Now more than ever before, customers rely on reviews to purchase products. One of the top reasons for this is that advertising has become more deceptive in consumers’ eyes. With the rise of dropshippers and cheap products marketed as high-end goods, customers tend to believe each other way more than they do large companies or corporations.
According to Bizrate, over 55% of all customers read reviews before purchasing a product. A similar study conducted by BrightLocal found that nearly 80% of buyers trust reviews as much as they make a personal recommendation from a family member or a friend.
So, as we can see, reviews are essential for any business, and today we’ll be talking about how you can ensure your clients get more and thus sell more. Speaking of selling, WPMU DEV’s all-in-one platform makes it easy for anyone to create, manage, and sell websites. Get 20% off any of their plans. Free trial included.
But first, let’s have a quick chat about other benefits of Google and Facebook reviews.
Why Your Clients Need Reviews
- A Major Credibility Boost – a company with dozens of reviews has been around longer and is more trusted by its customers than one that has no reviews at all.
- Generates Interest for a Business – Positive customer experiences serve as excellent forms of advertising as well as social proof. It is pretty much a completely free way to market your company and the best part of it all. It’s an advertisement people trust.
- Excellent SEO Benefits – Let’s face it, even your grandma probably Google’s the best places to eat nowadays. It is why reviews are a must-have component of your local SEO strategy.
How To Get More Google and Facebook Reviews for Your Clients
1. Ask and Show
Ask happy customers to leave a review after they’re done with the purchase, service, or whatever you’re offering on your website. Customers aren’t likely to leave reviews of their own volition, so make sure you ask – it’s the most surefire way actually to get a review.
In addition, ensure you also provide a quick tutorial on how they can leave the said review. Even a tiny snippet of text saying something along the lines of “Click the button to leave a review” should suffice.
2. All About Timing
When it comes to asking for reviews, timing is crucial. The best moment to ask for a review is the same day as the sale, while things are still fresh. If you ask for a review a few weeks later, they are unlikely to be as enthusiastic. Plus, most people will likely forget about the purchase altogether and won’t go out of their way to leave a review on your page.
While asking for a review immediately after the purchase has been completed is great, another time has been proven effective. If you offer order tracking, you can also ask for a review after the product has arrived.
This way, customers can be sure of their reviews and be honest. They are also more likely to provide one after they get the product, as they now hold it in their hands, and well, if they’re happy with it, they just might be inclined to give feedback.
3. Don’t Ask for a Rave Review, Ask for Feedback
Sometimes, customers like your product, but there’s been a shipping issue, or they just got an essential they have no strong feelings about.
So instead of saying, “Care to tell us how much you love our products,” ask them for feedback, and maybe even add a few follow-up questions that could help you better your services in the future. It’s much more realistic and shows an incentive to improve on what you already have.
4. Add Direct Links to Your Website
The website should feature both a call to action to write a review and a list of existing reviews. These not only encourage potential customers to become customers, but they also provide additional motivation for existing customers to post a review.
Because reviews are usually rather keyword-rich, including them on your website so that Google can read them is excellent for SEO. So, make sure to add a review link to your website. You can use screenshots for the page, but they should ideally be text format.
Besides just drawing in new customers and being suitable for SEO, making the process of leaving a review simple is more likely to entice customers to do it. If there’s a three-step process to leaving a review – let’s face it, the likelihood of anyone reviewing your products is slim. People don’t like to waste their time.
5. Add and Shorten Your Review Shortcut
Find the “Get your first review” (or “Get additional reviews”) card in your Google My Business account’s Home tab. Copy the link from “Share review form” to your clipboard, and add it to your page. Your consumer will have to go online to leave a review, so make a review shortcut link and include it on your website.
For Facebook reviews, the process is quite similar. Go to your Facebook Business Page, and under the “Reviews” section, locate star reviews. Select the “Embed” option and copy the code.
After you get the links in question, it’s also recommended to use a link shortener. There are plenty of options for this on the web, many of which are free. But if you don’t feel like looking for one, let us suggest TinyURL or Bitly.
6. Create a Review Page on Your Website
While every strategy we mentioned thus far does work, one of the best is having a dedicated review page on your website.
This page should be populated with keyword-rich text, screenshots, and as many testimonials as possible. Don’t forget to add a CTA to entice others to check out the reviews to leave one themselves.
7. Optimize for Local SEO
Using local citation services can help improve your client’s local SEO and visibility, making it easier for customers to find and review them. Ensure that your clients are listed accurately on various online directories.
Wrapping Up
Getting more reviews is good for business, but they do seem hard to get – when was the last time you reviewed a business?
Luckily some strategies can help your clients leave reviews. While there exists no magic wand you can wave around, the six strategies we mentioned today do work slowly but surely.
