Product Reviews
-
Any one have good strategies to get product reviews from customers? Whether general or specific to G+, Yelp, On Page, local review sites, etc?
Thanks
-
Absolutely, and it's my pleasure to help!
-
I had seen that post by Rozek a while ago, but forgot about it, so thanks.
I think the key here is "a slow, diverse and steady acquisition of reviews over time is a much better strategy than trying to make a big splash all at once"
-
Hi IOSC,
Great question, and a really important point from Keri regarding never soliciting Yelp reviews from your customers. Their policies and filters are the most stringent of any review platform; Yelp wants all reviews to happen spontaneously.
When it comes to Google-based reviews, the best policy is to take it slow. Avoid sending out email blasts or running campaigns that will generate a large number of reviews at any one time. Google has also upped the stringency of their review filters of late and too great a velocity of incoming reviews can result in review loss for the business owner. Ask, perhaps, 1-3 happy customers a week if they'd like to review you. Then, if 1 or 2 of them do, this will be a gentle acquisition.
Also, take a look at your competitors' average number of reviews. If most of them in your locale have, say, 20 Google-based reviews, then aim for having 30 or 40 on your profile...don't aim for having 200. This is another area in which it is speculated that Google may become suspicious that reviews are being bought or falsely generated by the business.
A read through Google's Review Posting Guidelines will be very important for you:
https://support.google.com/places/answer/187622?hl=en
Another good step is to, again, look at your direct local competitors and see which 3rd party review sites Google is linking to from their Google+ Local pages in the 'reviews from around the web' section. This way, you may discover that, for your locale and industry, Google seems to be trusting certain sites like citysearch, judysbook or insiderpages most. This will signal to you that it's important for you to have customers review you there.
In actually setting about requesting reviews, a good process would be to obtain the customer's email at the time of service. Follow up 2-3 days after a service is rendered with a brief, friendly, well-crafted email, letting the customer know how much you would appreciate his review. You might list a few places (not including Yelp) where you have review profiles and let the customer know that you would like them to pick their favorite platform. While Google and Yelp reviews are typically the most important for local business owners, review diversity is very healthy insurance against massive review loss, should you ever lose all of your reviews on one site or another. Remember, not everyone is going to have a Google account, so leaving a Google based review could be a pain for them, whereas if they are an active member at TripAdvisor, their review their will be easy for them and good for your business.
I recommend you read Phil Rozek's 2012 post on the local review ecosystem to get a quick education on the way in which data is shared between some of the review platforms (http://www.localvisibilitysystem.com/2012/07/06/the-local-business-reviews-ecosystem/). Great piece!
Hope I've pointed out some helpful ideas for you here. Just remember, a slow, diverse and steady acquisition of reviews over time is a much better strategy than trying to make a big splash all at once.
-
Hi Keri,
Great advice. That's something I do not know thank you for updating me on that as well.
I agree with Keri you have to read the terms of service for every single site you want to promote this time however I do believe that you should check all these things prior to ever running any sort of contest or promotion.
Sincerely,
Thomas
-
However, DO NOT mention Yelp. Yelp does not allow you to in any way encourage customers to leave reviews, even without a contest. Be sure to read and understand the guidelines of review sites before trying to encourage people to leave reviews.
-
Send out a newsletter 100% white and make sure you double opt in. Using Mail chimp, it AWeber or my fav mill33.com
Give them incentive to speak about your website on your Google plus or any other form. By offering either a contest some sort of a process of any sort. Money off whatever you are selling for an iPad something everyone kind of uses would be a universal gift to almost anybody. For a review of your services. Then ask them to post the an honest review of the best experience they've had with your corporation on Google +. Then have it so one out of X entries wins an iPad or something similar.
Please understand that it is very Gray hat to actually pay people to give you reviews.
So you do not want cross the line into actually paying them for review and all. We just want them to give an honest review of your service and it is okay to actually offer them prize for participating in your review.
I hope I was of help,
Thomas
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Domain: Product brand or company brand?
I work for a company with a very strong brand. We have a product with an even stronger brand. Right now, our product marketing pages look like this: https://www.company.com/product/.... I believe this leads to URL bloat, and I think we're probably missing some search rank on product-branded keywords that we would automatically get if, instead, our product marketing was here: https://www.product.com/.... An example of this structure is Colgate Palmolive (http://www.colgatepalmolive.com/en/us/corp), the makers of Colgate toothpaste (http://www.colgate.com/en/us/oc/). We already own both domains, but of course right now SEO rank is entirely owned by company.com. If we put product marketing at product.com, of course the company site can still link to the product site anywhere, and vice-versa, which means (I think) that both domains help each other out. But we wouldn't have to spend as much time worrying about the branded keyword in product content. I have found some posted opinion that tends to support my hunch here, but I haven't seen anything more concrete in support of it. Has anyone got direct experience with this question?
