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How Reviews Benefit Your SEO Campaigns
Customer reviews are one of the most powerful forces for a local business. They impact customer buying decisions, build trust, increase CTR when ranking in the maps, and strengthen brand loyalty. Positive reviews and the number of reviews can impact a variety of aspects in your campaigns. Review management should not be an afterthought. When leveraged appropriately, customer reviews can be a great SEO tool and improve your rankings as well! Search engines also consider reviews when ranking websites and this trend is only increasing with recent updates. Third party reviews are becoming more and more impactful as algo updates are rolled out.How Customer Reviews Benefit Your Page’s SEO
1. Improve Click-Through Rates In The Map Pack
When ranking in the map pack, positive reviews and overall ratings attract more clicks. There are formal studies and anecdotal data that show listings with higher rankings and more reviews get a bigger share of clicks. Which would you click on, a listing with 3.2 stars or 4.6 stars?
The better-reviewed listings will of course get more clicks, calls, and leads…
Google’s map pack shows up in 93% of local searches, so if you’re working with local businesses this is a huge opportunity. If you are not using them as a source of information and feedback, then you are missing out on valuable content that can help your business grow.
2. Optimize For Longer Tail Keywords & Strengthen Relevance
Google parses reviews and uses that information in multiple ways. For example, Google shows reviews in the listing’s panel of the map pack if they correlate to what the searcher is looking for. As you can see below, Google pulled a review that mentions “son’s birthday cake” and even displayed it on the listing.
Pulling this info in can improve the CTR of searchers, but it also supports the listing’s relevance for those search terms and optimizes for keywords, especially long-tail keywords. Even though long-tail keywords don’t get as much search traffic, they are often easier to rank for and have higher conversion rates.
The SEO Mad Scientist has also tested if review copy impacts rankings and relevance! One thing was for sure from our tests and ranking results, reviews are creating relevance and putting listings in the SERPs based on the review content. Within a week of posting one review, we saw movement with that target keyword. Download the 2022 Q1 SEO Testing Report to read the full review tests.
That does not mean keyword rich reviews alone will move the needle….
If your website, citations, and reviews mention specific services, this compounds for stronger relevance and rankings for these terms mentioned in the review copy. While reviews are not going to skyrocket you to the top of the rankings, they are one aspect of a holistic local SEO campaign.
3. Build Trust & Strengthen the Brand
It’s no secret that searchers read reviews. They are seen as more honest impressions of the business and therefore hold more weight. You probably read reviews before choosing a service or store.
Having positive reviews on Google listings and other 3rd party sites strengthens the trust and perceived quality of services by potential customers. Reviews are also not easily removed so if a business isn’t reputable, their listing will tell you that.
4. Improve & Diversify Off-Page SEO
Off-page signals are a cornerstone of Google’s algorithm. Off-page SEO refers to all actions taken outside of the website to improve rankings. If you have an established SEO strategy, chances are you’re engaged in off-page SEO activities, like building links. However, review management is often an afterthought when it comes to SEO.
Customer reviews are a great off-site signal that can strengthen your online brand, user engagement, and trust. All these factors work together to improve your rankings.
Google’s guidelines specifically state that “User reviews are often helpful sources of reputation for websites that offer products or services. You may consider a large number of detailed, trustworthy positive user reviews as evidence of positive reputation.” in their Quality Rater Guidelines.
5. Leverage a Valuable Content Source
Content can be expensive to create, so leverage the assets you already have!
Reviews can make great social content, especially if you have great feedback. You can also use them as sales collateral to show leads previous customer satisfaction and build trust in your quality of work.
You can also add reviews on your website to diversify content and add additional keywords. Additionally, customer reviews are the perfect solution to add additional keywords and context to your website without making your page sound over-optimized. Review content helps to diversify your website content, as well as position your business as trustworthy and reliable for customers and search engines.
6. Generate More Leads
3rd Party Reviews also increase referral traffic. Reviews help people find you and your products even if they aren’t searching for them—just like a recommendation from a friend on social media or shared on their own Instagram post would do. Every followed link from another website to yours is considered a referral by Google. This kind of traffic might bring a win to your SEO campaign and get you ahead of your competition.
3rd Party Reviews in SEO Are Increasingly Important:
With every algo update, Google seems to put increased importance on third party reviews. Since the Google Local Pigeon update, we have seen 3rd party reviews like Yelp and BBB moving the needle more and more in both organic and local rankings.
3rd party review sites often rank well in organic search and can be a very strong brand mention. Websites like Yelp and BBB are highly authoritative websites, which you leverage for stronger rankings and online brand.
