5 Tips for Building Online Reviews for Your Business

If a potential customer searches for your business online, what will they find? Here are some stats you should be paying attention to (courtesy of Findstack.com):

• 72% of customers say they use Google reviews to find businesses.
• 94% of consumers say they have avoided doing business with a company due to a bad review.
• Businesses with 200+ online reviews do two times more in revenue compared with businesses that don’t. 

It’s no longer true that a great product or service will sell itself. Potential customers want to know what their peers think of your product or service. That’s why building online reviews is a critical component of your digital marketing strategy as a business owner!

In this post, we’ll be covering five tips for building online reviews for your business.

Tip 1: Focus on the Top Reputation Management Platforms 

Did you know that 88% of all online reviews come from four major platforms? As a business owner, your time is valuable, so you should focus your reputation management marketing strategy on the top platforms. Factors such as the type of business you run will determine what business listing site to direct customer reviews to, but here are a few of the top platforms:

• Google
• Yelp
• Facebook
• TripAdvisor
• Better Business Bureau

If you don’t have profiles on these sites, your first step should be to claim or create your business page.

Tip 2: Start Building Online Reviews One Platform at a Time

Building online reviews on every platform can seem overwhelming when you have limited time to invest in the execution of your business’s marketing strategy. A good tip for getting started on building online reviews is to focus on one platform at a time.

We recommend building online reviews on the most popular sites first—so work on getting customer reviews on Google! Since Google is one of the largest search engines in the world, garnering positive reviews on your Google My Business page will help your business gain visibility in search results and reach more potential customers.

It’s a best practice to set a goal for how many reviews you want to reach and to start sending your clients to the platform you’re focused on.

Tip 3: Positive Reviews Can Come from Social Media Sites

Getting your business reviewed on Google is a great start, but don’t forget about your social media channels’ review sites! 

It’s expected that more than half of American adults will purchase a product on social media in 2022. Whether you’re selling goods or providing services, positive reviews on your social media pages will be indicative of the customer experience and may help influence whether a potential customer decides to patronize your business.

Each corner of your digital footprint counts!

Tip 4: Solicit Positive Reviews from Past Clients (and Colleagues)

If you know people who have loved your product or service, don’t be shy about asking them for reviews. If they loved your business, they’ll probably have no problem promoting it…but you do have to ask!

You may be surprised to learn that SMS (text) open rates are three times higher than that of email marketing. So if you’re looking for a quick way to build your online reviews, sending a link to your review platform via text is a great marketing strategy. 

If you don’t have consent to text, another option is to build an email template with links that take customers directly to your review sites. You can do this straight from your own email account or use a CRM service to do a review workflow. 

LinkedIn is an often-underrated social media marketing tool, and it can be another great review site to solicit positive peer and customer feedback to build your online reputation. 

Tip 5: Use a Review Aggregator

If you want to make a big splash when it comes to online reviews, a review aggregator may be the right fit for you, and there are plenty of platforms out there to choose from—including ours! 

At Real Marketing Solutions, we help our clients clean up their online listings and build a positive online footprint through our reputation management program. Sending customized messages to clients at various stages in the process of working with you is one strategy that can get you great results.

We also offer 24/7 monitoring of your online review platforms and respond on behalf of you to ensure that every customer has a great experience when interacting with your company. 

No matter how hard you work, negative reviews can crop up. Our team uses a response strategy to help engage the client in conversation and with the goal of ending their experience with you and your business on a positive note—and maybe changing their mind.

To learn about RMS’s reputation management services, click here. 

Bonus Tip: Manage Negative Reviews (and Thank Customers for Positive Feedback!)

They call it reputation management for a reason! Regardless of how high your star rating is, one negative review can derail the momentum of your business and should be addressed by a personalized response, as opposed to a canned apology. 

There’s an art to responding to bad reviews, and the speed at which you respond is also important. 

Customers who leave your business good reviews deserve some love, too. Send them a simple note to thank them for taking the time to share their experience. Your show of gratitude may go a long way in making them a repeat customer!