When you have a business online, it’s important to build up trust. One of the best ways to do this is by using your Google Business Listing to showcase your positive reviews with your customers.

Google and other search engines use these reviews as trust signals. This means, the more trusted, the higher you’re likely to climb up the listing of the search engines.

Below is a bit more information on how to make the most of the reviews system within your GMB profile and how we can help you manage your GMB profile.

How to get more reviews (ethically) for your business and increase trust online.

The best way to maximise your positive reviews for your business is by asking! When you finish a job for a customer is the best time to ask, make sure they’re happy with the work, product or service you’ve provided and ask them if they’d be happy to leave you a review online.

Google are very clear on this though – you cannot incentivise a person or agency to leave a review, this is seen as gaming their system and they do constant audits on Google Reviews to make sure that any reviews of your business are honest and true.

We can help assist you in making this process simple for your customers by providing hotlinks to your Google Reviews page, images customers can scan on their phones to get them straight into your Google Reviews account and make it as simple as possible for them to leave you a positive review.

Every review counts, and in the online world it’s crucial you can show to potential customers that your business is engaged and has positive reviews left to advise anyone thinking of using your business that they’re in good hands.

A few commonly asked questions we get about Google Reviews, how their system works and how it can be an advantage for your business are;

1 – Is it easy for someone to leave a review for my business online?

100% – and we can make it even easier for you by offering you links you can share, pre-scripted emails you can follow up with your customers and even cards they can scan digitally to take them straight to where they need to be online to leave you a positive review.

2 – What if I get a bad review?

If you’ve been in business for a while then inevitably you may run into an issue with a less than glowing review. Google expect this, and so do potential clients! The key here is how you respond to them. Google offer a system where we can respond to these comments online and in most cases turn a negative into a positive. Any feedback you get should be welcomed and responded to in kind, it’s important to remember, while potential customers will read the customers feedback, they’ll also be seeing how you respond, and in most cases a positive response can outweigh a less than 5 star review. If you’ve been hit with a bad review, contact us to see how we can help you cope, deal with and recover from them.

3 – Do Google remove reviews or have a system to check them?

They certainly do, they also ensure reviews are relevant, true and are not faked. Reviews that have been found to be procured, paid for or otherwise gained using an unfair advantage to other businesses can lead to your account being suspended or in worse case scenarios – removed completely!

4 – Do reviews affect my business position online and my profile ranking?

Reviews left on your GMB profile will improve both your GMB position ranking and your websites natural ranking. The more reviews you get, the better you manage them and the more your trust signal improves – the higher up the list you can climb.

TL;DR (Too long, didn’t read!)

Google reviews, done right and positively can improve your business across the board online, managing them can take time and effort and is something we offer a service for here. If you want to know how to make the most of your reviews online give us a call on 1300 84 21 25 and we’ll make sure you’re well looked after.