These brand mentions are also a strong signal to search engines of trustworthiness and authority. Customer reviews on these platforms will help you build a stronger online brand and trust with both searchers and search engines.
Reviews Are Crucial for Local, Service Businesses
Reviews are now more important than ever for local businesses. They are a powerful trust signal that show users the quality of a business and provide honest feedback they can count on. Many searchers look at reviews first due to their honest nature. Plus they’re one of the first things someone sees when searching for a business.
You can find countless CTR tests showing the higher your rating and number of reviews, the more clicks your business gets comparatively.
Reviews can also demonstrate the quality of work, especially if images are included. If you are a service-based business, you can convey your value, quality, and trustworthiness with images. Consider a roofer or painter with images in their reviews. These images can provide an honest idea of the high-quality the final product OR the poor quality depending on the business. These images can also be used as additional user-generated content sources.
Reviews are the best way to tell if your site is meeting the needs of your potential customers. That’s why we recommend pushing for reviews in your sales process, but also reading over past reviews and addressing their concerns. This can be a great resource to identify issues to address. While you’re analyzing past reviews, you can also respond to them!
Respond to Reviews, Both Positive and Negative
While responding to reviews doesn’t directly improve rankings or relevance (we’ve tested this extensively), they do help improve your product or services. From a brand reputation management perspective, it is important to reply to negative reviews to let your customers know you are addressing the concern and will be working on improvement if necessary. This will also help build trust with prospective customers and let them know that your business is transparent and always working towards improvement.
How To Get More Customer Reviews
Getting more reviews is an important part of growing your business. Reviews can be a great way to show off your work, and help you attract clients in the future. However, it can be hard to get them. Here are some tips on how to get more reviews from clients:
1. Follow Up After Purchases
The easiest way to increase the number of customer reviews for your business is to build review requests into your sales process. With marketing automation or review management software you can create post-purchase automation that include a dedicated email and/or text message requesting a review from clients.
According to studies around 91% of email, users open their email inbox every day. However, we have found in our agencies that sending SMS messages is more effective – we get more responses and reviews by sending follow-up texts for a variety of reasons:
- Less friction in the review request process
- People are generally checking their phones more often than email.
- When you send a text, they get a notification on their phone.
SMS messages are more effective especially if you are trying to get reviews on a Google listing. Users a more likely to be logged into their Google account in their maps app than on their desktop.
Timing is also crucial for securing reviews. You don’t want to ask too soon but you also don’t want to wait too long…
The best time to send reviews is 2-4 days after the service or product has been delivered to the customer. This ensures the interaction was recent enough to recall details, but also allows time if there were delays in shipping or servicing.
2. Include the review link in your Email signature
Including a request for reviews as part of your email signature is another effective option. The more places customers are prompted, the more likely they are to take action. You can add direct review links into the signature, or use a review funnel that includes multiple platforms on one link.
You can also include the review signature in live chats. Then, whenever you end a conversation they will be prompted to leave a review.
Below is what our review request email signature looks like.
3. Ask for reviews on social media
Incorporating a review link in social media posts, stories or even bios can also increase the number of reviews. It’s also hitting your past customers on yet another channel. We recommend focusing on Facebook since links are easy to include in content and the platform has high engagement, but the more channels you can incorporate the better. You can use multiple angles for review content on social media:
- Directly ask for reviews
- Feature past reviews with a link to leave a new review
- Include review link in your bio
- Leave your review link in the comments of other positive posts.
4. QR Codes for Review Links
QR codes are a great option for service-based companies and those that have retail stores. Your technicians or service people can carry a QR code card around with them to service calls. Once the job is completed, they can have the customer scan the QR code to easily leave a review.
If you have a physical location, print out the QR code onto a card or poster and put it up in your location. Next to the register is a great place. This allows customers to easily scan with their phone after they pay.
You can choose to manually create these QR code posters, but that could take time depending on how many locations you have. Our review management software includes a QR code poster in it, making it easier for you!
5. Use Review Management Software
Manually sending review requests isn’t an efficient use of your time and leaves room for errors, like clients not getting a review request after purchase. Incorporating review management into your marketing strategy solves this issue.
You also get access to QR code generators, email signature templates, and other features that increase reviews. Our review management software includes all this and more!
- Missed Call Text Back
- Website Chat Widget
- Automated Messaging & Communications
- Social Media Scheduler
- Appointment Scheduler
- Custom Pipelines
- CRM
- Centralized Communications: Email, SMS, Facebook Messages, Instagram DMs, & GMB Messages