As an independent business, online review sites are essential to your success. These websites can make or break your business, so it is important to make sure that you are doing everything possible to rank high in the search results.
In this blog post, we will discuss some tips that will help you achieve a higher ranking on review sites. We will also talk about how you can claim your listing and make sure that your information is accurate and up-to-date.
Do You Rank High On The Review Sites?
You can’t assume your potential customers will believe what you say. People are skeptical. They won’t do business with someone they don’t trust. And they won’t frequent a business with bad reviews.
Positive reviews of your business need to be included in ALL of your marketing – especially on your website. This establishes your credibility.
What the heck is “reputation management”?
The term is thrown around a lot, but reputation management is simply keeping your presence on the internet positive.
It involves four key elements:
1) Claim your review site listings
2) Respond to positive comments to demonstrate your company culture and personality
3) Respond to negative reviews professionally and effectively
4) Encourage happy customers to leave more positive reviews
Claim Your Review Sites
It’s the new reality, you need to claim your review site listings and keep them updated. It’s imperative that your business is in the first page of search rankings, if not in 1st or 2nd place when someone searches “your business type in your town”. If you aren’t ranking high on the Google search rankings, you are missing out on the best source of new customers.
Nobody likes getting a negative review. But relying on positive reviews to happen on their own will only result in disappointment. Very few positive reviewers will find their way to your review sites to give you their 5-star rating, while the couple of miserable complainers will go out of their way to leave a negative review that haunts your site forever.
Respond to Positive Reviews
Think of your review sites as a conversation. Your happy customers want to offer their appreciation, and will appreciate you responding, which encourage future visits. This allows you to show your company culture and personality, address constructive feedback provided, and let’s the reader know that you value their feedback.
Once you have your system up and running, it’s important that you go to your review sites regularly and interact with those that leave reviews, both positive and negative. A simple thank you and a word or two to make it personal shows that you are paying attention.
Respond to Negative Reviews
A response to a negative review with an offer to solve the problem and make things right will help mitigate much of the potential impact.
It’s unfortunate when customers share their negative experiences with businesses, but it gives you the opportunity for improvement. Businesses should always be looking out for these posts so they can fix any problems and make sure future clients have an excellent experience!
Before you respond to a negative review, take a deep breath and collect yourself. You’ll be better able to handle the situation this way, rather than get defensive or angry, like we so often do in these situations where our emotions take over!
Be professional, respectful and polite – these words will live on the internet. Apologize on behalf of your company while also trying resolve any issues they may have experienced by taking steps towards improvement such as identifying what went wrong or how things could change moving forward, and solutions you will implement.
Ideally, take the conversation and solution offline. Give them a direct way to contact you so that you can resolve the issue personally. When they contact you, offer an incentive to encourage them to give your business another chance or in really concerning cases, offer a refund or exchange.
Get More Positive Online Reviews To Move Up The Rankings
Have a system in place to ask your happy customers for their positive comments and have them post on your review sites. Inevitably, someone won’t be happy and will leave you a negative review. It’s unavoidable. But a negative review will soon disappear down the list when you have a constant source of fresh, new positive reviews.
Your existing best customers are your biggest opportunity.
When you have a list of your best customers, it’s much easier to ask and get more quality reviews. You can email them or contact them on your social media sites and provide a link to review you online. Royalty Rewards® goes one step further and sends a survey after each customer visit, encouraging positive comments to be posted online. It has improved our customers’ rankings exponentially, moving them up to the top of the list.
Asking for feedback allows you to follow up with unhappy customers BEFORE they have a chance to post an angry outburst online. Then, those who give you positive feedback can be asked to post a review online and more positive online reviews attract a steady flow of new customers. If you aren’t at the top of your category in your community, you are missing out.
Part of Royalty Rewards® Marketing and Loyalty System is the Online Review Accelerator which works on autopilot, constantly at work to get you more positive reviews – if you want it done for you, book a Free Marketing Strategy Session and we’ll help you get started! Click the button below to pick a time.
