber and a positive review, but it was generic.
“Great local company that provided good service.”
Your response could be –
“Thanks for recommending our plumbing business.
As a local plumber, we take pride in our customer service”.
People like to read about other people’s experiences, both good and bad.
It is not just the original reviewer you’re talking to; it’s also about the thousands and maybe tens of thousands of people who could read your reviews and your response over the next several years.
Another reason is that the longer people keep reading on a page, it signals to Google that your content is the right content for the search they just did.
Reading your responses also indicates to Google that you have a quality listing.
Tip 3)
Download the Google My Business app so you can respond to reviews very quickly from your phone or mobile device.
It is easy to use, and you get notifications when you receive a review.
You can then answer reviews in a very timely manner. You can decide if you will reply to reviews as soon as you get them, or you may set a time each week to respond to them.
By responding quickly, your business is still fresh in the customer’s mind.
The app can be downloaded on Apple and Android devices.
Tip 4)
We warned you – It is going to sound a little crazy.
Our fourth tip is to get some negative reviews.
Now we know you’re not going to go out and try to get one-star reviews, but let us explain why and then we’ll go a little bit deeper.
Studies and more scrutiny are being done on reviews and what is the most trustworthy review rating.
Take a moment and think about what the most trustworthy review rating is?
5 out of 5
4.5 out of 5
4 out of 5?
The consistent answer is about 4.5 out of 5.
And here’s why.
Let’s say I’m a customer, and I see your business listing on Google, and I see 100 5-star reviews. When they see only perfect reviews, a potential customer is likely to think something sketchy.
Either the business is paying for reviews, or they’re filtering negative reviews.
If there are several 4-star reviews – It is still a positive review, and some people mark hard.
These will bring your rating down slightly.
If you do get a negative review, it gives you a chance to showcase your customer service.
You must respond to a negative review; if you don’t reply, you acknowledge the review as being valid.
The first action people take when they are researching a business is to look for the negatives.
They are convincing themselves that they are not going to be tricked if they buy from your business.
Any negative reviews that you have are going to be the ones that they read first.
If you have a negative review, make sure your response is professional, well thought out, and your customer service stands out.
You may also get the unhappy customer to change their review if you do fix the problem they had
How To Handle Negative or Fake Reviews
If it is an unhappy customer you mess upon, this is your chance to shine.
Don’t slam the door shut on negative reviewers.
If it is possible, invite them to come back and welcome them with open arms.
Example
-
- “Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention. I’m very sorry we failed to meet your expectations. We would appreciate another chance so we can put this right. Please call me or ask for me to see if we can get this right”.
If it is fake or malicious review –
Google will sometimes remove a review if it is written by someone with a conflict of interest or someone impersonating someone else.
Always try and get these removed.
-
- Hover the mouse over the review you want to be removed.
- Click on the flag icon that appears.
- Follow the prompts. Be aware that you can’t write out an explanation of why the post should be removed; you can only request that Google review a particular post.
After you have reported the review – You will still need to respond, as it may not be removed.
Respond along the lines that you do not have any record of them ever being a customer.
“We appreciate when customers take time to review us.
It seems that you could have the wrong business as we don’t have any record of you ever having visited us. Maybe you have us confused with another company? If it were us, then we’d love the opportunity to make things right.”
Tip 5)
Our final tip is to do some sneaky SEO strategies and add your keywords to the reviews.
Suppose your customers are mentioning your location, the primary services, or the products that you sell.
It will signal to Google that you are an excellent suggestion for these words or phrases.
For example, you are a plumber. You don’t just want to get many reviews saying a generic “Highly recommended” or “Great Service.”
You want reviews to mention your main search terms!
Some examples of keywords in a review
-
- A great local plumber who unblocked our drain
or
-
- An emergency plumber who replaced our hot water service
or
-
- An experienced plumber who fixed our leaking toilet
If you see your customers face to face, as a plumber does, you can ask for a review and then make some suggestions of what people could write.
Often reviews are not left because it takes time to sit and think about what you will say. Make it easy for your customers to review you!
Google Review Strategy 2021
How to get Google Reviews Everyday From Your Happy Customers
With Perfect Review‘s Google Review cards, you take out the difficulty of leaving a review for your customers.
You can help a customer leave a review, not only on Google but other platforms like Facebook, Tripadvisor, or Trust Pilot.
No more begging for reviews, sending out emails and text messages, and then praying for those elusive reviews.
Add a review request at the end of a transaction.
It would go along the lines of this:
- Are you happy with the service we have provided?
- Can I send you the invoice?
- Could you leave a review?
A happy customer will answer YES to all three questions, and then you can ask if they could leave the review now; it will just take a minute, and you will have the review on the spot.
This wraps up our Google Review Strategy 2021.
We want you to outshine your competition and get higher rankings with more positive reviews on Google.
My name is Danielle, and I am the one behind Hello SEO
My SEO journey started when I opened up an eCommerce store and quickly realized that driving traffic to your site is the single most important thing. I tried to hire SEO people – but they could not get the results I wanted, or they tried to push me into expensive marketing options that were not suitable for what I needed.
At Hello SEO, I help businesses achieve greater visibility through Google My Business optimization, including getting more Google Reviews with Perfect Review.
