Local SEO - Review's Strategy
-
I'm trying to brainstorm some ideas for obtaining positive reviews for a my client who's a local business on Yelp and Google+.
I think it's best to capture a customer in the "happy moment" after a successful transaction with that business. I'm thinking integrating the option for customers to leave a review on Yelp or Google+ during the transaction process would be best.
Do you have any suggestions or experiences on the best way to integrate this into a transaction process where a customer physically walks into their business to make the transaction? (it's an Auto Body Shop BTW)
Also any other strategies for getting customers to give reviews?
Much appreciated!
-
Sure, good response. It is a waste of time as well with Yelp as if the reviewers are not trusted Yelp reviewers then the review will be at best ignored and at worst suspicious.
-
No worries! Glad it helped. Reviews are one of those things it is easy to overlook (or over think!). Get a solid process in place, be consistent and it will take care of itself over time.
-
Hi Steve,
You've received some very thoughtful replies here. I am just popping in to say that while the above suggestions sound good to me if applied to Google+ reviews, Yelp does not permit review solicitation in any form. In other words, your client should not be asking customers to review them on Yelp in any way. Not verbally, via email, via CTAs on the website, etc. Their policy is the most stringent in the industry - they want all reviews to be the results of spontaneous activity on the part of consumers. So, while I think you've received some excellent advice here, I would not recommend applying it to Yelp. Hope this saves you some headaches!
-
This makes 100% sense to me, and I think I'll be taking this approach to integrating review gathering workflow for my clients. Thanks a lot for the idea Marcus!
-
Hey Steve
It really can be fairly simple to generate positive reviews for the business and I find that all you really have to do is
A) Ask
B) Make it really, really easy for people to do soAsking at the point of sale in a bricks and mortar shop is not going to work AND it's important to note that asking people to conduct a review is okay but soliciting a review whilst that user is on your property is not okay and could cause problems down the road (all reviews from same IP address etc). It's also a bit mean to pressure people like that so not a good policy even if we ignore online.
A simple approach we have followed works like this:
- Obtain an email for your customer at point of sale
- Email the customer to ask them if they were happy with the service
- If the customer responds in a positive way then ask them for a review
Now, this tackles two important areas
- We ensure the user is happy who we are asking to place the review
- We make it easy for them by linking directly to where we wish the review to be placed and including instructions
You can also steer the ship a bit here (not in a manipulative way) and ask them to mention the location, service etc. This makes the content of the reviews solid for search purposes and useful for other users considering using your service. Win Win.
We go into more detail here with some simple email templates etc: http://www.bowlerhat.co.uk/blog/a-review-strategy-for-local-seo/
Hope that helps! Getting good reviews requires that folks are actually good at what they do (which I am sure your client are) and then asking people to place the review whilst making it as easy as possible to do so.
Refs:
-
If you have a great product then do not bring this up while they are buying from you because this way it looks like you are hungry about it. For one of my client what i did was I setup an automated email that will go after a week of their purchase and ask them to share their experience with others in the community.
Remember you have to have a great product or else this idea can kill your local business.
-
Hi Steve,
You should check out Customer Lobby. They solicit phone reviews from the clients and have different packages. One one of our team member's recent visits to a local medical clinic, the doctor's secretary actually handed out business cards with links to Yelp and Google+ review pages for the doctor and was encouraging everyone to leave their feedback on the sites... Something to think about.
Cheers,
SEO5..
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
-
Page optimised and SEO ranking
Hi SEO is new to myself and I'm still trying to get my head round it. My friend and myself run a DJ company in our spare time but we are desperately trying to rank higher to increase our visibility. we have worked hard on our page optimisation and scoring high 90's, we'd love to invest in someone to do it, but simply dont have that kinda cash at the moment. I'm aware that some pages need meta description and alt image text, which is what I'm now working on, but even other sites with lower percentage are ranking higher. is this due to recent changes and google not ranking our pages? Will our ranking improve over time and how long should it be before we see any changes.
Branding | | Bluice0 -
Backlinks in PDF's created on my site causing algo demotion.
