Motivating Clients to leave reviews
-
We are a bankruptcy law firm and therefore getting clients to post a public review is challenging, as they don't wish to disclose the fact that they filed for bankruptcy.
I recently audited our local competitors. Most just have one or two reviews. But 2 firms in particular have 6- 10x the amount of what is "normal" for our practice area, and in addition they are 1.) all 5-star reviews 2.) the only review they had ever posted by that person (seems unnatural that your first and only review is of a bankruptcy attorney). This is the exact same fact pattern for both attorneys, so I am wondering if they are using a special tool or some how incentivizing clients to leave a 5 star review...is there any way to know if they are using unethical practices?
So my question: how do we motivate happy clients to leave a public review when they the nature of our practice is a private matter? Is there a helpful tool or method people have found good success with? Is there a way to leave anonymous or first name only reviews on Google Plus? We have a lot of review on the testimonials section of our website, but clients who submit ask us to change their name for privacy. Could we somehow post these on Google Plus for the clients, while still keeping within the regulations of Google?
Thanks in advance for your insights!
-
Hi Julie,
What you are describing about your competitor's reviews does sound suspicious. While you may not be able to figure out exactly what they've done, you do have the option of reporting spam to Google if you become convinced that spam is involved.
Regarding posting reviews to Google on behalf of your clients, that is actually also spam, so not a plan you'd want to pursue.
Regarding the names used on Google-based reviews, for a couple of years, it was required that users have a Google+ account to leave a review and that this had to reflect their actual name. Just a few weeks ago, Google revoked this policy and users with any type of Google account can now leave a review again. So, if my Google account is HappyPuppy, I can leave a review ... it doesn't have to include my full name anymore. I've tested this, and it seems to be true.
So, this may assist some of your customers who would like to leave a review for you on Google but don't want their full name on it. But, at the same time, your industry would certainly seem to be one where getting reviews is going to be a bit tougher than average given that a) privacy is a major concern for clients and b) your competitor who may be spamming his way to a high review count sticks out like a sore thumb for having 10x as many reviews as anyone else.
Your question made me do a random search for 'bankruptcy attorney denver':
I see everything from 0 to 50+ reviews on the listings of the top 10 companies Google is pulling. And, yep, I do see a pretty high percentage of first-time reviews on one of the profiles I looked at. So, there could be something a bit odd about 50+ people being eager to openly rave about the services received from a bankruptcy lawyer, or maybe people really do feel that way. At any rate, it looks like Denver bankruptcy attorneys are getting more views, on average, than what you are seeing in your city, so there may be hope if you have truly loyal clients who do not mind speaking about their experience and whom you can advise about the recent change Google has made to its requirements for leaving a review.
I'd love to see someone write a good, up-to-date blog post on this topic of earning reviews in sensitive industries. If anyone in the community knows of a good one, please share!
-
The best time to ask for a review is once you have successfully helped your customers, I see a lot of sites ( especially eCommerce / Service related ) get a good review if they can email the customer and ask for one immediately after a service or product is purchased. ( assuming they had a good experience )
You can easily generate a direct link that you can embed in your email using this tool . ( NOTE: I was involved in making that )
I don't believe you can leave a review on Google anonymously. But you can create a review page on your website where you can publish these reviews. Bu sure to markup the review to stand out in the SERPs.
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
-
User ganarated reviews and SEO
Have ideas on how to present hundreds of user ganarated reviews on website in a Google friendly way? "Load more" / calling APIs / or pagination seems to have disadvantages for ranking for this content. Any suggestions, inspiration, tools and articles appreciated.
Reviews and Ratings | | Joseph-Green-SEO0 -
How many reviews should i have previewed for marking up a page?
I have a separate /reviews URL, but want to markup the main page with aggregate reviews and also add preview reviews on there. Roughly, how many reviews do I need on the page in order to markup with aggregate review?
Reviews and Ratings | | imjonny1230 -
Adding Google Reviews to Testimonials Page
Can anyone verify if it is allowable to add Google reviews to your testimonials page? I know you can't use schema on these reviews. If it is allowable, should these be images so that they don't get indexed and flag duplicate content? Thank you in advance for your help. Rita
Reviews and Ratings | | AAEPA20110 -
Google Review Guidelines update.
OK Moz peeps... Right then, I have just been reading an article over on SEO RoundTable from Barry Schwartz. NEW Local review guidelines for businesses - take a look. It in effect alludes to Google stamping all over review schema and snippets, third party review solutions/providers and really trying to limit how they are used. I have interpreted the new guidelines to say that you can no longer mark up and use external stats on your own site in the form of aggregate ratings from the likes of TrustPilot, Feefo, Revoo (some uk review sites) and more.... These were the two key lines for more Only include reviews that have been directly produced by your site, not reviews from third-party sites or syndicated reviews. Aggregators or content providers must have no commercial agreements paid or otherwise with businesses to provide reviews. What does everyone else think? and how soon before people get penalised (if ever) for marking up external stats to make your own site and services look more favourable... Could definately be a slap in the face for Serp CTR and onpage conversion optimisation. Also how do people expect this to affect PPC review rating going forward. Will Partner sites become a thing of the past? Looking forward to a good discussion here 🙂 PS - I am not staff at Moz just have a t-shirt which is my avatar. I am not sure why below my avatar it suggests I am Staff due to the tag added to it. Is anyone else getting that on their profile too?
Reviews and Ratings | | TimHolmes0 -
How to Properly Add Simple Review Schema to Your Website For a Review Pulled from a Third-Party Site
Hello, I'd like to pull the content of a review from a third-party site and put it on my client's website. My plan is to add review schema to this content but I want to make sure everything I'm doing is white hat before I implement. Can someone please tell me if the following example is okay to do? For example...
Reviews and Ratings | | Etna
I'd like to pull an entire review from Yelp and put it on my website. I would link out to the review on Yelp and then give credit to Yelp in the publisher section of the schema. If I give credit to the name of the reviewer and where the review is being pulled from (in this case Yelp) on both the actual website as well as in the schema, is this white hat and something I could implement? Also, is "simple review" markup the correct markup to use in this scenario?
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/reviews Thanks in advance for your help!!1 -
How does decimal rounding of reviews to stars work in ios appstore? Starting from which average review score to get full 5 star rating?
How does decimal rounding of reviews to stars work in ios appstore?
Reviews and Ratings | | lcourse
Starting from which average review score to get full 5 star rating? Duolingo has a 5 star rating, but I doubt that they really have an all time review average larger than 4,75. In the google playstore their average of the android version is 4,6. Does anybody know how apple calculates the star ratings or has an URL reference where this is explained?0 -
Indeed reviews
Hi guys, Is there any way I can respond or have a review deleted from one of my clients' profile on Indeed.com? Is there a mediation process of any sort? Thanks.
Reviews and Ratings | | echo10 -
Google+ Places Reviews
Hi There, Am I right in saying that Google Places reviews cannot be reviewed easily if at all. I have advised a client wirth a negative review to instead respond to the review and get clients to place good quality reviews. However, they seem to think if I ring Google they will just remove them and that Google has confirmed this. I am pretty sure I am right but before I jump through pointless hurdles with Google to be told I am, I want to make sure. Has anyone been successful in removing negative reviews from Google. Kind Regards Neil
Reviews and Ratings | | nezona0