Product Reviews
-
Any one have good strategies to get product reviews from customers? Whether general or specific to G+, Yelp, On Page, local review sites, etc?
Thanks
-
Absolutely, and it's my pleasure to help!
-
I had seen that post by Rozek a while ago, but forgot about it, so thanks.
I think the key here is "a slow, diverse and steady acquisition of reviews over time is a much better strategy than trying to make a big splash all at once"
-
Hi IOSC,
Great question, and a really important point from Keri regarding never soliciting Yelp reviews from your customers. Their policies and filters are the most stringent of any review platform; Yelp wants all reviews to happen spontaneously.
When it comes to Google-based reviews, the best policy is to take it slow. Avoid sending out email blasts or running campaigns that will generate a large number of reviews at any one time. Google has also upped the stringency of their review filters of late and too great a velocity of incoming reviews can result in review loss for the business owner. Ask, perhaps, 1-3 happy customers a week if they'd like to review you. Then, if 1 or 2 of them do, this will be a gentle acquisition.
Also, take a look at your competitors' average number of reviews. If most of them in your locale have, say, 20 Google-based reviews, then aim for having 30 or 40 on your profile...don't aim for having 200. This is another area in which it is speculated that Google may become suspicious that reviews are being bought or falsely generated by the business.
A read through Google's Review Posting Guidelines will be very important for you:
https://support.google.com/places/answer/187622?hl=en
Another good step is to, again, look at your direct local competitors and see which 3rd party review sites Google is linking to from their Google+ Local pages in the 'reviews from around the web' section. This way, you may discover that, for your locale and industry, Google seems to be trusting certain sites like citysearch, judysbook or insiderpages most. This will signal to you that it's important for you to have customers review you there.
In actually setting about requesting reviews, a good process would be to obtain the customer's email at the time of service. Follow up 2-3 days after a service is rendered with a brief, friendly, well-crafted email, letting the customer know how much you would appreciate his review. You might list a few places (not including Yelp) where you have review profiles and let the customer know that you would like them to pick their favorite platform. While Google and Yelp reviews are typically the most important for local business owners, review diversity is very healthy insurance against massive review loss, should you ever lose all of your reviews on one site or another. Remember, not everyone is going to have a Google account, so leaving a Google based review could be a pain for them, whereas if they are an active member at TripAdvisor, their review their will be easy for them and good for your business.
I recommend you read Phil Rozek's 2012 post on the local review ecosystem to get a quick education on the way in which data is shared between some of the review platforms (http://www.localvisibilitysystem.com/2012/07/06/the-local-business-reviews-ecosystem/). Great piece!
Hope I've pointed out some helpful ideas for you here. Just remember, a slow, diverse and steady acquisition of reviews over time is a much better strategy than trying to make a big splash all at once.
-
Hi Keri,
Great advice. That's something I do not know thank you for updating me on that as well.
I agree with Keri you have to read the terms of service for every single site you want to promote this time however I do believe that you should check all these things prior to ever running any sort of contest or promotion.
Sincerely,
Thomas
-
However, DO NOT mention Yelp. Yelp does not allow you to in any way encourage customers to leave reviews, even without a contest. Be sure to read and understand the guidelines of review sites before trying to encourage people to leave reviews.
-
Send out a newsletter 100% white and make sure you double opt in. Using Mail chimp, it AWeber or my fav mill33.com
Give them incentive to speak about your website on your Google plus or any other form. By offering either a contest some sort of a process of any sort. Money off whatever you are selling for an iPad something everyone kind of uses would be a universal gift to almost anybody. For a review of your services. Then ask them to post the an honest review of the best experience they've had with your corporation on Google +. Then have it so one out of X entries wins an iPad or something similar.
Please understand that it is very Gray hat to actually pay people to give you reviews.
So you do not want cross the line into actually paying them for review and all. We just want them to give an honest review of your service and it is okay to actually offer them prize for participating in your review.
I hope I was of help,
Thomas
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
-
Best review sites for SaaS vendor
My client is a SaaS developer and I would like to begin some review acquisition activity. Just wondering if there is any knowledge out there with regards to what review sites google scrapes or uses as an indicator for such products (Yelp and Yellow pages not too helpful in this scenario). I have narrowed down Capterra, G2 Crowd and GetApp as having a good following - but any insights would be much appreciated.
Branding | | P.Myers0 -
Domain: Product brand or company brand?
I work for a company with a very strong brand. We have a product with an even stronger brand. Right now, our product marketing pages look like this: https://www.company.com/product/.... I believe this leads to URL bloat, and I think we're probably missing some search rank on product-branded keywords that we would automatically get if, instead, our product marketing was here: https://www.product.com/.... An example of this structure is Colgate Palmolive (http://www.colgatepalmolive.com/en/us/corp), the makers of Colgate toothpaste (http://www.colgate.com/en/us/oc/). We already own both domains, but of course right now SEO rank is entirely owned by company.com. If we put product marketing at product.com, of course the company site can still link to the product site anywhere, and vice-versa, which means (I think) that both domains help each other out. But we wouldn't have to spend as much time worrying about the branded keyword in product content. I have found some posted opinion that tends to support my hunch here, but I haven't seen anything more concrete in support of it. Has anyone got direct experience with this question?
