Did you know that the only way you can show up ahead of other businesses in a Google search is if you have solid business reviews? The more reviews you have, the higher your site will rank in search results.
On average, the #1 ranking on Google for a given search term has 33% more customer reviews than the lower-ranked businesses in the search results. So, the first step to success is to actually get reviews for your business.
Google reviews are important for your business because they work in two ways. They measure how well you are doing as a business, and showcase your credibility to potential customers. It’s important to understand that there are two actions you need to take to make your Google reviews beneficial for you and your business: generating new ones and monitoring them as they are submitted.
Use our eight tips for generating and monitoring reviews, and you’ll be on your way to Google Review Greatness.
As with any business and marketing practice, the more effort you put into generating and monitoring reviews, the more you will get out of it. We’ve ranked our top tips below, starting with the easier tasks.
Grow Your Google Reviews
Quick Fixes
1. Ask for reviews on social media.
- If you are consistently posting on social media, it is very easy to slip in one or two reminders per month, asking your customers to leave a review!
- A good example of a post would be to take a screenshot or make a graphic of a review that was left on Google, GuildQuality, Home Advisor or Yelp Business, and post the picture with a caption like, “We love hearing positive feedback from our customers about our team! If you have worked with us, please don’t hesitate to leave a review!” Include the link of where they can do it and bam, it’s done.
2. Set up automated emails from your CRM.
- Compile a list of customers who have gotten work done from your business over the past 30 days.
- Then, make a template telling them how thankful you are for their business and to kindly ask them to leave a review, with the link provided. Once this is created, all you have to do is sit back and check your emails for reviews!
Take It to the Next Level
3. Create business cards for each individual installer.
- Each installer’s review card should include a short URL linking to a page on your website with easy access to your Google review link. This is a good way to generate personalized reviews for your company and your staff.
- Then, the installer can give the business card to the customer once the job is done. The card should say something like, “How did we do? Please go to the following link to leave a review.”
4. Partner with a company like Marlimar.
- Marlimar is a mobile strategy firm that uses texting technology to connect businesses with a customer or other business.
- Partnering with a service like this one allows your company to reach out to customers through text message. Depending on how you decide to set it up, you could have a series of automated texts that ask a customer to write a review.
- This tool also can help monitor reviews, which will be touched on later in this article.
Go Above & Beyond
5. Encourage recent customers to visit your website.
- After a job is complete, have the installer leave behind a unique piece of marketing collateral: a tip sheet. This could be in the form of an info packet or some piece of information that encourages customers to go back to your website.
- For example, if you install a bathtub, leave a flyer directing them to a blog post that gives tips on the best ways to clean and care for their new tub. Then, when customers visit the post, include a review form underneath the post.
- This is a good way to generate positive reviews because customers will appreciate that you have gone above and beyond to assist them with their new product.
6. Reward Reviews.
- This could be as elaborate as you want it to be. You could just give the incentive of $5-10 cash when a review is written, or you could curate a gift basket, raffle off a trip or give away something else fun and exciting.
You’ve Got a Bunch of Reviews, Now What?
7. Set up alerts for Google My Business.
- This will give you, or your marketing team, a notification every time you get a review.
- You should respond to bad reviews, and reply to good ones. It’s important to reply to all reviews, no matter what because it shows that you are an engaged company and that you care about what customers think.
8. If you partner with a company like Marlimar, continue to monitor progress.
- You will have access to the backend of the text message alerts sent to customers. From there, you can set up automation services to allow you to hide certain reviews below a certain rate, or to feature other ones.
It is important to both generate and monitor your reviews to humanize the experience for your customers.
Love what you read, but not sure if your company has the bandwidth to generate and monitor reviews? Schedule a free consultation today, we would love to chat with you!
