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
-
Respond to Google Review as Business or Individual?
Hello Moz World! My agency has never had a great strategy for reputation management, but have begun acquiring some Google reviews. We know it's best practice to respond – but I've never considered whether I should respond as an individual or with our company's GMB? The owner of our GMB is "Engenius" – a general admin account for our agency. I'm also a user on the account, as the "owner," but I'm technically not the owner of our company. Should the owner be added as a user and respond directly? Or is it okay to respond as "Engenius" (the brand)? Or can I respond as the "owner," though I'm not technically? I know ultimately it's probably not a huge deal, but any thoughts would be awesome! Thanks!
Reviews and Ratings | | brooksmanley0 -
Google Reviews Rich Snippets
Howdy Moz fans! Does anyone know if you can use Google Reviews as a Rich Snippet in the actual Google listing for your business? It seems strange that you can have this for widgets like Trust Pilot and Reviews.co.uk and not Google Reviews. Surely Google allow you to display Google reviews on your site that can then be used for schema mark up? Maybe they don't because those reviews are used for local searches? Hope this makes sense. David.
Reviews and Ratings | | Slumberjac0 -
Does anyone use an embeddable Google review widget?
Currently, I use an embeddable Yelp review widget on my site. The widget I use has been helpful, but is no longer actively maintained and I'd prefer to show Google reviews instead. Does anyone have a recommendation for a widget to embed Google reviews?
Reviews and Ratings | | Dions0 -
Review page set up
Hey Gang! So I have a client with multiple locations in different metros. I would like to set up a page in WordPress for each metro that the technician can give to the happy client so they can review us. I would like to have a link to my GMB, Yelp, Yellowpages, and whatever else I can grab. Is there a badass plugin for this or what would you guys do? Much love.
Reviews and Ratings | | Meier0 -
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 -
Will adding schema markup to copied Google reviews show up in organic search?
Google no longer favors my client's industry with Google reviews in local Snack Pack results, but a national competitor has markup for site-based reviews that are showing up in organic results, which is a big, shiny, advantage. Rather than have to solicit reviews in two places (Google and the site), I'm wondering if it would be possible/advisable to copy and paste the Google reviews into the site and mark them up there, in an attempt to get Google to feature the rating in the organic SERP result? I don't know if this would work though, since I'm guessing part of the reason that Google accepts the competitor reviews is because they are verified purchases, which wouldn't be possible just cutting and pasting. But is it worth a try? It's too bad though, Google is effectively only showing handpicked, "national" reviews, which does local customers a disservice. Thank you!
Reviews and Ratings | | PerfectPitchConcepts1 -
Started using a 3rd Party Review Company for our Website. Do we need to show the reviews or is a widget (badge) with a link back to review company sufficient enough from an SEO ranking point of view?
Hi All, We have started to use a 3rd party review company and now have the choice of either implementing their re-supplied widgets (Java ) on our site showing customer reviews or use their an API to get this information. The widgets (Java) , would be loaded once the page is actually loaded so I am not sure how and if google will read this information if at all? If we use a widget then we won't be able to implement it with Schema.org although we will be able to use rich snippets to it will appear on any PPC (once we have had 30 reviews). If we go down the API route, it's more expensive for us but we can use the review schema.org for this. Does anyone have any experience of what works best for them ?.. We have a choice of having a widget showing latest reviews or just a badge (which is actually a link to the review site showing our reviews). From an SEO point of view, is one better than the other ? Does google actually read the content of the review or is the link back to the 3rd party review company sufficient enough to help with rankings etc. Am I correct in assuming that by linking to a 3rd party review company and showing our reviews on our site , this will help with rankings as even though the content in the reviews doesn't really say much ,. I did see it was a ranking factor on the survey but not sure how google uses this. ? I've read up some information on reviews etc but wondered what the general consensus was with what others found works best for them Any help greatly appreciated Pete
Reviews and Ratings | | PeteC120 -
Bing Local Lists Yelp Reviews From Another Business At Shared Address
Hi everyone, I am having a problem with Bing local listings and am hoping someone might be able to help me out. Basically I am working with a business that shares an address with another (separate legal entities, different owners, different phone, different domain). Both are bathroom remodelers, but one uses the space as a storefront/showroom, the other is strictly a service area business and uses the space for storage/office space (this is the one I am working with). I have claimed their listing on bing local and set it to hide the address. The problem I am having is that for whatever reason, Bing local is associating the yelp page of business 1 (showroom) with business 2 (business 2 is not currently on yelp). My question: what options do I have to remedy this? Is there a way to request a manual review of sorts to have this fixed? Would it be sufficient to create/verify a yelp page for business 2 and hope that Bing picks up on this?
Reviews and Ratings | | rbmac0
