There is a special offer that I strongly recommend you take advantage of at the end of this post – make sure you read the whole thing by clicking through and reading to the end.
While the number one concern for most small businesses remains, “How do I get listed on page 1 of Google?,” the second biggest concern is “How can I get more positive online reviews?” And interestingly, these two concerns are intrecately tied together: the more positive online reviews you get, the higher you are likely to be shown in the search engine results. And, believe it or not, you can actually control how many online reviews you get. I recently interviewed Doren Aldana of MyTestimonialEngine.com for my podcast (20MinutesofInfluence.com) about this topic.
There are lots of places on the internet where people may be leaving reviews about you: Google, Facebook, Yelp, Amazon, AngiesList, Trip Advisor, Yellow Pages, Manta, Better Business Bureau (BBB), FourSquare, and many industry-specific sites like Houzz, Cars.com, Edmunds, OpenTable, and HealthGrades . Yet, businesses are often afraid to manage customer reviews on business review sites as they don’t want to end up in one of these situations:
- receiving zero business reviews
- receiving zero recent online business reviews
- receiving negative online business reviews
Unfortunately, these businesses are missing out and hurting their business through inaction, as reputation drives both traffic and conversion. Online reviews and ratings heavily influence consumers’ purchase decisions and can make or break a business. A number of research studies suggest that online reviews are more trustworthy and useful than branded social media content, advertising, information from salespeople, and even natural search engine results. Here are 3 factors you want to consider when getting reviews:
- Quantity: Ask your customers for a review immediately after checkout and again a few days after they received your product or service.
- Quality: Incentivized reviews are against the rules, but it customers enjoyed first-class service, they are likely to leave better reviews.
- Recency: Keep fresh content rolling in.
In addition to just talking about why reviews are important, in the podcast, Doren and I discussed:
- What’s the best way to get reviews?
- How do you best handle negative reviews?
- How can you use reviews to get more referrals?
This last point is something that most people don’t think about, and can be one of the most important reasons for managing and controlling your reviews. Here’s the really cool thing: Doren’s company has created a software that helps you to collect reviews, then filters them so that you can display the positive reviews on the popular websites, and respond to the negative reviews rather than having them be posted publically.
OK, Let’s try it out. Click HERE to leave WebStores Ltd. a review and see how it looks from the customer’s stand point.
On May 29th, I will be co-hosting a webinar with Doren at 11am Mountain Time to show you how this works. You are going to want to attend this (Yes, there will be a free offer at the end.)
Mark your calendar now!
Can’t wait to get started? Create your own review account here.
Greg Jameson has been writing blog articles on ecommerce and internet marketing for over 10 years. Learn more about Greg at https://webstoresltd.com/about/
Guest Posting
