Online reviews are one of the most effective and powerful ways to influence sales, conversions, and customer confidence in your brand or product. With millions of people now heading to Google to search for reviews and customer feedback before purchasing pretty much anything, your business will likely be heavily influenced by what your potential customers see in the search rankings even before they get to your site.
When looking at the internet as a whole, this affects businesses of all sizes – whether you are in the travel industry, sales, customer service, ecommerce or even a person brand.
With sites like Yelp, Google Local, and Trip Advisor often ranking at the top of Google for most review related search results, it’s not just about making sure your site ranks at the top of Google, it’s also about making sure you have positive reviews and a trusted reputation across all of the mediums as well.
To help with this process, today we are going to highlight some of the best tips from Neil Patel on how to boost your business with reviews. Whether you’re after the SEO benefits or the trust-building conversion optimization benefits of customer reviews, there’s a lot that you can do to proactively improve your brand’s digital footprint with proactive management of reviews, and Patel has a lot of killer advice on the subject.
Let’s get started.
Get Creative with Your Customer Recommendations and Testimonials
When it comes to gaining the trust and business from a new customer, recommendations and testimonials go a long way – even if the audience doesn’t know that person recommending the product or service directly.
With this in mind, you will want to get as many testimonials for your brand and business as possible. If you are going to wait around for random positive emails and comments to come in, they’re likely going to be far and few between.
Instead, you are going to need to get creative with not only how you collect feedback from your customers, but also how you showcase them as well.
Here are a few recommended tips from Neil on how to best accomplish this.
- Facebook Reviews
- LinkedIn Recommendations
- YouTube Video Reviews
- Local Search Directories
- Niche Review Sites
- Rewarding Customers Who Review
- Google Alerts and Social Mentions
Each of these recommendations can be used differently, but the most important thing is to try and make it as easy, quick, and fun as possible for your audience to leave feedback. Social media platforms like Facebook make this extremely simple, as users can visit your Facebook Page and click a star rating, and also leave their own feedback.
He also wisely recommends that you set up alerts for new social posts or web pages that include mentions of your brand name, so that you can be notified when a new review goes live. This way, you can jump in on the conversation, thank the reviewer for his or her feedback, and perform some “damage control” if there’s anything negative in the content.
And finally, Neil advises his audience to consider incentivizing customers to leave reviews for your business with some kind of reward program. This can help steer the conversation towards vibes of delight and positivity, while simultaneously maximizing the volume of reviews that your business has amassed.
If you would like to learn more about each of these methods, you can read his full resource guide on this process here.
Connect with Other Industry Experts You’ve Worked With
We’ve already stressed the importance of getting reviews out there for people to see when they start searching for your brand or business. But there are many other ways to make a great first impression and gain new customers as well.
One such way is to connect with any influencers or industry experts that you may already be working with. For example, check out this Neil Patel review that was written up and posted on the blog from one of his previous customers. They found so much value in his courses and consulting, that they took the time to let their audience know about it and share it with others.
The benefit here to a business or brand is HUGE — and not just in the aspect of getting another testimonial.
When someone writes about your business or brand in a positive way, it works wonders across the board. It can help with social media exposure, search rankings, and also be used as yet another testimonial.
Even better, if that person is an influencer or has a following online, their recommendation or feedback is likely to go even further and could result in an immediate impact to your business and brand.
Use Social Profiles to Rank in Google
As previously mentioned, one of the most immediate first impressions that someone is going to find when they search for your name or brand online, is through the many different premium rating sites in Google. In most cases, you aren’t going to be able to controlled the feedback or ratings left on these sites, but what you can do is try to rank above them with your own websites and social profiles.
Since Google loves sites like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn, it’s in your best interest to try and rank these pages for your name and brand. If you were to visit Google and type in “Neil Patel”, you would see something like this… with his main websites and social profiles ranking for his personal name and brand. This is what all businesses and brands should be striving for.
Not only will this help with getting people directly to your own sites and brands, it can also help improve your reputation and customer loyalty in the process.
By making it easy for your audience to find your main websites and brand online, they will be more likely to shop or purchase right away. At the same time, by having potential customers hit your websites, blog, or social profiles first, it’s another great way to showcase your best customer feedback, reviews and rating, and also any awards to top achievements you might want to be known for.
To learn more about how to start ranking your social profiles higher in Google, you can do so by reading this social media SEO expert guide.
How to Grow Your Business and Brand with Online Reviews
As you can see, there are plenty of benefits to using online reviews, ratings, and customer testimonials to grow your brand and business.
At the same time, you shouldn’t just be focusing your efforts on sites like Google Local and Yelp.
The more ownership you have over your own sites and where your reviews and customer feedback is posted, the better control over the first impression that will be delivered to your audience.
Follow these steps and start putting more emphasis on the power of online reviews and customer feedback to increase ROI and new business for your brand.