The 4 Pillars of Online Reviews: How to Get More Leads and Customers

In today’s highly competitive marketing landscape, it can be hard to stay ahead of the curve and get customers. What if we told you there’s a way to get up to 10 times more leads and customers without changing up your process too much?

Enter online reviews, a powerful tool that can give you an edge over your competition and put your business above the rest.

Online reviews are one of the most powerful tools available for businesses to increase their visibility, build trust with customers, improve SEO, and get more leads.

If you haven’t done so, you should claim your Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business). It’s a free platform for businesses to manage their visibility on the world’s most popular search engine.

87 percent of consumers check Google reviews to evaluate businesses before working with them.

More than claiming your profile, you also have to optimize it. That includes providing accurate and up-to-date information about your business, such as hours of operation, location, contact info, website link, etc.

There are two main reasons you should optimize your Google Business Profile. Here is a brief overview of both:

Google developed the Google Business Profile feature to help businesses rank higher in their local search results.

Every time someone searches for your business or products related to your brand, Google displays the information from your profile. This includes things like your address, phone number, hours of operation, website link, and — most importantly — reviews.

Your goal should be to have as much positive information on your profile as possible to help you stand out from competitors when customers are searching for a product or service that you offer. The more reviews you have, the higher your business will be placed in search engine results.

Claiming and optimizing your Google Business Profile also helps you appear in local search results. Local SEO is an important strategy for businesses that serve customers in a particular geographic area or that have multiple physical locations.

Having an optimized Google Business Profile increases your visibility in local searches, and is especially important if you’re looking to attract customers from outside of your current customer base.

Having a Google Business Profile can also benefit your brand’s credibility. Consumers who use Google reviews to research businesses will likely be more confident in the product or service if it has a verified profile with positive ratings.

49 percent of consumers view an online review as trustworthy — akin to recommendations from loved ones. Positive reviews are an excellent way to build trust with potential customers even before they interact with your business.

Once you’ve optimized your Google Business Profile, you should commit to these four pillars of online reviews:

To boost your ranking, you must ensure that your reviews are of high quality. The reviews you get should be detailed enough to provide customers with an idea of what they can expect from your business.

Additionally, you should ensure that you have positive ratings. This way, potential customers will be more likely to trust your business, increasing the chances of them choosing you over a competitor.

92 percent of people choose local businesses that have a good reputation. Reviews play a significant role in bringing people to your business, from clients to job candidates.

Employees want to work for good companies. Applicants check a company’s reputation online before accepting a job offer or even showing up for an interview. Businesses need to ensure that they have positive reviews to attract the best talent.

If you’ve noticed that your business is getting less than five-star ratings, check your processes and figure out areas of improvement. Make sure to take ego and emotion out of it and focus on ways to improve.

Make sure to stop and think about the negative feedback constructively and determine how you can use it to improve your services. Remember, give quality work to get quality reviews.

Nonetheless, quality isn’t the only pillar to focus on. You still need to have a high quantity of reviews.

This is important because it helps prospective customers see that you are well-established and have a lot of satisfied customers. Plus, the more people who review your business, the more likely it will be picked up in Google’s search results as one of the top-rated businesses in its category.

A business with a five-star rating but only 130 reviews will lose to another company that only has a 4.9 rating but 276 reviews. The algorithm considers quantity as well as quality.

Having a low number of reviews, especially if they’re all five-star ratings, can also be perceived as fraudulent — even if they’re legitimate. The ratings can make it look like the business is trying to manipulate its image.

As such, you need to get every client’s review. To accomplish this, make it a part of your process.

You can drop a quick message to request a review before wrapping everything up with a client or customer. For example, you can ask clients for feedback after completing a job or during the payment process.

Diversity means having reviews on multiple channels. Aside from quality and quantity, you want to make sure you get reviews from different sources and on multiple platforms. This could include:

• Google
• Facebook
• Angi (formerly Angie’s List)
• Yelp

Even the yellow pages and industry-specific directories are valuable resources to consider. Getting reviews from a variety of sources will give potential customers an accurate picture of your business and boost your online presence.

