Positive Google Reviews-The Most Underrated Fourth Step in Your Proven Marketing System

Positive Google Reviews-The Most Underrated Fourth Step in Your Proven Marketing System

Welcome to episode 203 of The Determined Mom Show. I am your host, Amanda Tento, and I am very excited to talk to you today about positive Google reviews. This is the fourth step in your proven marketing system, and it is by far the most underrated step. And there are so many factors in Google reviews and Google ranking and all of those things.

But I wanna go ahead and just start by sharing some information and statistics with you because this is really crazy positive. Customer reviews are the number two ranking factor on Google. So why in the world do we not focus on these more because? A, we’re afraid to ask for them B we’re afraid of that rejection of people saying no.

And then C is a little time-consuming. It can be time-consuming to send every single customer or every single client a request for review. But if we do that, we are gonna reap the rewards in a huge way. Because Google my business is the number one ranking factor on Google and Google reviews is the number two ranking factor on Google.

The combination of just working on your Google, my business management, and your listing is seriously going to change your business. If you actually take the time to focus on those two things.

So let’s focus on a few reasons why these reviews are so important. First of all, Google loves authenticity. And what that means is it loves to make sure that your clients are actually your clients.

They’re actually, having that genuine interaction with your business, they’re leaving a genuine review and all of those things bump you up in Google’s algorithm. Even if it’s a negative review, if it’s a genuine review, Google still likes it.

And the reason for that is because it is able to see that you are not a spam business, you’re not fake and it increases its trust in your business in particular. So very interesting how Google’s algorithm can now learn all of these things and adjust all of those things.

Very cool stuff, but the most important thing is going to be keywords in your reviews. I know you can actually test this out right now if you’d like by just searching for a business and using some sort of adjective to describe that business.

So best haircut, best hair dye. Let me think of some other things. Fast coffee shops, great service, coffee shops, things like that. If you do that, you’re going to see Google my business reviews come up or, Google my business listings come up and within that, they’re going to have specific reviews pulled out.

Of those Google, my business profile listings or Google business profile listings. And those words you typed in to search for will be highlighted. So it is going to selectively choose the best businesses based on those keywords that you typed in. And if your customers leave, you review with those keywords.

You’re going to be the one that is showing up. That’s why reviews are so important and why keywords are such a huge part of reviews. Another reason why Google reviews are so important is that 93% of consumers in a 2017 podium study. Found or said that online reviews influenced their purchase decisions. 

82% of consumers said that the content of the review had convinced them to make a purchase and I’m gonna share a little anecdote, an anecdotal story with you about my mother. My mother is very anti-technology. 

She doesn’t have the internet. She has a computer. She uses it to print pictures off of a printer. Okay. There is no internet connection. She has a smartphone. Doesn’t really use it, but she’s interested in remodeling her bathroom. 

So we went to a bathroom showroom near us. She got a list of bathroom contractors, and she actually sat down and Googled every single contractor and read the reviews.

That is crazy. for someone that doesn’t use technology or someone that doesn’t, has no interest in those types of things, but she’s getting ready to make a large purchase. She’s getting ready to make an investment in her home and she wants to make sure she’s making the right choice.

So 97% of consumers, including my mother, apparently read reviews of local businesses. 

So this is an incredibly important part of you. Taking care of your marketing, taking care of your clients, and taking care of your potential clients. So reviews are not necessarily about your current client or your former client.

They’re really about getting that next client. So that is why Google reviews are the next, most important factor in your Proven marketing system. And 60% of all consumers say they read reviews for local businesses. 

So if you have a brick-and-mortar business, 60% of the people that walk in the door have probably already read a review for your business. That’s huge. You gotta think about every single person. So six out of 10 of the people that are walking through your door have read a review about your business and they already have some sort. 

Some sort of impression in their mind about your business, just based on the reviews that other people have left. Very important. On average consumers read about seven reviews before they will even try your business. So if you have less than seven reviews, how in the world are they gonna even find seven reviews to read? 