Branding | | hoosteeno0 -
New Product. New Brand. Gmail/Authorship Questions. Need Advice.
I'm in the process of developing a new product and brand name and would like to create all the social media accounts (FB, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc), including G+ and want it to have it's own Gmail ID like ABCXYZ@gmail.com, so I can set up all accounts using this Gmail ID and if needed down the road, have someone else help manage the accounts so they have that login and my my main Gmail login. My question is, does Google frown upon setting up new Gmail IDs under the same name "Patrick McCoy" as I have my name tied to my personal Gmail account and my company's Gmail account "whiteboardcreations@gmail" both with G+ pages and URLs of /+PatrickMcCoy1 and /+PatrickMcCoy2 respectively. I'd like to have Authorship associated with the new product website and also want the new product to have it's own G+ Business Page to post updates, info, etc., which is why I'm getting a little confused on how I'd do it the right way, What would you do or does it really matter... can my new Gmail account of ABCXYZ@gmail just be /+PatrickMcCoy3 which is associated to my new product/brand name? Thank you and look forward to the feedback!
Branding | | WhiteboardCreations0 -
Should we use one domain with product-specific sub-domains or separate domains per product?
We are resellers of 4 separate products. Currently we have numerous different websites promoting each product, not all of them use a URL which has any real link to our business - it's only when you land on the page that it contains brand images, etc. We are in the process of redesigning and rebranding, and want to know what would be the best course of action to take in terms of domain registration. This is what we have currently, for example: - www.accounts-solutions.co.uk - This site deals with the resale and support of a branded accounts package. www.software-accounts-systems.co.uk - This site deals with the resale and support of a second branded accounts product. In terms of moving forward with new domains, which are going to contain our business name, our options are as follows: - OPTION 1 - www.our-business-name.co.uk/product1/etc, www.our-business-name.co.uk/product2/etc, www.our-business-name/product3/etc where all products are given separate sub-domains within our main business page. OPTION 2 - www.our-business-name-product1.co.uk/etc, www.our-business-name-product2.co.uk/etc, www.our-business-name-product3.co.uk/etc where each product we resell is given it's own separate domain entirely. Does anyone think one direction over another would give any benefits in terms of SEO, or would it not matter as long as each site was well optimised with a solid content and social strategy? My initial preference is for the first option, if only because of the continuity in terms of having one main company website with each product listed in sub-domains. Each landing page would obviously be optimised for each specific product/keyword, etc. so, from a user point of view, there shouldn't be any confusion between separate products. Also, would it be recommended to install 301 redirects from our existing www.accounts-solutions.co.uk, etc pages to the relevant new sites? Thanks, John
Branding | | HBPGroup0 -
Google plus reviews and multiple company profiles
We have a Google plus profile for our brand/ organisation which has become quite powerful. We are conscious that we don't want to miss out on local search queries so want a local page but we don't want to get rid of the company page that we have built. We are a nationwide website with one physical shop. Will having a local business Google plus page and a company Google plus page be seen as duplicate or in any way negative- especially if you are posting similar/ the same links and content on both pages. We also want to encourage reviews- is it possible to leave reviews on company pages or is it only though local G+ pages? There is a reviews tab but it does not seem possible to leave reviews. On the main Nike G+ page is it possible to leave reviews or would those companies have to set up local pages for people to review?
Branding | | VUK-SEO0 -
Path to getting reviews on Google and Yelp
Yelp and Google, what would be the right path customers have to follow in order for their reviews to be posted and more importantly, to stay there?
Branding | | echo10 -
What is the most appropriate way to invite writers and blogger to visit my hotel, in exchange for a review?
My client's own several hotels in Los Angeles. I thought it would be a good idea to ask writers and bloggers to visit the hotel, free of charge, in exchange for a review or write up. Of course, we want to be above board and up front with everything, including encouraging any review to be the truth and forthright, however I just not sure how best to ask them. Sometimes I ramble on and have trouble getting to the point and I know its really important here. Does anyone have any advice here? Many thanks!
Branding | | AaronDavis0 -
Negative Youtube Review - Reputation Management
One of our clients had a negative youtube review which is really hurting their reputation. The problem was solved and not even at fault of our client. The uploader of the video was contacted, but has forgotten the username/password on the account. If you search for the brand name of the company, this video shows up 2nd on organic google results which is pretty embarrassing. What strategies would you all use to minimize the effects of this video? Would you buy an adword for the company name to push the video down?
Branding | | jastos0
