With the pandemic, companies changed the way they do business. Digital presence has made a major difference in many industries. Hence, online reputation and reviews are the deciding factor in making or breaking the business.
We mainly use Google search and maps to find a product, service, or something. It shows the rating and proximity to your location. And the ratings are based on the reviews consumers post on this platform. Hence, if you want your business to stand out on Google- you have to establish a well optimized profile and review process to get reviews, manage and respond to them.
Let’s look at the best tips for increasing your number of positive reviews in Google:
Though it seems intimidating, getting padi reviews or asking employees to comment and post reviews is against Google policy and you can even be charged for such things. Further, create a bad impression on your business. So, the best way is to directly ask customers to review.
Adding a review is easy with Google. You can ask the customers to rate and comment on their experience with your product/service. Also, seek help from your family and friends to post reviews under your profile.
Many customers are willing to post a genuine review if it was made easier for them. The best way is using a business card. Having an exclusive page for reviews on your website is a good branding strategy, which is easier for customers too. Offer business cards to the people you meet and ask them to leave a review for your business.
A few customers might feel extra burdened to visit your website and post a review. Worry not. Just like the barcodes on products you can use QR code to open your website in the browser window. The customers simply scan the code with their smartphone and they will be directed to your site and easily leave a positive review.
You can have an email campaign to send out emails to customers as a reminder to leave a review about their experience. The best time to request a customer to leave a review is after they have done business with you.
If your regular customer has not reached you in a while, it is good to approach them and remind them that they were a patron. You can set up the easy-to-use email marketing program to easily automate your campaign.
Social media is the best way to connect with your customers. You can use free or paid social ads (Google Ads or Facebook Ads) to interact with your customers and request them to share their feedback and reviews. With social media being the largest used platform, the reviews can explicitly increase the conversion rate.
As discussed earlier, customers are more likely to make decisions based on reviews. And not every business gets positive reviews, so the probability of getting a negative review is undeniable. But, you can convert the negative reviews into positive ones if you proactively respond to it.
You have to prove your loyalty to the frustrated customer by collecting and evaluating their inconvenience. Show them that you are there to sought out their issue and provide the best possible solution. Around 45% of the customers visit your website when you reply to a negative comment. All they need to know is that there is a real human being concerned about the customer's issue and take responsibility.
You can enable a pop-up to request customers to leave a review immediately after making a purchase or completion of a service. The pop-up is a more interactive and easy way for them to leave their feedback.
You must have seen many companies sharing the positive reviews received from their customers on their website. Those convincing words can be really intimidating. However, you can do something more than that.
You can embed the reviews to your website, so that Google crawls all the review pages on your website. It is an advantage for SEO, if it is set up in the right manner. Also, when a visitor takes time to read the reviews on the website, it increases the page time benefiting your optimization process.
Once the customer has left a review, immediately show your gratitude and establish a strong connection with them. This helps in building a good foundation between your business and customers.
Getting positive or negative reviews is part of business. But, for a good online reputation your business needs good/positive reviews. You can easily set a verified business profile to receive, manage, and reply to the reviews. Frequently update and optimize your profile so that people know that you are live and active. Creating and managing a business profile has various regulations in recent times to avoid fake and anonymous reviews and is best for your business.
Remember that all reviews are good reviews and let your profile have a mixture of positive, negative, and neutral reviews along with your responses for each one of them. It proves to the audience that you are a real human doing business in a genuine way.
