Forget about Yelp or even social media reviews.
Google reviews are where it’s at.
While reviews in general are helpful for your business, Google reviews provide both valuable customer feedback and impressionable rankings.
Not all review platforms serve a direct purpose to your business. In fact, most live in their own echo chambers.
Truth is, Google is the only one that has direct effect on your search rankings.
Receiving Google reviews from customers directly impacts your local Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and improves the search-ability for your local business.
This includes both positive reviews and negative reviews alike.
Google reviews directly improve your Google my business listing which appeases the search engine gods.
This helps your business appear more frequently in Google maps.
And—not to mention—directly improves your Google search ranking.
What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
SEO is the steps you take to improve the quality and quantity of online traffic to your website through search engines. When most people talk SEO, they’re referring to Google.
Your search rankings dictate how likely someone is to find you when conducting a Google search. It’s important that your website continuously builds upon its SEO.
It’s a never-ending cycle when it comes to SEO.
It’s good to continuously add SEO specific content to your website either with blogs or thought leadership articles. However, it also needs to be done with your main web pages too so they show up in Google searches.
SEO is a big part of digital marketing. A marketing strategy often, if it’s digital, includes an SEO strategy.
However, SEO work can be expensive. And it takes time. Lots of it.
You need to either take the time to write long-form articles and blog posts. Or you need to pay someone to do the work. Depending on if that someone is in-house or contracted, costs can be quite high.
So how do you improve your SEO ranking without breaking the bank?
You get more Google reviews.
Importance of Google reviews for a small business
Google reviews can make a huge difference for any business really. More specifically, it can really boost rankings for small businesses.
That’s because it improves your local SEO: the area you operate in is more likely to find your business when searching online.
As a small business, online reviews are everything. Your star rating can dictate whether or not someone is going to do business with you. The words that are written about your business can directly impact your success.
There are plenty of other review sites that people utilize to leave feedback. We mentioned Yelp! earlier but there’s also:
- Amazon
- TripAdvisor
- Trustpilot
- Yahoo!
- And many more.
All these sites provide a platform for people to make decisions about your business. And, on the flip side, that same customer feedback is also beneficial to you in understanding your customers and their experiences.
What other review sites don’t do is directly improve your SEO ranking. It won’t increase your local search results the way that Google reviews do.
Getting a Google review is so important in 2024.
As the leading search engine on the internet, Google is king.
Why are reviews so important?
Reviews generally let the public know what to think of your business before ever doing business with you. The star ratings for your business can quickly filter any potential customers.
If they’re still interested, potential prospects will check the number of reviews.
The potential customer will then read the customer reviews. Often searching by most recent or most helpful.
These testimonials determine whether the potential customer experience is worth the visit.
Your online reputation directly influences purchasing decisions for potential customers.
Business reviews means the world to modern customers. They don’t want to waste their time and money on a bad experience. They inherently trust what others have to say about your business.
And it’s all thanks to your local search ranking. That’s especially what makes google reviews important.
The level of online exposure you receive by appealing to Google’s search engine is leagues above any other search engine or review website.
The more Google reviews you get, the better you rank on Google search and Google maps.
Good or bad.
But it’s more than high Google rankings. Yes, it improves the number of potential customers that might do business with you.
What reviews also provide is valuable feedback.
Feedback that you can then take to make improvements to your business.
Or feedback that confirms what you’re doing well.
Customer testimonials are everything these days. If you don’t have a line of sight on what your customers are saying about you, how can you ever improve your business?
Reviews create social proof that others can connect with. When you read your reviews and address them it creates brand trust within the community.
Whether they are great reviews or bad reviews, they are both incredibly valuable to you as a business.
So what are you waiting for? Choose Taptik and 10x your reviews today.