They’re probably not going to have confidence in your business. They’re not going to feel like they can trust your business. There are so many different parts of it, but having a system is. Collecting and replying to reviews is going to benefit your business and its Google ranking.

Set. Organically working for you, organically gathering those clients that are interested in purchasing your services. Right now, they’re ready. They’re searching, they’re reading reviews and they’re getting ready to make that buying decision. If you have your reviews there, Google will show your business.

So that’s the first step. And then the confidence comes in them reading the reviews and making that buying decision based on your business and your reviews and your former clients. So make sure that you have a system that collects data. And replying to reviews.

So replying is just as important as collecting if you’re collecting reviews and you do not reply to them, that is a miss and even negative reviews. This is something that’s always a sensitive topic for, especially for certain types of businesses like hair salons. If someone gets a haircut, they don’t like it and get a bad review about it. How do you sensitively respond to that?

Without offending the customer without creating more work for yourself without creating, and losing money. There are just so many different factors in that. But I will tell you that the money that you will lose by redoing their hair is nothing compared to the money that you will gain by offering to redo their hair in a huge public forum, such as Google.

In a very positive customer-oriented, positive experience that other customers in the future are going to read. I can’t tell you how many times I go onto someone’s Google business page and someone leaves a negative review and the owner replies even more negatively about that experience, blaming the customer. 

Does all kinds of. Nasty, if you will, things and say those things in that review, that is a turnoff for every future customer that you have, please don’t do that. Always try to resolve the issue, and give them your direct phone number in that review response. Make sure that they’re aware that you are there to solve their problem. 

I don’t care how much it costs you. It cost you $400 to solve this problem. It will be worth its weight and gold for you to make that investment in fixing that client’s problem or customer’s problem because they’re likely to amend their review.

First of all, the second thing is that other clients in the future are going to see how your business responds to end negative experiences. We all know that they happen. We all hope that it’s not going to happen to us when we go into a business and choose to spend our money there, but it does. We all know that it happens.

So if that business is willing and able to fix any problem that comes up with a negative experience for a customer, and they can show that online. That is huge. That is such a huge, Like just bonus for that business and for all of the customers that see that and say, Hey, that’s the kind of business that I wanna spend my money at.

They’re willing to do whatever it takes to make things right. The last thing that I wanna touch on about Google reviews is that it is a long-term game. You wanna gather as many reviews as you can, over the course of however long your business is open. The more reviews you have, the better, and the longer your business is open.

The more reviews you should have if you have a business and Google is now showing this. They’ll show that your business has been open for seven years or 20 years or five years or three years. If your business has been open for even a year, you better have at least like 20 reviews, like one a month.

So set that as a goal, and figure out what you want your goal to be, but you have to have reviews. If you don’t have a Google business profile, you must have a Google business profile. That’s another part of having those reviews and collecting them. 

You need to have somewhere to collect them. If you did not listen to episode two hundred and one, one hundred and ninety-nine, one hundred and ninety-seven or 195. These are all episodes where we talk about the six steps to a proven marketing system that easily gets you, customers. 

The first step is your website and the second step is SEO. The third step is Google’s business profile. And the fourth step is positive. Google reviews. We’re gonna have the next and last two steps coming up on the 14th of September and also the 22nd of September in episodes.

Number 205 and 207. And that will wrap up and really give you that big picture of what we’re talking about in a proven marketing system. Once you get this marketing system set up and you have all of the parts in place, you’re not going to have to rely on social media.

You’re not going to have to rely on posting all the time and engaging and doing all these things that take up the valuable time that you could be spending actually serving your customers.

This marketing system is designed. So that way you set it up. And you may have to occasionally, do some tweaks to it and invest a little bit in it. But overall it’s designed to grab those customers that are ready and willing to buy and looking for your services and pull them into your influence.

If you have any questions, you can always reach out to me at Amanda TDM-marketing.com. I hope you have a wonderful week and thank you for listening.

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