How to get more reviews for your business
Don’t ever underestimate the importance of reviews and testimonials; having quality reviews on your Google My Business, Facebook page and website can significantly increase the probability of acquiring new customers and driving them toward converting.
You may not have realised, but getting online reviews for your business can also positively impact your SEO scores as well. Having a good amount of quality online reviews boosts your visibility and search engines, like Google, are far more likely to trust businesses with glowing customer reviews.
Ensuring you have quality online reviews should be an essential component of your marketing strategy. You might be thinking “but how do I get more reviews for my business?” No stress, we are here to help! Here are our three key strategies to boost your online reviews!
Note: We recommend focusing on your Google My Business and Facebook pages, as we see prospective customers using these platforms the most to gain company information.
Provide an incentive
We are all susceptible to being a little lazy and unmotivated with tasks that don’t benefit us directly. If you are only asking your customers for a review once they have purchased from you, you’re probably not going to have much luck. To get more reviews on your Google My Business and Facebook pages, we recommend providing your customers with an incentive to do so. This will give them that little extra push of motivation to provide you with that top-quality online review that has been at the back of their mind!
Some of our favourite incentives include:
- 5-10% off your next purchase
- Extra points (if you offer a loyalty system)
- Entry into a competitions
- Free product/samples
NOTE: Ask for an honest review from your customers, but never guide them in a particular direction of the review. Any rewards or incentives should also be passed on, no matter the contents of the review.
Remind them!
People today live incredibly busy lives, so much so that providing you with that Google My Business or Facebook review is probably the last thing on their mind. We recommend using various methods to politely remind your customers to give you a review.
Be mindful of not hounding your customers as this probably won’t get you the online review you’re after! Some of our favourite reminder strategies to boost online review uptake include:
- Make friendly “review-reminder” posts to your social media accounts
- Send a friendly email or text message after customers have purchased from you
- Add “review-reminder” pop-ups to your website!
Respond to your reviews
Making sure you kindly and personally respond to each of your online reviews is our final recommendation for getting more reviews for your business. Whether good or bad, you should respond to ALL reviews of your business. This shows your customers (and prospects) that you truly care about your customers. This will also encourage your current and future customers to provide you with a review.
To get more reviews for your business, implement our above key strategies and we are sure you will see an increase of customer reviews rolling your way!
Are You Using Third-Party Review Services?
We are sure that using our strategies will help get you more reviews. But we want to make sure that you are aware of some of the third-party services you can use to fully optimise your customer reviews!
These third-party review tools collect valuable feedback from your previous customers. These reviews can then be displayed on your website as a badge for current and prospective customers to see!
Once you have enough reviews, these third-party reviews can then be used as ‘Seller Ratings’. Seller ratings are customer ratings and reviews from third-party services that have been licensed by Google. Seller ratings can also be used as an ad extension alongside your Google shopping and search ads. This has the benefit of standing out on the search engine results pages, creating trust and improving your click-through rate!
Our top three third party review services are:
- Google Customer Reviews: Free of charge
- Trustpilot: Offers a free plan and other paid options if you require more advanced features.
- REVIEWS.io: Only offers paid options, but does offer free trials so you can find what works best for you.
**All reviews will be visible on your Google Seller Rating page.**
Third-party review services do take some time to be successfully integrated on your website, but we promise that it will be worth it in the end!