Additionally, Google has updated its algorithm to take into account reviews on other platforms. This means that the more reviews you have, the better chance you have at ranking higher in search engine results.

Diversifying where you get your reviews can do the following:

Search engines like Google are always on the lookout for credible sources, and they take into account reviews from multiple channels.

By getting your brand out there, you’re increasing online visibility and introducing it to new pairs of eyes in the process.

Having customer reviews coming from a variety of sources can help build trust with potential customers by showing them you are a legitimate and reliable business.

This makes it easier to persuade them to work with you, as they now have multiple sources to refer to when making their decision.

Lastly, you must make sure to have a steady stream of reviews. It shouldn’t just be an influx of reviews for one month and nothing in the next two to six months.

You want to show that your business is consistently providing a great experience. Consistent reviews will help you build trust with potential customers and encourage them to take the plunge and do business with you.

If you’ve been in business for a long time and you haven’t asked for feedback from previous customers, you might be tempted to ask them all for a review and fill up your page with five-star ratings. 

That’s not a good idea, as it could be seen as an attempt to game the system. Search engines are always on the lookout for patterns that look robotic or spammy. 

Focus on getting a steady stream of reviews over time. To make sure that you get reviews from as many customers as possible, incorporate them into your process. This way, you can be sure that you’ve asked each client about their experience and that they’ve had a chance to share it.

There are two main ways to get online reviews:

You can get reviews manually by asking your customers to provide feedback on your business. You can do this by either:

1. Emailing them
2. Sending physical postcards.

Just make sure you are polite and professional when making the request, as well as provide clear instructions on how they should leave a review (including a link to your Google Business Profile page).

You can add it as a step in your sales process. Make sure to include links to multiple platforms to give customers a choice to express their thoughts on their preferred channel.

If they aren’t willing to give a review, you can ask them more in-depth about their experience. 

Ask them why they weren’t satisfied, or if there was anything you could do to improve their experience. Taking the time to listen and make changes can turn an unhappy customer into a positive reviewer.

One potential drawback to asking for reviews manually is that it makes diversity challenging. You might not be able to provide enough motivation to your customers for them to place a review on various platforms.

Fortunately, there’s a way to automate your review system to ensure that your customers are leaving good reviews and that you aren’t forgetting to solicit reviews from clients after they buy your products or services. Here is how it works:

1. Set up an app with a single landing page or URL. It should contain a button for major review platforms, such as Google, Angi, Facebook, and Yelp, that link to the appropriate platform for your customers to leave a review.
2. Enter your customer’s name and email address or phone number and the app will send a text or email with the link. When the customer opens that link, they’re sent to the landing page that asks for their rating of your services.

Giving one, two, or three stars redirects them to a customer service form. This form allows them to provide more detailed feedback and start a dialogue with your company.

This is helpful for businesses that want to improve customer experience and understand why their customers aren’t happy with the service they received. It can also help businesses understand how to better their product or service.

For four or five-star ratings, the landing page shows buttons for multiple channels. This way, the customer can elaborate on their good experience on whichever platform they are comfortable with, whether it be Google, Angi, Facebook, or Yelp.

The best thing about using an app is that the customer receives an instant notification for your review. If they forget to give feedback, the app automatically sends another notification after three days and again at seven days if they still haven’t given a review.

Don’t worry about being intrusive, though, since the notifications are spaced out. It also automatically stops after they provide their feedback.

At Search Click Grow, we’ve mastered the art of helping businesses scale their customer base and increase leads with online reviews. We understand how important it is for customers to feel confident in the products and services they choose, and that one of the best ways to do this is through positive online reviews.

Online reviews are an essential part of any successful business’s marketing plan, as they can directly influence a potential customer’s decision-making process when considering your company or product. 

We’ve developed an app to automate the process of collecting Google reviews, making it easier for businesses to increase their online presence and gain more customers.

Schedule a call with us today to learn more about how to get the most out of your clients’ reviews, whether from Google or other platforms.