Customer Reviews
-
Is it OK to only get reviews on Google and not on other citation directories?
Should I focus on Google+ or Google Places?
-
Hi Bob,
I like Chris' answer, and will add to this. The naturalness of an overall review profile is important to think about. Additionally, a big reason I would not recommend getting only Google Places/+ reviews is that this product has been plagued time and again with massive review loss for years. The Google And Your Business Forum is swimming in reports of business owners having lost many or all of their reviews. If this happens and they don't happen to have any reviews any place else, then they are suddenly in a review-less state with absolutely no record of their good service.
So, while Google Places/+ Local is likely to be one of the most important sites to earn reviews on, it is definitely not the only site and a diverse review profile is good insurance against massive review loss. I recommend that businesses let their customers pick their own favorite review sites. You can steer some clients, if you like, but in the end, if a customer only likes to use Angie's List, by all means, thank her for reviewing the company there. Don't ever insist that she only use Google Places/+.
-
Bob,
Real reviews will happen as a result of people's interaction your company and they will inevitably put them where they think best. Note that, in order to write a review on a company's Google+ page, the reviewing customer must also have a G+ account - just having a gmail account isn't enough anymore. Those without a G+ account will have to writer their reviews elsewhere.
Reviews aren't the same as citations. Citations typically refer to your name, address, and phone number and those you really need to get from a wide variety of sources to strengthen your G+ Local business page visibility. You can started finding out about and populating those sources at getlisted.org.
Here's a good article by Mike Blumenthal on encouraging customer reviews and for good measure, here's what Google says about making sure your reviews on G+ are useful, honest, and written by real people.
-
Google Places is now Google+ Local, so the two are identical.
I don't know why you would only focus on reviews for G+, you should try to get good reviews on whatever prominent directories your site is featured on, such as Yelp.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Itunes review in serps
Does anyone know how Google takes the rating from iTunes? I have an app, and the iTunes page, appears in the results with a 1 star rating, even if we have on iTunes 4 stars. I need to know how Google reads the iTunes page, and how it displays the info from it
Image & Video Optimization | | Silviu0 -
Google Review requirements
I'm considering asking some of our clients to leave a Google review on places page. Currently we've focused more on LinkedIn recommendations but this has not impact on local search results. So my questions is what do our clients require to leave a Google review? Do they need a Google + profile? Do they need a Google + business page? Or would a personal gmail account suffice? Appreciate any feedback you have!
Image & Video Optimization | | Nick_Johansson0 -
Google only posting some reviews?
A doctor of mine recently complained that his patient went on to his Google+ Local listing and submitted a review, but it never showed up. The patient can see it on his own page, but it's not viewable publicly. Any ideas or posts you've seen about this? Thanks! Tom
Image & Video Optimization | | TomBristol0 -
Google+Local Reviews have gone? Any ideas?
Hi Since Google switched places to Google+ Local lots of the reviews that were on the listing are no longer showing? A customer of mine brought up the point when visiting the store today, when they are logged into Google they can see their review under Your Activity, however when they are logged out the only review is listed under 1 Review from everyone and the review is no longer being shown? Any ideas on what is going on? Also with local search / places optimisation has the best practice guidelines changed now that is transformed into Google+ Local? If so it would be great to share any links on getting the most out of this new + local service
Image & Video Optimization | | ocelot0 -
Genuine Reciprocal Google Places Reviews, is that OK?
I have a client who works with other businesses, is it OK to have reciprocal reviews going on, they would be genuine reviews both both sides as they work for each other. Is that OK? Is it best for my client to use the Google Account that holds their Google Places page for doing the reviews? Or should they have a separate account for writing reviews, not associated with their business? I would appreciate your thoughts on this please? Many thanks Leo
Image & Video Optimization | | Rosewood0 -
Reviews not showing up in Google Places
We have had several clients tell us their customers are giving them reviews on Google Places, but the reviews are either not showing up at all, or they show up for one day and then disappear. Has anyone else seen this happening with their clients, or with their own website? What can we do to get Google to post the reviews or find out why the reviews are not appearing on the places listing? Thanks for any help.
Image & Video Optimization | | GregWalt0 -
How do your encourage customer reviews? Here are my ideas.
Customer reviews are important for local SEO. The problem is getting people to review your website. What are your ideas for encouraging customers to review? *Give away incentives and ask people to review. E.g. movie tickets, discount on products.
Image & Video Optimization | | qlkasdjfw
*Ask people to review in sales process.
*Have an ipad ready & custom review website for ipad - ask people to review.
*Page for 'review us' on the site.
*If you are a 'google favorite places' print out QR code for the page & position in-store.
*Make a custom QR printout to a 'review us' page, position in-store.2 -
Getting reviews to stick on Yelp & Google
Do you have any tricks to getting reviews to stick on yelp? Whenever we ask out customers to review us on there their reviews end up getting "detected" as fakes. I have tried it out myself, and the only way i've gotten them to stick is making several reviews of various different local businesses with average ratings and then dropping one in for the client with a better rating. Perhaps this is a little on the blackhat/greyhat side of things. But if our customers are legitimatly trying to review us and it doesn't stick, i don't feel all that bad taking this route, the only real problem is time consumed. What about google? has anyone had any luck gaining more reviews for their client on google?
Image & Video Optimization | | adriandg0
