How useful is Google Plus to a business?
-
Is Google Plus really very beneficial to a business, as our experience is that this is where difficult customers or even competitors can write bad reviews?
-
Although Google is not so famous, I found it to be helpful in 2 ways personally.
Some groups also regularly publish content unique to a company niche, of course. If you'd like to join these groups, then you're still under the same group.
A Google+ page is much more powerful to have for my company (business Coaching in Pakistan) than it has a personal profile. In particular it will only work for you if you're a local company and have a checked position on Google Post Card.
-
Hi Li,
Google+ Local is pretty much essential for any local business. These days, direct links to the Google+ Local page are very hard to find due to cosmetic changes Google has been making to the way they present data, but, the information you provide in the Google My Business dashboard is what will then be displayed in the local packs of results, the local finder view, Google Maps and any Knowledge Panel results you have. So, yes, it's really important.
While it's true that customers now have the freedom to leave reviews whenever and wherever they wish to, there are 3 very important things to consider regarding this.
1. All of your competitors are in the same boat. They face the reality of both positive and negative reviews, and to fail to join in is likely going to cost you business.
2. The best insurance against earning too many negative reviews is awesome customer service. Do your best job in training your staff to treat customers excellently and you should mainly earn positive reviews.
3. And here's something quite fascinating. Surveys like this one from GetFiveStars indicate that a core motivation for consumers is to reward excellent service. While it's true that some consumers are also motivated to leave reviews when service was really negative, it can lessen concern to realize that the business owner is actually in a position of great control if the excellent service he provides can generate the positive reviews he wants to earn.
Hope this helps!
-
Hey,
I assume this is why you don't want to show the reviews feature? Google+ is a great tool if you are a local business. Being in the UK, we tend to find that not a lot of people use it as a social platform and is solely used to help businesses get found in the local pack in search results.
There are several things you can do to sort review issues such as the ones you mentioned. With difficult customers, I would recommend implementing a feedback process that allows customers to express their thoughts but 'behind closed doors'. Try and resolve the issue via a phone call or email before they decide to leave a bad review.
My other recommendation would be to implement a review strategy, so if someone does leave a bad review on your Google+ page, you will have plenty of other good reviews to balance it out.
To deal with competitors leaving fake reviews, I would suggest you read this post: https://www.bowlerhat.co.uk/how-to-remove-fake-reviews-on-google/
I hope this helps
https://www.bowlerhat.co.uk/how-to-remove-fake-reviews-on-google/
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
-
What is the best practice way to attribute a Google Review?
An example might be a local directory site, where multiple businesses are featured. To flesh out the respective business profiles, Google Reviews are included. Copying/pasting would be the definition of duplicate content. I wonder though if hyperlinking to the review itself would be enough? For a random example: "you literally have never had better ice cream. cutest shop in charleston sc" - Mandee Jalbert, Google Review Google doesn't appear to have a review embed option- am I wrong? If not, would the above attribution via the "Google Review" hyperlink be sufficient to head off any potential dings for duplicate content? Thanks! Stephen
Reviews and Ratings | | PerfectPitchConcepts
Thanks for your thoughts! I feel like this might make for a good presentation at our SoundBoard conference someday soon.0 -
Google My Business right had side block disapeared for a brand search
Hi Just redeveloped my site and went live end of April Since then whenever i do a branded search the GMB 'pack' has always shown on the right hand side whenever i do a branded search but it has disapeared as of the last couple of days. Any ideas why this can happen ? and is it anything to worry about or just a google 'glitch' that should right itself soon? If not any ideas how to fix ? (accounts and website all properly linked) etc When i go to GMB dashboard and click 'View on Search' it does show up as it should, but not when i go to do a google search for the brand name !? All Best Dan
Reviews and Ratings | | Dan-Lawrence1 -
What hosting provider do you use? I think mine is letting down my SEO!
Hello I am curious to what hosting plans you are using, and what you would recommend. I am currently paying £30 per month for shared reseller hosting with tsohost and having problems every week with my most popular website (1-10k hits a day). website gets internal errors and intermittently goes extremely slow. I have about 10 sites in total most very small traffic. So just looking for something fast, good for WordPress sites and ideally good for migrating over onto. Please let me know your recommendations. My budget is £100 per month, ideally a little less. Thanks! Steven
Reviews and Ratings | | stevenbinks320 -
Client wants to delete Google My Business Due to Bad Review
My client has received a bad review on Google and although has other good ones, wants to delete the current Google My Business page and open a new one. I disagree with this strategy but need some evidence to back it up. They are ranking well and so I don't want to upset the cart. I need reasons not to in terms of potentially harming rankings. Am I right that this could impact?
Reviews and Ratings | | AL123al3 -
Rich snippets not showing up in Google
Would anyone know why after adding schema.org markup to a websites products, reviews and ratings why it still isn't showing up in Google SERPs? Does Google pick and choose who's rich snippets get displayed on a random basis or some other criteria?
Reviews and Ratings | | znotes0 -
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 -
Does advertising on Yelp help a business get more Yelp reviews?
I've gotten this question from a few clients. There seems to be a correlation in some cases between paying to advertise on Yelp, and the volume of reviews received. Of course, correlation does not necessarily equal causation. And I can attest to the fact that other clients who have at times advertised on Yelp did not even see a correlation. Has anyone else seen this correlation? And if so, can you speak to the possible causation or lack thereof?
Reviews and Ratings | | irapasternack0 -
Google places and "people also search for"
I run a yoga studio in Toronto, Canada. I googled "Fireflow Yoga". The Google Places listing shows up on the right, and underneath it there is a listing for 5 competitors under the title "people also search for". Is there any way to turn it off that that "People also search for" does not appear as part of the listing? I also did a reciprocal search of the 5 competitors connected to our listing. They also have 5 "people also search for" on their places pages but we are not listed on their pages. What can I do to work towards Google showing our listing under "People also search for" when they look up similar businesses nearby? thanks. blBFSKU
Reviews and Ratings | | FireflowJ0