In fact, Google Maps has 154.4 million monthly users and is the most popular navigation app in the US alone!

Not only has Google Maps update changed the way reviews are seen, but it may also change the way you use Google Business Profile.

For example, if you were to look up “bakeries near me”, the marker would show the rating of every bakery nearby that’s registered to show on Google Maps.

Similar to this: 

With that said, let’s explore why you need business reviews and how to update your Google Business Profile to display your reviews on Google Maps:

How Do You Make Google Business Profile Display Reviews?

Once your Google Business Profile (formally known as Google My Business) is verified, you can submit the location of your business and it will display your reviews of your business on Google Maps. 

Here’s how you can verify your business using Google Maps:

1. Make sure you’re signed in to your Google account
2. Open Google Maps on your desktop, iPhone, or android phone
3. Enter your business name in the search bar
4. Click your business’s name
5. Click “claim this business” or click “manage now”
6. To pick a different business click on, “I own or manage another business”
7. Select your verification option and follow the on-screen steps 

There are three different ways to add your business:

1. Enter your address in the search bar. On the left, in “Business Profile,” click “add your business.”
2.  Right-click or tap on the map at the top-left corner. Then click “Add your business”
3. At the bottom of the menu click “Add your business.”

It is also vital to make sure that you fill out all of the information that Google asks you about your business. 

As a reminder, local residents who search for your business in the Google Maps app  will now see ratings along with the location marker. 

Does Google Reviews on Google Maps Affect Local SEO?

The short answer is yes. Google reviews do help improve search rankings.

Google states, “High-quality, positive reviews from your customers can improve your business visibility and increase the likelihood that a shopper will visit your location.”

While many factors are involved in search rankings, online customer reviews can be a strong signal to search engines that your website is trustworthy and authoritative. 

Because local searches contribute 22.6% of website traffic, there are huge opportunities for your local audience to see your business when searching for local brands near them.

In fact, a staggering 94% of consumers say a bad review has convinced them to avoid a business.

With that mentioned, owner responses can be a great way to start a positive two-way conversation about your business with your customers. 

Positive Google Business Profile customer reviews can also be beneficial for SEO. 

Additionally, Moz has previously described responding to online reviews as a chance for public relations on social media that can influence your business listing on the SERPs. 

Here are a few ways to ask for a Google business review: 

• Make it easy with a link
• Personalize your message but keep it short
• Ask your customer to write a review after a purchase is completed
• Mention it on social media
• Include your review link in weekly newsletters 

Considering how this update can benefit you as a business owner and attract new potential customers, you should motivate your existing customers to leave a positive review if they enjoyed your service.

How to Reply to a Google Maps Review

As a business owner, you can’t change or delete a review, but your customer can do it if they want to. 

Most customers will feel motivated to change the review for a more positive one if they had a negative experience but were attended to promptly by your customer service team.

To reply to a review, follow these steps:

First, you need to verify your Google Business profile. If you haven’t verified it yet, follow the steps described here to do it. 

When on your desktop, open the Google Maps app. 

1. You can reply to reviews from either Google Search or the Google Maps app. 
2. If using Google Maps, tap your Account Circle and select Your Business Profile.
3. If using Google Search, type in your business name in the search bar directly.
4. Click on Reviews. 
5. You’ll see all of the reviews and their star rating in a chronological list. Select the review you’d like to reply to and type in your answer. 
6. Click Reply.

Negative reviews will lower your star rating, but they can be turned into a net positive if you assist the customer promptly.

Take note of their negative experience and avoid making your reply personal or about the customer. 

If there’s an issue that can be solved by email or phone, provide the customer with your contact lines in the reply and help them solve the matter. Google also recommends signing off with your name or initials to make your reply come off as authentic.

An updated review will show upcoming customers that your business cares about their clients’ experience and improving it even after a negative experience. 

Quick note: replies might not show up on Google immediately. 

The good thing is that the reviewer will get a notification the instant you reply to their review, meaning they can update it as soon as they read your reply.

Rules for Google reviews

For your customers to add ratings on reviews, they also have to follow Google’s content policy and review policy.  

Reviews might be removed from their page for policy violations like inappropriate content or spam, and these reviews aren’t reinstated. 

Google doesn’t allow anonymous reviews, so user information will be disclosed to the public. 

Your Online Reputation Matters For SEO

Google Maps’ most straightforward benefit is helping users find your business location. Now, visitors will find out the ratings of each nearby business that matches their search query to better understand which one to choose.

If business ratings were important in the past, now they are a necessary component to keep updated for SEO.

Not only will positive ratings increase your business’ visibility, they’ll also serve as a reference for customers nearby searching on Google Maps.

The HOTH offers a ton of free SEO tools and resources. 

Schedule your call with one of our experts today and don’t forget to sign up now! 

The post New Google Maps Update – Your Online Reputation Is EVEN More Important Now appeared first on The HOTH.

Reputation, according to a World Economic Forum study, is directly responsible for more than 25% on average of a business’s market value.

In 2015, Apple hit the top end of this average when its corporate reputation contributed approximately 46%—or a whopping $320bn to Apple’s $700bn total market value.

These figures represent how reputation management has become a high-value business essential.

But how can other businesses manage their own reputations and steer their reputations into high-value status, especially businesses that don’t have the wherewithal of Apple’s mighty war chest?

We found a good alternative: Get awesome online reviews.

Google is shifting a TON of it’s resources to displaying reputation UP front and it’s becoming more and more important for rankings, traffic, AND sales.

