Over the years we’ve been able to see how digital marketing has, and will continue to evolve over time. Social media has become much more prevalent in our world of marketing, as users and advertisers have welcomed platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin to help build trust with their potential buyers. What seems to have been forgotten however, is the ongoing competition in Google for placement.
SEO and PPC advertising has been around for a while, and it seems to have been put on the back burner by many who may see it as an expense, rather than a necessity. If you aren’t investing in optimizing your brand for search, you are certainly missing out on capturing leads and conversion from your ideal customer, while your competitor who chose to invest time and resources will clean up. Some industries NEED immediate results for users who need help immediately. This means reviews are even more important for these competitive, search-based marketing industries.
Today on the blog we want to talk about Google Business Profiles, customer reviews, and why they matter more than ever entering 2024.
How Reviews Help Conversion Rate
Why Reviews Matter
Of course you can understand how a positive testimonial can impact someone into feeling a sense of trust in a brand or product. Customer reviews importance heading into 2024 can’t be stressed enough. Reviews significantly impact the customer journey. Users are focusing more on social proof and authentic human responses to make their decisions.
If you have Company A with 10 reviews, and Company B with 1000 reviews, you probably will choose the company with 1000 reviews, right?
How Reviews Help SEO
Do reviews help SEO? We think yes. Especially for local SEO here in Buffalo. We have seen how increasing the number of reviews to your Google Business Profile can impact how you show up in the local results. Google will use the data from your user generated reviews to help lift your site depending on a few factors.
Relevance, distance, and prominence.
Google is designed to give the user the best answer to their query as possible, so if someone searches for “veterinarian in Buffalo,” Google will aim to provide websites that offer
- Veterinarians
- Based in Buffalo
- Have great positive reviews
Google is looking for a few things with regards to how the reviews stand out. Obviously high-star ratings means Google will look at your site favorable because they trust the user feedback. If your review features important keywords (long-tailed!) Google will bold those keywords from the user’s query and point them out to the user to entice them to read that review, which in turn builds trust in your service. Recency is another factor that is vital, keep them flowing! New reviews will provide more chances that you show up in search, and if your competitor hasn’t had a new one come in in a while, you’re probably going to rank higher than them in local search results.
Make sure to respond to all reviews! Good or bad, the way you respond can help grow deeper trust and belief in your brand when users see you truly appreciate the kind words, and are willing to make the bad ones right.
How Reviews Help Conversion Rate
If your organic traffic has taken a dip in the last 6 months or so, it could be related to some of what we’re talking about today. Local SEO is impacted more by Google Business Profile activity more than ever. If organic traffic has taken a dip, then organic conversions, leads, form fills, phone calls have probably also dipped. The time is now to dedicate energy to a Google Business Review strategy.
By working in a review strategy into your sales process and follow up, you can automate sending a link to your customers to leave a review to help you help more people like them. By dedicating time to this process, you can help to increase your conversions and conversion rate. Just because organic traffic is down, doesn’t mean conversion rate needs to be down. You can maximize your leads, phone calls, and forms by increasing your number of reviews so that more local customers can get eyes on your brand and in seeing the increase in reviews it will most certainly increase their interest in your brand.
If and when you do see an uptick in positive reviews from dedicating energy to getting them, ensuring you respond to every review can help increase your conversion rate. Here’s a tidbit from Storagepug.
How to Get More Reviews
If you haven’t already optimized and verified your Google Business Profile, let’s get to work! We can help! Now, assuming you’ve optimized your Google Business Profile, you’ll find a nice little nugget that will help speed this process of review automation up a bit.
Here’s How to generate your Google Business Reviews Link to send to your customers
1. Login to Google Business
2. Click ‘Ask for Reviews’
3. Copy the link to send to customers
As mentioned, we recommend using this link whenever communicating with your customers, especially the good ones. Try to work it into any follow up or job-finishing workflow. If your team works out in the field, you can attach the link to a QR code on your paperwork or leave-behinds. If you conduct your business digitally, consider putting it in your closing email thanking your customer and requesting a positive review. People are more willing than ever before to champion your brand, but not if they don’t know they can!
In conclusion, optimizing your Google Business Profile is vital to competing in the local marketplace. The next step is ensuring your customers know they can give you a positive review. This helps to aid other users to find you first, and also helps them choose you first when they see the positivity and keywords they’re looking for.
If you haven’t done so, don’t hesitate to reach out if you need a hand. We can help you optimize your profile and answer any questions you may have regarding local SEO. We help companies here in Buffalo reach more local users with the help of SEO and Conversion Rate Optimization, and we’re ready to help you!