By Katrina Puranik - Google Marketing Specialist, Ranking Australia
The way people find services has changed dramatically since the inception of the internet. Research shows that 97% percent of users performed an online search to find a local business. Needless to say, with these statistics managing your businesses online reputation is more important than ever. As a business owner you should be actively managing your online credibility, just as you do with your credibility in person. But how you do that? Ranking Australia has put together a few suggestions to help you and if you would like more in depth information, you can read more here.
Asking for reviews from customers and people you work with will improve your online credibility while ensuring you rank higher in search results on Google. One way to do this is creating an email campaign to request reviews from previous customers. You would be surprised how often your satisfied customers are willing to leave you a great review. To do this, first decide where you wish the review to go. Your review priority should begin with Google, followed by Linked In and then the social media platform when your customer demographic lies. For example, Facebook for older persons or personal products, Instagram for younger audiences. Make sure your request includes a link where the customer can leave you a great review.
Bad reviews are difficult to remove and dramatically affect a customers' likelihood of visiting your website or choosing your business. They also affect how Google recommends you – Google does not want to be known for recommending businesses with poor performance! To ensure you rank high in Google search results avoid bad reviews from the outset.
The best way to do this is communicating regularly with your customers, and establishing a high standard for your business and your clientele.
Online comments, reviews, and end user engagement is what your reputation is all about. It is essential that you maintain a quick response to all content engagement. If you don't respond - your channels and platforms pick up on this and your visibility is affected. Your ranking is affected. Your reputation with end-users is affected.
Not to mention an ignored bad review will do more harm than not responding. If its a troller review you can report it. But it doesn't always work. This is way you need to make an effort to resolve the situation - be firm and professional - don't react angry. This will always be there!
Talk to Ranking Australia - We so far have 100% Recovery Rate for retrieval of Lost Google Reviews! We can contact Google Support on your behalf to retrieve the reviews. All you need is a screenshot of the missing review, and we can help you to retrieve the review. This goes a long way to maintaining your online credibility - increasing your Google Likeability with every positive review.
Review tools work - but no always - check the number of reviews on Google for the platform you are thinking about using. Its interesting sometimes to see a well established review management brand with on a couple of positive reviews - but their website says hundreds?? Make sure you check them out first. One review management tool i can recommend - is Cube Online. However, this is mainly for trade services industry.
Here is a work-round - why not use the "pretty" website testimonial layouts and add a link to the actual review on Google?
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