It’s 2018, and your business’s online presence has everything to do with consumer’s acknowledgment of and investment into your product or service
But with the likings of Yelp cracking down on online review solicitation — as they call it — it’s leaving many companies wondering how to get those reviews they need to stand out amongst their competitors in the online world.
When your business is amongst numerous others that perform similar tasks or offer the same types of services to consumers, standing out amongst the masses may be your biggest challenge to date. In that sense, you’re not alone.
Sure, you could hire a company to handle your marketing and get you seen, but shouldn’t there be an easier way to get noticed amongst the thousands of rival companies you have? Although Yelp no longer allows the solicitation of online reviews for their platform, that doesn’t mean there aren’t others that are more than OK with you generating traffic to their sites.
Let’s break that idea down a little further. Let’s say you run a computer repair shop, serving your local community within a select city. For you, customers are king, and your online reputation is likely all that sets you apart from your competitors. The fact that Yelp is now on the lookout for those breaking their newly implemented policy, you’re wondering how to drive up visibility on local searches and stand out on various other review platforms on the web.
Because the list of online review platforms is extensive to say the least, grabbing reviews on every site that exists may not be your best choice of action, especially when some sites will flale in comparison to the likings of Google reviews, TripAdvisor and Facebook; to name a few.
Surely you can ask each customer you come into contact with to review your business on the platform of their choice by verbal exchange in-house, but let’s be honest: who’s going to remember to get online after a days work to review your business; nevertheless remember to do so?
Safeguarding your business’s online reputation goes much further than simply asking for reviews and hoping for a positive outcome. Luckily for you, there are numerous platforms that can monitor your online presence across the web for you automatically. Take ReviewPush, for example. This is an online reputation management platform that does more than simply organize the numerous reviews regarding your business from the deepest, darkest corners of the internet.
Online Review Optimization from ReviewPush on Vimeo.
Email Campaigns
Tools like ReviewPush actually allow you to integrate technological advancements into your reputation monitoring strategy. For example, ReviewPush takes the initiative and effort out of asking for reviews by digitizing this process.
Instead of focusing on customers in-store and relying on their memory to grant you a review, you can set up email campaigns that target previous customers, reminding them of their experience with your business; urging them to leave feedback. This way, they’re reminded at their earliest convenience, giving them the freedom to choose to review your business or not at their discretion. Not only does this make your customer feel appreciated, it shows them your business values consumers and their experience.
Landing Pages
You’ve officially joined the email campaign train, and are seeing the results pour in. Now that you’ve witnessed digital marketing work to your advantage, it’s time to take it to the next level and create some landing pages for your customers via emails or feedback forms on your business’ website.
The enticing factor of these landing pages is that it sends the customer directly to a feedback page where they can leave their response without having to have any specific log in or account made in order to do so.
Embedded Feedback Form
If you’re implementing landing pages, the next natural step to inspiring others to review your business is by embedding these reviews from your landing pages directly onto your website. The benefits of having a live-stream of up-to-date reviews on your site are that consumers searching for your business know you’re still alive and operating as a business, thus potentially bringing in new clientele.
It also can provoke prior customers to leave a review when they’re visiting your site for various bits of information. There’s also SEO value in this, as it will keep your website active, thus telling Google you’re still an active business; placing you higher on a Google search quora.
Text Review Requests
If you have a way of collecting numbers, either in store or online, having a system in place that shoots out text requests for reviews is another tactic to acquire more online reviews. If you aren’t sure how these systems work, it’s best practice to let a professional handle this for you.
Many online reputation management platforms have mobile apps to subsidize their platform, and through the mobile app, you can send requests via text message to those numbers you’ve gathered in-house or through your site. Since mobile runs large conglomerates of many various industries, adapting to this new standard of accessibility is in your business’s best interest.
Ultimately, if you’re not fully managing your online reputation; there’s no time like the present. Not only can it save face and give your business a voice, it aids in acquiring more reviews for your business; allowing you to gain traction with local SEO and stand out amongst the competition.
About the Author
Lee McNeil is CEO of ReviewPush. ReviewPush aim to make online review management easy. You shouldn’t have to bend over backwards to manage your online reviews. We do this by providing a simple platform with intuitive features and functionality.
