How To Make Google Reviews Part of Your Culture and Boost Your SEO
By Brad Timofeev
Is your company taking advantage of Google reviews? If not, you could be missing out on a simple, but powerful tool to boost your SEO and bring in business. The reason? When it comes to advertising, people tend to trust other people.
According to a survey by Nielsen, 70% of people say they trust online consumer reviews. This is the second most trusted form of advertising, surpassed only by direct recommendations of friends and family. With one billion active daily users, Google is the world’s top search engine and the place most consumers go to find products and services they need. Active Google reviews are essential to establishing your company’s online presence, enhancing your SEO, and converting customers. Keep reading to learn how to incorporate Google reviews into your SEO strategy and business practices.
How Google Reviews Help Improve SEO
When you combine Google reviews with a well-maintained Google My Business (GMB) profile, you have a powerful advertising mix that helps you get found by your ideal customer, earn their trust, and win their business. Here’s how it works:
- Increased visibility in local searches: positive and consistent Google reviews can help your business appear in the “Local Pack,” or the top three results that appear in Google Map search results. When you appear higher on the list, you’re more likely to get more clicks and website traffic. Consistency is key when it comes to reviews. If you average 1-2 reviews per month, you want to keep the same cadence. Volume spikes can actually hurt your SEO rankings because Google will read this as an inorganic marketing push for reviews. Having a strategy to organically collect reviews will provide that consistency; it should be foundational for your business.
- Better Click-Through Rate (CTR): Your CTR contributes to your ranking in Google. Better reviews will generate more clicks and will likely boost your overall search engine ranking.
- Strong Social Proof: Reviews signal to potential customers that you’re a trustworthy business that gives great results. A strong reputation can lead to higher conversion rates and help you rank higher in Google search results.
- Increased Activity and Relevance: If you’re regularly garnering reviews, it’s likely that your customers will mention keywords related to your products and services in their review. There is no better strategy than getting your customers to mention your products and services naturally in a review. It carries more weight for the keywords you want to rank for when it comes organically from a customer.
How to Make Google Reviews an Effortless Part of Your Business Culture
You may be thinking, “This all sounds great, but how do I actually get customers to leave reviews?” Even very happy customers can have the best of intentions of leaving a review, but as often happens, life can get in the way. Gathering Google reviews is an often-overlooked part of SEO strategy but it’s one that’s easily solved. It all comes down to your processes that make it easy for the customer.
An effective way to get more reviews is by using the Google review link generator. This lets you send review requests to your happy customers and make this following up part of your business process through automation. Whether you automate through email or text, asking directly for Google reviews, explaining how it helps, and providing an easy way for your customers to follow through will go a long way toward generating regular Google reviews for your business.
How to Properly Manage Google Reviews
By now, you have a good idea of how Google reviews act as an effective tool in the SEO toolbox. But like most things SEO, it’s best not to take a set-it-and-forget-it approach to Google reviews. For best results, Google reviews should be properly managed.
Luckily, managing Google reviews doesn’t require a lot of time or effort. What it does take is timeliness and consistency. The best way to manage your Google reviews is to interact with them. Responding to Google reviews—whether good or bad–within 24 hours is considered best practice management. This lets potential customers see that your business is engaged and cares about customer experience. Plus, your reviews count as new GMB content and engagement which all serves to boost your SEO ranking.
Contact LeadPoint for Ultimate SEO Support
If you’re running a 5-star business, it literally pays to tell people about it. Google reviews are an excellent way to increase your ranking and get found by your ideal customer.
At LeadPoint Digital, we pride ourselves in deeply understanding online behavior and helping our clients create strategies and systems that get results. If you’d like help getting found on Google, we’d love to hear from you. Get in touch and book your free consultation.