I have a few questions. My website allows people to create custom 'puzzle' and education (i.e. "math") worksheets - enter your 'school spelling list' - I can make a crossword or many other puzzles (PDF form) from it. I recently realized that I was being penalized for the backlink I placed in each one. I placed in each PDF ("Created with mydomain.com Crossword maker") - I was linking the "crossword maker" back to my site. BAD! I am now aware of this. I have recently disavowed several hundred backlinks where people have posted those PDF's online - and have started to see a big recovery in ranking and traffic. My questions about my citation: "Created with mydomain.com Crossword maker":
Branding | | Addict
1. Moving forward, can I leave the same citation on each PDF - but just link 'mydomain.com' back to my domain (not the keywords, just the domain)
2. If not, can I just leave the unlinked text on the PDF: i.e. "Created with mydomain.com Crossword maker" -no embeded links at all.
3. Is it OK to assert that they must leave the "citation" (linked/unlinked?) to post them on their website as a part of my terms of use? If not, is there an acceptable way to get credit for giving away free custom content - other than asking for an 'optional' link back? I have thousands more of these that I would need to end up disavowing so knowing exactly what is permissible is extremely important to me moving forward. I have watched this whiteboard Friday: https://mza.bundledseo.com/blog/backlinks-maximize-benefits-avoid-problems-whiteboard-friday (I am looking for clarification on what I can put in the original content I essentially syndicate - the content is different on each and every PDF, except for the citation). Thank you so much for your time and help!0 -
Brand Search Results- how do you make sure spammy links don't hurt your brand
We are seeing a spammer start ranking #4 for our branded search result on google. This could potentially be hurting our brand. Any suggestions that have worked for you recently? For more context we already have: Create Social profiles (Linkedin, G+, FB etc) which are engaged and frequently updated Analyzed Domain Authority, Links and recency of the spammy article. The domain and the page authority seems weak, and the spammy article is dated Dec of last year Looked at various posts on http://moz.com/community/q/reputation-management. Thanks in advance!
Branding | | SEMEnthusiast0 -
How to balance International and Local Search targeting?
Hi guys, A local company provides tourism services in Spain but its potential clients reside abroad in USA mostly. This means we have 2 search potentials:
Branding | | emerald
1. For reaching international clients via international search in advance before they arrive (preferred).
2. Last minute booking potential for local serach when they have already arrived and seek a service while already here. So far we have targeted USA and international searches solely and ignored local search. We have tried to target our website to USA in GoogleWebmasterTools and link building location mostly. But what about local search? Would establishing ourselves in Local Search (google places and maps etc) be a confusion for Google and mess with our good rankings in US? Or would it add to our potential of additional last minute local seaches? What's the best approach in a situation like this? Is a happy medium possible? Thanks in advance.0 -
Any ideas on how to leverage celebrity spottings for SEO?
Recently, a Hollywood celebrity was seen wearing a product manufactured by one of my clients. Any out of the box ideas on how to leverage this for SEO?
Branding | | Czarto0 -
.us domain extension for US locales
I have a large US travel site and am looking to make targeted pages for specific locations, attractions etc around the United States. With many of the TLD's already purchased for these niches, I thought about using the .us extension as it seemed relevant to the topics. Does this hurt seo possibilities or does the .us extension come across as spammy?
Branding | | Millibit2 -
One big site or lots of little sites? Which is better for SEO and my business in general?
I realize there are some aspects of what I'm asking that only I can answer. With that said, I'm looking for some discussion about the pros / cons of each, and what are the most important factors that will push me one way or another. Let's say I have a company that has three products. One big brand, three little brands. Each of the little brands is focused on a particular sub-niche, all of which are in the general health & wellness niche. Either, I could create a large site for the big brand, with subsections for each product, and work hard on turning that domain into a goto site, with lots of articles, etc. The domain name for this one would be a made up word so I can fully control the search results. Or, another strategy would be to create smaller, "sniper" sites for each product, maybe even sites for each major search term that is interested in that product. These sites would have fewer articles. Descriptive, exact match domain names. Which is the best strategy? #1, #2, or a mixture of both? #1 seems legitimate, #2 seems a bit spammy. What are the pros and cons to each? Can anyone speak from experience about both these practices?
Branding | | monetize-2660060
