by Phil Chow
Besides testimonials, get your customers to also leave you reviews on social review sites and directories. That’s because search engines factor in reviews on social review sites and directories to rank you, along with other criteria.
So how would you go about getting customers to review you, too, besides asking them to do a testimonial of you?
Maximizing your review strategy
One way is to print off your listing from social review sites and directories you want to be reviewed on and randomly give them to your customers.
For example, give one customer your listing on Yelp, the next customer, your Facebook page and so on to direct them to sites and directories you want them to leave their reviews on.
In particular, ask customers who declined doing any type of testimonial for you to review you because this maximizes the number of customers who leave a testimonial or review for you. Of course, also ask customers who agreed to a testimonial for you to review you as well to be endorsed twice.
For customers who actually leave you reviews from your handouts, you’ll maximize reviews of your business over several review sites and directories, thereby increasing your search ranking.
Choosing review sites and directories
As there are many review sites and directories, choose ones that are most applicable and/or popular for your business. For example, Scheduleya.com (opens in a new window) if you’re a service related business, VancouverDentistInfo.com (opens in a new window) if you’re a dentist.
We recommend you ask your customers to review you on at least the following social review sites and directories:
- your Facebook Business Page
- Yelp
- a directory listing your city’s businesses
- a directory related to your business, and especialy,
- Google Plus.
You can find your city’s business directories by entering your city plus “business directory” into Google or other search engine. Likewise, enter your industry plus “directory” for directories related to your industry or business.
Why Google Plus reviews?
We especially recommend including Google Plus as one of your customer handouts. That’s because Google is the most popular search engine today and it tends to favour its reviews. It highlights businesses in its search results when businesses reach at least six to 10 Google reviews.
What is Google Plus?
Google Plus is a free web page that you create. You can create a Google Plus personal page, a Google Plus business page or a Google Plus brand page without knowing any code. More and more people, businesses and brands now have a Google Plus Page. Here’s an example of a well done Google Plus business page (opens in a new window).
A Google Plus page is interactive. You can update information to it at any time, follow and like other pages and in turn, others can follow and like your page. Plus, people can write reviews on your Google Plus business page.
If you’ve been in business for any length of time, your business is likely already listed on Google Plus. You should claim it and verify to Google that you’re the owner of that business so that you can add your business hours, customer benefits, key words, etc. to it.
If your business is not listed, create your own Google Plus business page (opens in a new window).
Your free Google Plus Review handout
We offer a free Google Plus Review handout that walks customers on how to leave a Google review of your business. Contact us below with your business name, city, state/province and phone number and we’ll then customize the handout with your business information and email it to you to give out to your customers.
Monitoring reviews
Don’t forget to monitor your reviews, too, to respond to them. Thank customers for positive reviews and offer to fix the negative ones show that you’re customer responsive to potential customers. The tool whostalking.com (opens in a new window) can help you set up a monitoring system.
Maximizing customers
As mentioned in my earlier post on maximizing testimonials, by maximizing your testimonials—and reviews—you maximize converting more of your prospects into your customers. Potential customers will be convinced to do business with you from the number of testimonials and reviews that you have.
If you like an automated way to maximize reviews and testimonials we offer a software solution. Here’s a slideshow and video demo (opens in a new window) on how this solution works. Contact us below if you’d like to find out more about it.
Your testimonial and review response rate
Also mentioned in the same a post on maximizing testimonials, this also applies to maximizing your reviews. It takes time to build up a sizeable number of testimonials and reviews for your business. Most customers will not leave you a testimonial or review despite being asked to. If you get a three percent plus combined testimonial-review response rate over the long-term, you actually have a good response rate.
Are there other ways you can think of maximizing your testimonials and online reviews? What are your thoughts on this post? If you have any comments or questions, please write below. We welcome and appreciate your opinion!