In this age of online marketing, reviews become a major decision-maker for consumers. Around 80% of online consumers claim that reviews help them know if a product is worth the buy. So if you haven’t been paying attention to the online reviews of your establishment, it’s not too late to start now.
What are Google Reviews?
There are many sites that show reviews about many products. Take Amazon, for example. At every product’s page you see a section dedicated to its reviews. Sometimes, you get a glimpse of these reviews even from the search engine results page. But Google Reviews are different.
If you’ve tried searching for an establishment, you’ll find in the right side of the search engine results page (SERP) a section where the shop is shown. This often has a map, the business’ address, and the contact number. There you will also see the average rating people gave for the business. This is what you call a Google Review.
A Google Review is important because this can help your business be seen in the first page of the SERP. People will immediately see your basic information even without having to click on your website. But of course, getting to your website is equally important because this will further convince people to patronize your product.
How to Get Google Reviews
If you’re wondering how to get Google Reviews for My Business, here are a few tips to get you started.
- Create a Google My Business page.
The first thing you have to do is to create a page for your business in Google My Business. This will help show your company’s details at the right side of the SERP. Make sure that when you create your Google My Business page, you have all the necessary information your customer might need. If you have a website, feel free to link it there. The more information, the better. If your contact details are complete, customers will get a feel that your company is real and that it has established some credibility.
- Make your review URL short.
If you’ve lurked around Google for quite some time now, you’ll notice that it can have really long and messy URLs. If you want to get more Google Reviews, it’s best to steer clear of these kinds of URL. If you have a long URL, shorten it. This will make it less complicated for people to go to the reviews part of your company. One of the most common websites for this is https://bitly.com.
- Use related search words that lead to your business.
Another tip is to make your business show when people use related keywords. Yes, this means that you have to work on a bit of SEO, too. The reason for this is that some business names are so common that a generic search word might not show your business name. On the other hand, you can also experience showing many similar businesses in a certain search. Obviously, you don’t want that. So, the best way to make sure that people get directed to your Google My Business page is to include a word in your address as a related search word. Apart from showing your Google My Business page, you will also get a higher chance of showing up at the top of the SERP.
- Make it easy for people to review your site.
And finally, you have to make it easy for your users to leave a review. It’s not just about having a page ready for people to see. It’s also being able to engage your customers to leave comments. The best way to do this is by making it very easy to leave a review and to offer an incentive. For example, asking for a review directly to your Google My Business page can be done easier if you have a link that already shows in a pop-up once your customer uses your website. Another way is to ask your clients to leave a review and mentioning an incentive once they do so. This will convince people that it’s worth leaving a word or two about your business.
Since reviews are a bad thing these days, it has become an extra challenge for businesses to give great customer service. So asking for a Google Review could be a double-edged sword especially if your company lacks the proper customer service and experience for its consumers.