When you think about your company’s digital strategies, you consider initiatives that center around your brand’s best digital marketing practices and social media campaigns. While those significantly increase brand awareness and improve sales, business reviews are another critical tool that generates customer engagement and support. 90% of potential customers read these reviews when determining which companies to patronize, which means they can make or break your business.
At AIS Media, we have the experience and insights to help you develop successful SEO strategies centered around creating positive business reviews. By using these reviews to maximize your visibility, enhance your search rankings, and drive site traffic, you can hit your desired KPIs and meet your long-term goals.
Business Reviews Have a Huge Impact on Commerce
Most customers not only research business reviews before making purchases and choosing a service, but they regard these reviews as personal recommendations made by family and friends. Customers often use them as the final sign-off they need to validate their purchase. As a result, these business reviews have a significant impact on your ability to increase sales.
Business Reviews Build Trust and Authority
When customers read business reviews, it shapes the way they view your company. If they see several negative business reviews, they will question the quality of your goods and services, leading them to spend their money elsewhere. However, positive business reviews build trust and establish your company as a leader in the industry. This creates customer loyalty and builds long-lasting relationships that will continue to drive sales in the future.
Reviews Shape SEO Strategies
Business reviews are an incredibly beneficial SEO tool because they can give you a better understanding of the needs and wants of your customer. And once you know exactly what their expectations are, you can build marketing strategies with clearly defined goals that target your specific audience to generate customer support, build brand awareness and increase profits.
Digital Strategies: Positive Reviews Enhance SEO Results
When your company receives a more significant number of positive business reviews, it enhances your visibility on search engines like Google and Bing. Digital strategies like this increase rankings and improve SERP results, building brand awareness and driving new customers to your site. Since these algorithms favor businesses with more reviews, encourage your customers to leave business reviews so you can maintain your ranking in the SERP results.
Negative Reviews Deter Customers
As much as positive business reviews can benefit your company, negative business reviews can have just as much of an adverse effect. In fact, negative reviews are the number one deterrent that causes customers to avoid patronizing a business. And while it is likely that you will receive some negative business reviews no matter how hard you try to avoid it, you can mitigate this damage by responding to and resolving these issues in a way that leaves these customers satisfied.
In fact, if a potential customer sees how you answered a negative review professionally and with the offer of a solution, this can make your business look better in the eyes of the potential customer despite the negative review. Always respond to your negative reviews in the most professional way possible.
How to Get Positive Business Reviews for Your Company
So now you know business reviews are essential. But how do you go about getting them?
Most people that want to leave reviews are fueled by an unpleasant experience and want their voices to be heard. Those that had a positive experience with your business usually leave happy but without the urge to sound off. The key to getting your customers that had a good experience to leave a review is to make it easy for them. Give them a reason to leave a review.
Make it Easy to Leave a Business Review
Think about your last doctor’s visit or the last restaurant you ordered from. Chances are, you didn’t leave a review and it’s not because you didn’t like the business, you just didn’t have the time to stop what you’re doing, find them online and write a review.
You want to make it as easy as possible for your customers to leave a positive review. A quick way is to send an email follow up. If your business has access to your customer’s information, send a follow up email telling them how important their review is to you, provide an easy link for them to leave a review, and go one step forward and give them their own template.
You want the easy-to-follow link to be highly visible, so make sure the email’s formatting is appealing and it’s not overshadowed by unnecessary content. Just get to the point.
Another helpful tip is to ask them a question that encourages a review. If you sell tacos and want to rank for the “best tacos in Atlanta”, ask them to leave a review by answering your question on why they think your restaurant has the best tacos in Atlanta. This gives them something to start with and encourages them to leave a keyword you’re trying to rank for on Google in their review.
Give Your Customers a Reason to Leave a Review
If you’ve ever received an Amazon package with printed material asking for a review in exchange for a free product, there’s a good chance you hopped online to leave that review.
Everyone loves free items. To give even more power to your review follow-up, give your customer an incentive to leave a review in the first place. Whether this is a free item or a coupon code for a discount, give them a little extra for the effort to leave a good review and in return you’ll get the payoff of having more positive reviews on Google and more attention coming in for your business.
Add the incentive with your easy-to-follow review link and template, and you have a strong review-generating plan ready to go.
Digital Strategies Will Help You Use Positive Reviews to Grow Your Business
Reviews are an organic marketing tool that can significantly impact your ability to reach your KPIs and goals. As a result, let AIS Media provide the advice and answers you need to build digital strategies that use business reviews to enhance SEO rankings, drive site traffic, and improve your sales. With our innovative and award-winning services, you can rapidly grow your business and easily achieve your desired outcomes.
Contact us today to schedule your complimentary digital strategies and SEO consulting consultation.
