Customer reviews are a fundamental part of your local marketing efforts and online reputation. If you can get enough good ones, they can go a long ways. A slew of good reviews can boost both your local search ranking as well as click-through rate (CTR), which should ultimately lead to converting more customers.
90% of consumers say an online review is as important as a personal recommendation while 72% say that positive reviews make them trust a local business more.
Below is a breakdown of some of the things that our team, and other industry experts, have found to be effective tactics in building high-value customer reviews for your business.
Tips on Building Customer Reviews (in no particular order)
Politely askYou should coach your staff to notice when you have a highly satisfied customer, and to politely ask, “Would you be willing to leave us a review?” If you have the customer’s email, personally send them a link (see...
By Edward Hokinson · June 22 2021
reviews, reputation, gmb
What good is a testimonial if the person giving it doesn't know what to talk about? SMS, email, or face-to-face, these can help get the ball rolling.
By Evan Demma · May 21 2018
Testimonials, reviews, reputation, Customer Voice
EZlocal contributors help reveal hot spots to fellow locals and all the while earn cool rewards. That's the concept behind EZlocal's growing Contributor Program - the only reward-based program of its kind.
By Dave Cosper · February 24 2016
ezlocal, reviews
When an authority site like Yelp rolls out a new feature to add video content to reviews, small businesses and marketers should take note.
By Carmen Salerno · June 30 2014
yelp, reviews, local business
Outside of Yelp (whose review snippets were removed from Google) and native Google+ Local reviews, here are the top third-party sources for dentist reviews in the US.
By Dave Cosper · April 29 2014
reviews, local, local search, google plus
Having good quality reviews on your Google+ Local page (i.e., Place page) not only influences your ability to convert prospective customers, but can affect your local search ranking. Most customers won’t know to leave you a Google Places review, so it is important to promote or actively encourage customers to give honest reviews.
By Dave Cosper · September 11 2013
google, google plus, google, reviews
Customer reviews are a fundamental part of your local marketing efforts and online reputation. If you can get enough good ones, they can go a long ways. A slew of good reviews can boost both your local search ranking as well as click-through rate (CTR), which should ultimately lead to converting more customers.
A Local Consumer Review Survey (2012) showed that approximately 72% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations, while 52% said that positive online reviews make them more likely to use a local business.
But building customer reviews, and doing it ‘the right way’, especially on Google (with all of their flip-flops and recent updates) has been a dizzying process for SMBs....
By Dave Cosper · March 20 2013
google plus local, local search, reviews, seo
Mike Blumenthal blogged last month on the topic of becoming a Top Reviewer (as a business page) in Google Plus Local. Notably, there appears to be an opportunity for a business, as a Google+ page, to achieve this distinction. But how exactly do you (as a business) become a Google+ Top Reviewer?
As you may have noticed, Google Plus ranks review content based on who is leaving the review and what other users think of the review (most useful -> least useful). More or less, it’s an effort to weed out spammy or fake reviews and establish a hierarchy for everything in between. There’s also anecdotal evidence to suggest that reviews from...
By Dave Cosper · November 16 2012
reviews, top reviewer, google local