Branding | | hoosteeno0 -
Adwords alternative for beauty products
I was wondering if anybody knew of a good display network group for beauty products/anti-aging/wellness Adwords is doing okay but we would like to expand to other networks.
Branding | | Atomicx0 -
What is the best way to market/raise awareness about new clothing products?
We are an Outdoor Clothing Company that designs our own range. We primarily sell through Retailers & distribution networks, but around 2 years ago went online. We update our collections twice a year, and we really struggle to get attention and awareness of our new designs. Can anyone recommend the best practice for getting newly launched products successfully "marketed"?
Branding | | Target-Dry0 -
Could product sample giveaways be seen as 'paying for links'?
One of our main methods of advertising for my startup business is by sending samples to bloggers for review. I've read a lot of good things about this method and many of my competitors use it very well - I've even seen it suggested on the Moz blog several times in the past. The one thing I do worry about is that Google may see this as a form of 'link purchasing', as I'm offering something in exchange for a link and some of the blog posts may reference that fact (or at least most likely use the word "Review" - Which could be some kind of footprint?).
Branding | | azu25
We don't intend to ask for anchor texts, so at the very least that should look natural. What are your opinions? Could this be seen as paid linkbuilding or is it regarded as a natural marketing method? [EDIT]:
One idea we had was to potentially offer bloggers the chance to earn a portion of their purchase back by writing a review on their blog. They'd buy from us and let us know they have a blog, then we'd reimburse them some credit towards their next order for every blog post they write about us. Does this sound like a good idea or is this potentially more dangerous than simply offering free samples?0 -
Is having two websites that sell most of the same products a good idea?
Hi - Please read this in full before you answer. I currently own a website that sells kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanities that match the kitchens. This website has been operational since Arpil 2009 and we have built good rankings over the past 3 years. The site is operated on the Volusion platform (my mistake from the beginning, but we're kind of stuck now). We are in the process of designing a new website on the Magento platform - everything will be 100% different from look, speed, the way our customers shop, content, product skus, etc. The original plan was to keep the same domain but implement 301 redirects for subpages (subpage urls would have to change) and shut down the Volusion site and transfer the domain name to the Magento site. Our current website does make money right now and we would hate to lose rankings (even if only temporarily) during the switch or have something go wrong. What I am now thinking is keeping our current website on Volusion where it is currently making money and having the new Magento site have a new name/domain. The sites would sell most of the same products (the Magento site would sell more types of vanities and accessories though). The two sites would have different email addresses, phone numbers, and mailing addresses. Is it a bad idea to try and rank two websites selling pretty much the same thing? We have competitors out there that sell the same products as us, I would just prefer to compete with myself rather then someone else. Another issue is our name, one of our competitors names is extremely close to ours and we rank for pretty much all of the same keywords and customers get us mixed up all the time. This other site would have a different name (one that makes more sense). I want to make a decision that will not come back and bite us later. I know there are a lot of bigger sites that operate tons of niche sites, and of these website could eventually be similar to that. I really appreciate your help and guidance! Thanks
Branding | | tyler7560 -
Yelp Reviews and Google + reviews
After reading this SEOmoz thread http://www.seomoz.org/q/getting-reviews-to-stick-on-yelp-google I have learned that one cannot leave fake reviews because Google and yelp can see if the users are real by the user behavior. If one of your clients is happy with your service and they have never left a Google review or yelp review and you have them leave your company a review it will be filtered and not count. Google’s +1 is fairly new and I am not sure if many users use it. IMO a user is much more likely to Facebook "Like" something. Same goes for Yelp, I feel like many local services don’t have a high enough search volume to benefit from these areas. If a company cannot have a satisfied customer leave a review on Google + or Yelp because they are not active enough on these networks, the company does not receive the credit they deserve. I'm assuming SEOmoz has the contacts to make a change, well here is my idea: How about Yelp and Google + send a letter to the address of the review... (Same as a Google places listing, reviewer will receive letter and enter a pin number online to confirm review) this solves the issue and businesses can receive the credit they deserve. In all fairness if a company does right by someone, the company deserves the review, right? Otherwise this should not be a ranking factor IMHO!
Branding | | SEODinosaur0 -
Product Reviews
I have an ecommerce client who is willing to give a free product in return for a review of the product on their blog/site/etc.. Does anyone know of any sites where we can find these types of users?
Branding | | waqid0 -
Looking for examples of a B2B brand spinning off B2C products on to separate websites
Does anyone have any good examples or case studies? Right now I'm working on a site with both B2B and B2C products crowded onto one site. I'd love to find some examples of companies that have built their online B2B brand separately from their consumer products. I found the Constructive Playthings case study on Marketing Sherpa but nothing else.
Branding | | TexaSEO0