Local SEO - Review's Strategy
-
I'm trying to brainstorm some ideas for obtaining positive reviews for a my client who's a local business on Yelp and Google+.
I think it's best to capture a customer in the "happy moment" after a successful transaction with that business. I'm thinking integrating the option for customers to leave a review on Yelp or Google+ during the transaction process would be best.
Do you have any suggestions or experiences on the best way to integrate this into a transaction process where a customer physically walks into their business to make the transaction? (it's an Auto Body Shop BTW)
Also any other strategies for getting customers to give reviews?
Much appreciated!
-
Sure, good response. It is a waste of time as well with Yelp as if the reviewers are not trusted Yelp reviewers then the review will be at best ignored and at worst suspicious.
-
No worries! Glad it helped. Reviews are one of those things it is easy to overlook (or over think!). Get a solid process in place, be consistent and it will take care of itself over time.
-
Hi Steve,
You've received some very thoughtful replies here. I am just popping in to say that while the above suggestions sound good to me if applied to Google+ reviews, Yelp does not permit review solicitation in any form. In other words, your client should not be asking customers to review them on Yelp in any way. Not verbally, via email, via CTAs on the website, etc. Their policy is the most stringent in the industry - they want all reviews to be the results of spontaneous activity on the part of consumers. So, while I think you've received some excellent advice here, I would not recommend applying it to Yelp. Hope this saves you some headaches!
-
This makes 100% sense to me, and I think I'll be taking this approach to integrating review gathering workflow for my clients. Thanks a lot for the idea Marcus!
-
Hey Steve
It really can be fairly simple to generate positive reviews for the business and I find that all you really have to do is
A) Ask
B) Make it really, really easy for people to do soAsking at the point of sale in a bricks and mortar shop is not going to work AND it's important to note that asking people to conduct a review is okay but soliciting a review whilst that user is on your property is not okay and could cause problems down the road (all reviews from same IP address etc). It's also a bit mean to pressure people like that so not a good policy even if we ignore online.
A simple approach we have followed works like this:
- Obtain an email for your customer at point of sale
- Email the customer to ask them if they were happy with the service
- If the customer responds in a positive way then ask them for a review
Now, this tackles two important areas
- We ensure the user is happy who we are asking to place the review
- We make it easy for them by linking directly to where we wish the review to be placed and including instructions
You can also steer the ship a bit here (not in a manipulative way) and ask them to mention the location, service etc. This makes the content of the reviews solid for search purposes and useful for other users considering using your service. Win Win.
We go into more detail here with some simple email templates etc: http://www.bowlerhat.co.uk/blog/a-review-strategy-for-local-seo/
Hope that helps! Getting good reviews requires that folks are actually good at what they do (which I am sure your client are) and then asking people to place the review whilst making it as easy as possible to do so.
Refs:
-
If you have a great product then do not bring this up while they are buying from you because this way it looks like you are hungry about it. For one of my client what i did was I setup an automated email that will go after a week of their purchase and ask them to share their experience with others in the community.
Remember you have to have a great product or else this idea can kill your local business.
-
Hi Steve,
You should check out Customer Lobby. They solicit phone reviews from the clients and have different packages. One one of our team member's recent visits to a local medical clinic, the doctor's secretary actually handed out business cards with links to Yelp and Google+ review pages for the doctor and was encouraging everyone to leave their feedback on the sites... Something to think about.
Cheers,
SEO5..
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
When should i use 'Generated search clicks'?
Dear MOZ Community, When should i use 'Generated search clicks' (Links to google site results with your site results) in my content? Instead of direct links or ads to my site? For instance: I'm posting on social media or in a newsletter about a Top 5 OLED tv's.
Branding | | TimThijsse
Should i use a direct link to my Top 5 OLED page or should i use a link to search results on my page? https://www.plattetv.nl/categorie/top-5-oled?utm_source=social&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=Top-5-OLED
or
a search-click generator: https://www.google.com/search?q=plattetv.nl+top-5-oled Best regards, Tim Thijsse1 -
Is .com.sg or .sg a better for SEO?
Hi all, Is .com.sg or .sg a better option?
Branding | | chanel27
And also which can have a better advantage in terms of SEO ranking?0 -
YouTube won't let me disconnect a Google+ business page from my channel.
Hello! Here is a good one. My YouTube channel is connected to a Google+ page a created by accident. Since I named this accidental page as a business, when I go into advanced setting to disconnect it from YouTube, it says "This feature is not available for this account." Does anyone know a way around this? I don't want to have to rebuild my Google+ page on the new, accidental page. I have put quite a bit of time onto my current page and would like to get it hooked up to YouTube. Please help! Thank you!
