SEO Search Engine Optimization

To often we see businesses just waiting for more reviews… They typically and very idly sit by and hope that reviews will be posted on Google or other review websites. Some business locations will be a bit more proactive and send an email or text, maybe even include a link (you can link directly to your Google review page), but they fail to follow up or to have any real strategy to ensure they are capturing the most and best reviews.

How do you even start? First off, every review website has different rules about soliciting reviews from customers (ie. Google, Yelp, Facebook, etc.). We focus exclusively on Google reviews for one primary reason. Google drives FAR more traffic that any other review platform in the market by a minimum of 10X the traffic. This means, we simply focus the strategy (initially) into the largest volume of potential customers for your business.

Determine what makes the most sense and this is usually driven by how many customers you serve. Some service businesses only connect with a few customers every quarters, like a contractor. However, a restaurant may connect with 50 or even 75 customers every night. Finding the right strategy first must look at the volume of your business. Then focusing on an approach that makes sense based on the volume and opportunities for interaction.

We are a HUGE fan of the manual model for low-connect businesses, these are companies that only engage with a few clients each month. However, you are wholly responsible for sending the email, tracking the review and follow up. This is easier when you have just a few to manage – but you still need to take a proactive approach.

For larger volume customers, we look at how their customer data is managed and integrated – then we review the existing systems and tools we have to help automate the entire review request transaction. This can even include automated review responses based on the incoming reviews found on Google. This is great for businesses that are seeking to have a mostly hands-off approach and the volume to create some review traffic.