Get Your Local Business Found on Google - The Importance of Online Reviews

This is the 5th post in our series about Getting Your Local Business Found in Google Searches. You can see our previous posts on our Geek Notes blog. Online Reviews are second only to your Google My Business (GMB) listing as a necessary factor to getting found on Google. To that end, here are a few statistics that highlight just how important online reviews are:

• 97% of people read reviews for local businesses.
• 90% of respondents who recalled reading online reviews claimed that positive online reviews influenced buying decisions, while 86 percent said buying decisions were influenced by negative online reviews.
• 89% of consumers read businesses' responses to reviews
• 93% of people who use mobile to research, go on to complete a purchase of a product or service. Most purchases happen in physical stores.
• 3.3 is the minimum star rating of a business consumers would engage with.
• 68% of consumers will leave a review if asked. 

These data support just how important online reviews of your local business are! There are two ways you can get better at this - either (1) do it yourself (DIY), or (2) seek assistance with either a Review System or a Review Service. More about those in a subsequent post.

For now let's focus on how you can manage the online review process yourself (e.g. DIY). There are 3 keys to success here:

1. You need to ASK your customers or clients to review your business. You need to TRAIN your staff to do the same. You need to do this CONSISTENTLY.
2. You need to make it EASY for your customers/clients to leave a review.
3. You need,if at all possible, to FOLLOW-UP with every customer/client who either does or doesn't leave a review.

In our next post, we'll give you step-by-step hints on how to do each of these three steps. For right now, let's just agree that:

• Online reviews are important to the success of your local business.
• You can choose to undertake the management of online reviews yourself (the least expensive), or engage a Review System/Service (more costly) to assist.
• If you choose to DIY this process, you need to be able to meet the three keys to success listed above.

Stay tuned for more detailed info in our next post!