Month: December 2019

The end of the year is fast approaching. Hopefully, you have already started planning your marketing strategy for 2020 and Google is a significant component. If you haven’t, I suggest getting started so that you can begin the year strong. There are three key elements to winning on Google in 2020. 

1. Convince Google that you’re the authority in your market by consistently publishing high quality content on the niche(s) you want to dominate.
2. Make acquiring positive Google reviews a priority. This increases your credibility and the likelihood that a prospect will ultimately convert.
3. Don’t rely solely on Google Ads. Diversify your strategy by incorporating SEO. Many of your competitors rely on paid search, which leaves the window wide open for you to dominate organic search.

Convince Google That You’re the Authority in Your Market

By this, I mean convince Google that you are the authority within your niche or market. How do you accomplish this? By producing high quality content that your clientele will engage with on your website. By producing that high quality content, not only are you feeding the Google monster with content to index (Google loves fresh, quality content), but you’re also providing your clientele with content that they engage with, which increases your website’s engagement metrics and, in return, increases your rankings. Google likes to see those engagement metrics go up as they crawl and re-crawl your site throughout the year. And because we’re focusing on a specific niche or theme, we are telling Google that we are the authority in that niche or particular topic. When it comes to that particular content, you are the subject matter expert. 

Make Acquiring Positive Google Reviews a Priority

Generating positive reviews helps tell the world that you are credible and trustworthy. Think about how many times you’ve researched a business that you might want to work with only to come across their Google My Business page and see that they have a few reviews here and there and are averaging a 2 or 3 star rating. This might cause you to think, “You know what, I’ll pass. I don’t want to take a chance on doing business with these people and not have a good experience. I don’t have time for that, and I don’t want to waste money.” So you move on to the company that has five star reviews, and lots of them. Well, your customers are doing the same exact thing. So, make sure you’re soliciting reviews from your happy customers and accumulating those super valuable 5-star ratings on your Google My Business page. 

Don’t Rely Solely on Google Ads

I still see tons of companies rely primarily on Google Ads, and they don’t really put any emphasis on organic search. This blows my mind because there’s so much opportunity there, but this is to your benefit. If your competitors are focused primarily on pay-per-click advertising then that’s good for you because that opens up the window for you to jump in and dominate organic search. You don’t have to compete with them because they aren’t even thinking about organic search. Take advantage of this opportunity to become the authority in your market and box out your competitors on organic search. 

If you want to win on Google in 2020, embracing organic search and reviews is vital.

Are you struggling to improve your business’s online rating despite providing exceptional service? Unsure of how to acquire Google reviews, or how to increase your Google rating? Maybe you need consumers to leave positive reviews? In our inaugural vlog, we will discuss: 

1. Why it is important to pay attention to Google reviews 
2. How to implement a positive review process 
3. How to address negative reviews 

Pay Attention to Google Reviews

When it comes to online reviews, Google Reviews can have a drastic impact on your business. It’s the online review platform that everyone is paying attention to. There are other review platforms out there, such as Yelp, Health Grades for healthcare, or Avvo for legal, but at the end of the day, Google trumps them all. 

Consumers are making decisions every day regarding who to do business with based on the reviews of the providers that they are considering. If your business has less than four stars, you’re losing business. If you’re neglecting to respond to negative reviews, you are losing business. Even if you have satisfied customers — guess what — you’re losing business by not soliciting them to leave positive reviews. 

Implementing a Positive Review Process

Generating positive reviews doesn’t always have to require a complicated strategy. It can be as simple as asking a customer in person or by phone if they are satisfied with the service that you are providing. If they say “yes,” ask if they could take a minute to leave a review for your business on Google; it’s as simple as that. Ideally, you want to have a strategy or process in place to consistently solicit positive reviews from your clientele. But just getting started by asking for reviews is the best thing you can do right now so that you can begin accumulating those all-important four and five star reviews.

Address Negative Reviews

Your business should never have unaddressed negative Google reviews – this gives off the perception that your business does not care about satisfying its customers. If you have a negative review that has not been responded to, go ahead and address their concerns. Do not engage them in a negative manner. Just address the review and let them know that you hear their concerns and want to resolve the issue offline. This is ultimately the goal: take the conversation offline. 

In my past experience, I’ve seen instances where we respond to negative reviews on behalf of a client which in turn helps with public perception and lets people know that they care about what customers think. In the interim, our client is communicating with that unhappy customer offline, which ultimately leads to that once poor review being changed from a one star review into a five star review. This is done by simply asking the customer what they were unhappy with and helping them resolve the issue. Often, upon seeing that the client cared, the customer will change their negative review all on their own. 

In summary, if you’re not already managing Google reviews or even paying attention to them, start doing so because it is affecting your business. If you do not have a procedure in place to attain positive reviews, start one by simply asking satisfied customers to do so and build from that. Respond to any negative reviews you may have in a neutral fashion and take the conversation offline in the hope that they remove the review on their own or even change it to a higher rating.