Branding | | sarita3450 -
Do Dashes in Domain names hurt SEO ranking?
I have found conflicting reports online whether or not dashes in domain names hurt/help ranking. Example yourbrandonline.com vs your-brand-online.com? I found Rand's write up on how to select a domain and he suggests staying away from hyphens but mainly because its hard to remember or people my enter it in wrong. Here's his comment. "Reject Hyphens and Numbers
Branding | | JoshKimber
Both hyphens and numbers make it hard to give your domain name verbally and falls down on being easy to remember or type. I'd suggest not using spelled-out or roman numerals in domains, as both can be confusing and mistaken for the other." Aside from people possibly struggling to get there directly because of the domain name, are they OK to use? Or, are domains with hyphens considered spammy? Thanks in advance.1 -
E-commerce Platforms and Seo Doubts
Hello There, I plan to launch my online store with products soon via one of the saas hosted based platforms like shopify & bigcommerce. The issue is am trying out to see how this works for us. But then simultaneously we would work towards seo efforts to bring in relevant traffic too. Later once we grow and I decide to change the entire website based on custom design etc so that means again all the seo work has to be re-done? How can I avoid this since I have already invested capital and time in building the current saas hosted website and its almost ready to roll out. Can someone advice the best way forward and possibly a relevant solution Thanks Aditya
Branding | | shanky10 -
How to get Google to link external review sites in Google Places
Hi, I have several company profiles in Google Places and Google Sites, I also have the same profiles for those companies in review sites like Yelp! and so on. I have seen that other sites have links on the bottom where Google points to those external review sites, but that doesn't happen for me yet, is there a way to tell Google that I have profiles on other review sites so they can link them or is it Google whenever they find them that will link them? Here's an example: http://maps.google.com/maps/place?cid=14126341780178539960&hl=en At the bottom you'll see that it says: Reviews from around the web Now this is one of mine: http://maps.google.com/maps/place?cid=12168877126282825032&hl=en Now how do I get that line at the bottom provided that I know there are reviews out there in other sites? Is there something I can do? Or is it all about Google doing it whenever they see fit? Thank you!
Branding | | tass0 -
Video's Pros and Cons - YouTube vs My website or both?
This isn't really a question per say, but more of a request for advise. We are in the process of creating videos for our travel website. They are more informational and do not promote any products as such. I am aware of the options, and I am leaning towards creating a pro account with Vimeo so that the videos are available only on our website. The reason for this is so that we can at least get credit for our work, as when they are on you tube, anybody can syndicate the video without linking to our website. I am also aware that there are allot of searches happening on YouTube, and it may be worse if we choose not to upload our videos there as we would loose out on a big audience. it would be GREAT if we had the best of both options. And i had an idea i want to get your opinions on. Create the video and upload onto our website with "lower competitive" title / meta / body. Submit the video on YouTube with a "Higher competitive" keyword / title /meta and description. When someone finds our video, they might search YouTube to avoid linking back and wont find it, (although it is there getting traffic from a similar keyword) Branding is the number 1 objective for these videos, so you tube + many other video sites would be the way to go. However, i would also like our own "private" video blog on our site so that if web masters like the video, we can give them the option of embedding it on there site (like SEOMOZ do it on there whiteboard Fridays) Your comments and suggestions will be muchly appreciated. Greg
Branding | | AndreVanKets0 -
One big site or lots of little sites? Which is better for SEO and my business in general?
I realize there are some aspects of what I'm asking that only I can answer. With that said, I'm looking for some discussion about the pros / cons of each, and what are the most important factors that will push me one way or another. Let's say I have a company that has three products. One big brand, three little brands. Each of the little brands is focused on a particular sub-niche, all of which are in the general health & wellness niche. Either, I could create a large site for the big brand, with subsections for each product, and work hard on turning that domain into a goto site, with lots of articles, etc. The domain name for this one would be a made up word so I can fully control the search results. Or, another strategy would be to create smaller, "sniper" sites for each product, maybe even sites for each major search term that is interested in that product. These sites would have fewer articles. Descriptive, exact match domain names. Which is the best strategy? #1, #2, or a mixture of both? #1 seems legitimate, #2 seems a bit spammy. What are the pros and cons to each? Can anyone speak from experience about both these practices?
Branding | | monetize-2660060