Get Vital Google Reviews and Learn the 5 Best Ways to Entice Clients to Submit Them

If you’re looking for a better search engine ranking for your site, it’s worth keeping in mind that one of the key factors of Google’s algorithm are the reviews that you receive on social media. The review scores are not only formed by the testimonials submitted via your Google Business listing, but also those left on Checkatrade, Facebook – in fact, ANY review site that utilises Rich Snippets.

Simply put, Rich Snippets is a hidden data markup that websites can add to their existing HTML, which allows search engines to understand what information is contained on a page. For instance, the star ratings from Facebook reviews are automatically submitted to Google via a Rich Snippet, which displays it accordingly in the search results.

You may not be aware that you’re looking at Rich Snippet data when you browse Google’s results. For instance, for blog posts, the date of the article is shown in the search. Using another example, on job sites, the location and salary automatically appear on Google’s pages too! It’s a fantastic way for sites to work in tandem with search engines in order to maximise click throughs, and to increase the quality of the visitors that are received.

These Rich Snippets are not just for display purposes though, as these review scores work in tandem with Google’s own rating that it pulls from your Google Business page listing in order give it another variable which will determine your own website ranking, therefore – the more reviews you have, the better your website will perform as a result (so long as they are positive that is!). So, what’s the best way to go about getting reviews?

Attracting The Testimonials

A common tactic for businesses is often to pre-qualify the potential reviews they get by emailing clients separately and asking for feedback, before pointing anyone with a five star rating towards Google and Facebook, and sending a tailored email to anyone who scores any lower.

Ever been on a phone app which randomly asks you to provide your star rating? If you give it 5 out of 5 you’ll get taken to the app store for a review, but if you enter anything less, it’ll just thank you for your feedback – cheeky!

It’s the same as most iPhone apps… ever been on one which randomly asks you to rate the app whilst using it? If you click 5-stars you’ll get taken to the app store for a review, but if you enter anything less, it’ll just thank you for your feedback – cheeky!

However, if you know you’re going to get good feedback already, you might want to send them a direct link to your Google Business reviews section, and you can do so by providing them with a special link which utilises what’s called a “Places ID” – a unique value associated with your business. To get this, you need to go to the Google Developers page and search your business name, before noting down the relevant ID number that appears underneath it.

This ID can then be appended to a couple of special URLs, which can either show your reviews, or point to the review form:

View Your Reviews: https://search.google.com/local/reviews?placeid=<YOURPLACEID>
Write a Review: https://search.google.com/local/writereview?placeid=<YOURPLACEID>

So, in order to entice reviews out of people, it’s best to strike whilst the iron’s hot, and this can be done in the following circumstances:

• Customers are excited the moment they receive their product – ask them whilst they’re still hot!
• Give the customer a coupon code in return for a review – it’s always a sweetener.
• If customers talk to you in a positive way about your business, catch them on their good day.
• Give them a nudge after they contact you on social media and you solve their query or problem
• Try your luck on special times of year – like birthdays, and/or seasonal periods like Christmas!

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