Using Google reviews' potential for local SEO
Learn how to use genuine customer reviews to increase your company's trust and affect local SEO rankings.
Google reviews can affect your local search rankings and are simple to sway. They are also far more important than you may imagine. You might be neglecting a critical component of your SEO efforts: developing a solid review strategy.
To improve your local SEO, put time and effort into getting fresh reviews and keeping the ones you already have. In your market, maintaining a healthy quantity of reviews is crucial.
You want a certain type of Google review.
Any positive review a company receives is helpful, however, some evaluations may be more important than others for SEO.
Make sure customers always submit lengthy evaluations that discuss the products and services they used as well as their personal experiences.
They should include details about their offerings, such as:
the issue they were experiencing.
the communication encounters they had with your staff.
Name(s) of the worker(s) they collaborated with.
images of the work.
Reviews' keywords do not affect rankings.
However, review justifications are allowed to appear in search results and can provide a good level of credibility when someone is looking for a certain service.
Analysis Justification For Serp
Integrating visuals like photographs and videos with your Google reviews can dramatically increase their effect. Reviews with photos typically stay at the top longer.
The reviews get authority and authenticity from visual content. Additionally, compared to evaluations without photos, these reviews tend to stay at the top for a lot longer.
Therefore, attempt obtaining additional reviews that include photographs if you want some favourable reviews to stick at the top.
What does "stay at the top" mean?
The default view a person will see when they visit a company's Google Business Profile (GBP) and click on their reviews is ordered by "Most relevant." According to our research, Google prioritises reviews with photographs over other reviews since it considers them to be more relevant. Encourage your clients to submit a photo of the HVAC system you just fixed, the roof you just installed, or the garage door spring you just replaced for their review by encouraging them to do so.
Keep an eye on GBP reviews for sage advice.
Did you know that only companies with a rating of 4.0 stars or higher are qualified to appear for searches including the words "best" or "top"?
GBP Rating of 4.0
Is your company currently rated higher than 4.0? This section is for you if you replied, "I don't know!" You can learn more about many facets of your internet presence by monitoring reviews four times a year. Monitor changes in review volume to spot patterns or issues like:
loss of ratings.
far behind rivals in review volume.
decreasing to less than 4.0 stars.
Additionally, make sure you are getting a consistent flow of new reviews. To maintain three-pack rankings, keep up a trend of consistent, fresh reviews, as review recency seems to be a local ranking determinant. Be wary of bad reviews that appear in the top 3 on GBP. On occasion, Google will draw attention to a bad review in the top 3 rankings for GBP on desktop and mobile.
These could damage the reputation of your company and possibly discourage customers from contacting you.
Do you want to stop a bad review from standing out on your listing?
The only way I have ever seen this accomplished is by flooding the listing with sincere, in-depth, and positive reviews from your clients that also include pictures. Hopefully one of those will succeed in ejecting the unfavourable one.
A poor GBP review
Since we have no control over what shows are shown here, this is not ideal.
Having said that, it's a fantastic chance to thoughtfully reply to unfavourable evaluations, address client complaints, and publicise remedies.
Encourage pleased customers to post evaluations concurrently to counterbalance the bad comments and, ideally, remove them from the listing.
How to maintain a constant flow of Google reviews while exerting minimal effort
Obtaining fresh, reliable evaluations is essential for preserving your presence on Google Maps and increasing it if there is room for improvement.
Many business owners depend on their staff to deliver excellent service which inevitably leads to great ratings. People require a little prodding to leave those favourable ratings.
Google categorically forbids companies from offering incentives to customers in exchange for favourable evaluations. Given that this can be construed as "deceptive content" if the consumer received compensation or some form of inducement in exchange for their evaluation, it is explicitly against Google's review rules. Google does, however, give business owners various options for encouraging reviews.
Employee incentives
Owners of businesses should encourage staff to solicit feedback from happy clients throughout interactions.
They ought to request images in addition to the review.
Give your staff a cash award, an Amazon gift card, or even a gift certificate to their preferred neighbourhood restaurant if they are mentioned by name in a review or convince a customer to publish a review with a photo. If customers frequently leave evaluations for your company, you might want to consider holding a monthly "drawing" instead and compensating the winner. Everyone benefits here, so keep it enjoyable and rewarding.
templates for automated emails
Giving them a link to your business' Google reviews will make the procedure much easier for them. It's simple to find the link. The GBP dashboard has it right there under "Ask for reviews."
GBP - Request feedback
Review requests
Making an automatic email template that uses this URL to ask for reviews from recent customers is the secret to obtaining as many reviews as you can with the least amount of work. These emails can be customised, but don't go overboard and miss the email's main objective, which is to request a review. Make sure the link is prominently displayed and that it is absolutely obvious how and why they can easily leave you a Google review.
My Google reviews have vanished, help!
A few months ago, a lot of business owners experienced problems with disappearing Google reviews.
No new reviews were being written, and occasionally reviews that had been active for years vanished mysteriously from hundreds of profiles. This issue was so pervasive. Google released several helpful materials elaborating on the reasons why reviews could errantly vanish from a GBP listing. The problem that was causing reviews to disappear has already been resolved by Google, but the algorithm they used to purportedly filter out dubious or fake reviews is still in effect.
Although the goal of this approach is to maintain review integrity, it occasionally leads to the weeding out of honest reviews. You have choices if you believe this is happening to you as a result of your callback monitoring of reviews. Contacting support and taking the following actions are the best ways to recover these:
Submit "Reviews"
Choose "Review missing" and adhere to the instructions.
Having screenshots of the missing reviews on hand is advised because they might request them.
Review requests
Fake reviews for The Endless Tale
Fake spam reviews can be annoying. Are phoney, nasty reviews for your listing constantly flooding the web?
These are usually successfully caught by Google's filter and eliminated.
However, phoney reviews do occasionally appear online. If they are false, Google support ought to be able to remove them from your listing in this situation. Businesses may obtain phoney positive reviews to manipulate Google's ranking algorithm. It works most of the time, which is irritating. A listing's ranks usually rise when it receives numerous phoney favourable reviews.
Although it may be tempting to flag them for removal by Google to harm their ranks, in most cases the time and effort required to do so isn't worthwhile.
The squeeze is not worth the juice! That is, if you are even successful in having the reviews deleted, which isn't usually the case. According to recently filed complaints, Google is still far from having a grasp on its phoney review problems, despite their efforts. Nevertheless, I constantly advise business owners to concentrate on obtaining more reviews for their single listing and to stop worrying about what their rivals are doing.
Negative feedback: A chance to accept your company's flaws
Critical reviews are beneficial. I agree that consumers may not always view perfection as trustworthy. While providing exceptional service is essential, having a rare negative online review might help your credibility. Genuineness is important, and customers frequently enjoy companies that exhibit a human aspect. Being human means making mistakes. Therefore, if a user sees less than 4.8 or 4.7 stars on Google, they may be more likely to believe it. Do not be afraid of unfavourable comments. Use them as an opportunity to demonstrate your humanity. It will be well received, especially if you can make it humorous.