Tips to get more Google Reviews

If you own a business, then you might always be aware of Google reviews. Those are the reviews listed with your Google My Business listing, submit by, hopefully, your happy customers. Google reviews are extremely important. Studies have shown that as many of 90% of researchers look at online reviews before they contact a service company, so if you aren’t working to make sure your reviews are great, then you’re missing out on a lot of opportunities.

A few other notes about online reviews. People are less trustful of companies whose reviews are old. Think about the last review you have. How old is it? If it’s older than six months, then you need more.

Another note, people tend on average to only look at the first six reviews, so if you have a bad review in your top six, that’ll play a bigger role than one in the bottom. One bad review in a sea of great ones isn’t going to hurt you, but two bad reviews in the top six will.

So how do you get more Google reviews? There are a few steps involved.

1. Provide Great Service

This is kind of obvious, but it’s important. Understandably, customers are much, much more likely to leave a review if they’ve had a bad experience. However, if your service is better than average, they’re also likely to leave a review as well.

2. Go Above

Can you do anything to go above and beyond? Something that your customers don’t do? The carpet cleaner I use is great. Not only does he do a great job, but the next day I get a phone call from his wife, asking me if I’m completely satisfied with the service and if they can do anything else for me. This isn’t a huge thing, it doesn’t take a lot of time, but most people aren’t doing it and it stands out.

3. Ask

Most customers are going to be happy to leave you a review if you just ask. In this time when people are media savvy, they recognize how important online reviews are. You may be surprised how easy it is.

A few tips for asking:

• If you’re emailing them to ask for the review, be sure to let them know how much you enjoyed working with them and you hope they are completely satisfied with your service.
• Also be sure to link to your Google My Business Page to make it easy.
• Follow up several times after the first time to make sure they got the message, but don’t be obnoxious about it. Sometimes people get busy and forget you asked, so a follow up is not a big deal. Ten follow ups is annoying. Don’t be that person. Everyone hates spam.

4. Use a Service

Did you know that you can pay a service to solicit reviews on your behalf? This is totally legit (and a service we offer – learn more here). We work with you to collect contact information for your clients (which we keep completely secure) and then we email them and ask for feedback, encouraging them to leave feedback on different social platforms of your choosing. Google is of course important, but Facebook is too. If you’re a realtor, Zillow is important. If you’re a lawyer, Avvo is important. We know where your customers are, and we can direct reviews to those places.

5. Respond to Reviews

It’s great when people leave reviews, but it’s important that you also respond to them. If they leave a positive review, take a couple of minutes and thank them and let them know how much you enjoyed working with them. Respond to negative reviews too.

Google Reviews are important for SEO

If people are rating you highly, Google knows that. And your rank will be better because of it.

True story, years ago there was a gym in my town that had terrible reviews. I mean, really bad. But if you Googled gyms in the area, they were #1 in the map results every single time. Why? Because they had the most reviews of any gym in town, by a lot. If a lot of people are talking about your business, it’s going to have an effect on your ranking. You can use this to help your site get listed better and get more leads.

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Contact us today to find out how we can help you get more reviews