If you are reading this article, you probably have a website for your company that you paid a professional to develop. You are proud of the website, visit it often, and you love it. There are two more layers of love to give to your company that we would like you to discover and nurture. The first layer is understanding that you really have a second, more visible and popular website: Your Google Business listing! We suggest that you give TLC and some attention to your Google Business listing at least as often as you update content on your website. The second layer: get positive Google Reviews! This article will focus on the why and how of getting positive Google Business Reviews.
Why Google Reviews are important
Social Proof
You Google Reviews and testimonials are crucial aspects of a business. Before investing money in a product or service, customers like to see if they’re investing in the right place, and reviews play a vital role in that process. The reviews act as something called “Social proof”. Social proof is when people, just like you and me, trust and believe the opinions of others so much that we copy their actions. Fully 90% of people look for social proof before they visit a business or purchase a product. In a recent study, 84% of participants trusted online reviews as much as a recommendation from a trusted friend. We want to read the review on the electric lawnmower to see what others thought of the performance, how long the battery lasted, etc.
One of the best ways to get social proof is from potential clients reading the Google Reviews that appear on the search engine results page (SERP) of your business. Right under the name of the business, it will give you the average rating of all the reviews and in parenthesis, the total number of reviews.
They build trust
Google reviews help build trust in your company because they cannot be edited or manipulated by the brand. This builds trust because the people see these views as impartial, coming from people with nothing to gain, which makes these reviews trustworthy
Good for SEO
Good reviews make it easier for people to find you in a search, especially ones that have the word “best” in the search query. For example, if I was searching on google for “The best web development company near me”, the only ones that will show up are ones that have an average 4+ rating on their Google Review!
What we do to get Google Reviews
To get Google Reviews, we do a couple of things on a consistent basis. First of all, as soon as a project is completed, we send a thank you email to the client. In that email is a link to our Google Review page. All the customer has to do is click on the link and they are are at the correct page to leave a review. This is an important step. we flatten the road and make it very easy for a client to give us a review. One click!
Once we get a review, we always respond to them personally, and write something positive about their business in return.
Customer service
We pride ourselves at 212 creative in providing unparalleled customer service. We really do. We respond to customers 7 days a week, sometimes far into the night for our international clients,. We keep them in the loop via email as to the stages of their project, and are always available via email, phone, or text.
The owners meet regularly to discuss what we can do to improve as a company, and to share anecdotes of how we went above and beyond. We do that because that is part of the fabric of what we believe as a company. Unparalleled customer service is part of our mission and vision. An unsolicited by product of that is we have all 5 star reviews, and over 65% of our current projects are from repeat clients. It pays to walk the talk and really care about your clients.
So make it easy for your clients to leave reviews, and walk the talk and provide excellent customer service. It’s as simple as that!