In fact, having reviews on sales pages can increase conversions by 18%.

Reviews can help drive search rankings up too. Turns out, the more reviews a business has, the higher they show up on search results.

Reviews also have a considerable statistical effect on the decisions customers make. These days, 93% of U.S. consumers always check online reviews before purchasing.

In our case, using this simple strategy, our online reviews campaign got our business from 0 to 4.9 stars in just one month.

From almost nothing, we have since gained thosands of positive reviews spread across multiple websites.

We wanted to give you a system to replicate this success, so, from all the steps we took, we created a repeatable system that produced consistent results.

Also, we made sure to only gather reviews from real customers on Google, Facebook, Yelp, and other trusted review sites.

Once set up, we implemented this process to boost one of our clients’ reputation.

The result? An impressive 4.8 star rating; up from a disappointing 3.5 in less than 2 months.

So if rapidly getting the same 5-star reviews that boost business reputation and increase conversions is something you’re interested in, then read on.

In this article, we’re going to share exactly how we:

• Rapidly collect positive reviews
• Prevent negative reviews
• Make more money by using reviews in marketing
• Save more time by automating the process

Let’s get to it!

I. How To Rapidly Collect Positive Reviews

There are lots of ways to get more reviews, let’s go over a few that we used.

What’s cool is that these strategies are mostly set-it-and-forget-it, meaning that once they are set up, we keep collecting reviews every single day on autopilot!

Here’s what we did:

A. Add widgets to your website

With an effectivity rate of 63%, websites are considered the most effective marketing channel. These are your visitors’ crucial first look at your brand. If they like what they see, you just might convert them into paying customers.

We take advantage of positive first impressions by adding widgets to the website that ask visitors for reviews right after they do either of the following: confirm their interest to join a newsletter, try a service, head straight to purchase, or go through with any other conversion goal.

Visitors who have already taken this step further in the funnel are more likely to leave positive reviews. After all, why would a visitor sign up for the blog, free trial, or buy from the site if they were anything less than impressed?

B. Create an email autoresponder to ask for reviews

Email is the second most effective marketing channel with an effectivity rate of 52%.

After a visitor leaves your website, an email is your second chance to remind them of your existence: whether to finally convince the undecided or to remind the already convinced of their good first impression.

So for every successful conversion, we program an email autoresponder that solicits customer reviews.

Again, a new signup is a warm lead that has expressed interest in what you have to offer. This person is more likely to leave a positive review.

C. Ask for reviews in every email signature

In 2018, business users are expected to send/receive 140 emails per DAY.

Take advantage of this volume by embedding a star rating survey in your company’s email signatures.

Think about how many emails your company sends per day – Each one is a chance to collect a new review!

II. How To Prevent Negative Reviews

More often than not, negative reviews come as a result of misunderstandings that, if not handled properly, can damage your company’s hard-earned reputation.

Once reviews start pouring in, how can you neutralize your chances of getting negative reviews?

Simple. Pre-qualify your reviewers so that, in the event of a negative review, you can check in with the customer privately to resolve the mistake that caused the bad review in the first place.

Take customers who give a 5-star rating straight to the social sharing page.

Meanwhile, customers who rate lower should be led to a different page where they can explain their bad experience. This will be directed to customer service and someone from the team can take over and rectify the situation in private.

III. How To Earn More By Using Reviews In Your Marketing

So you’ve managed your reviews religiously. It’s time to multiply the value of these glowing reviews by showcasing them to more people.

Here’s how:

A. Aggregate all reviews

Keep tabs on all the reviews about your company (even unsolicited ones) scattered across the web. Keep these in a database for tracking and further use.

B. Display reviews on sales pages close to pricing info

A glowing recommendation, strategically placed, can have the power to convince a second-guessing customer to finally click that purchase button.

Amazon uses this method, displaying reviews right on the same page where you purchase the product. Did we mention that having reviews on sales pages can increase conversions by 18%?

Take a cue and use this strategic placement as your final push to convert the hesitant.

C. Create a reviews page

Dedicate a whole page in your website just for online reviews. You can use SEO to optimize this page and get more viewers. It will also be much easier to promote if all your reviews are organized in a single page.

(You can also rank this page for “your company + reviews”!)

D. Share your reviews on social media

Social media is one of the most instant yet intimate, but non-irritating ways (note: no interruptive cold calls or text messages) to connect with customers.

Social is also a breeding ground for things that could go viral, so using this medium to promote positive stories about your business is a great way to build up your brand reputation.

Share actual screenshots or links to your reviews via your business socials. Do this constantly, use related hashtags, tag relevant influencers, and respond to customers on social media.

IV. Automate The Process

So now you know all the methods that we used to get positive reviews and ranking for our business and clients.

Following this plan can help bolster your business’s online reputation, but there’s a slight catch: it takes a lot of time and patience to implement manually.

Getting all this done would be a completely manual process and would take time to fully set up; it is also why it may take time to see any real results.

So we looked at ways to speed up and automate the process.

Instead of doing everything over and over again, we made:

• A faster, easier way to collect and push reviews to any website with just one line of code
• A widget that helps resolve negative reviews
• An autoresponder that can be immediately deployed to start collecting reviews
• A way to monitor and quickly respond to any reviews that came from other sources
• A widget that can market reviews on any website
• A way to automatically push reviews to social channels

We call this reputation management software, Hoth STARS.

This tool is our answer to boosting businesses’ online reputation and rankings without spending too much time and money.

With Hoth Stars, we:

• Boosted one of our clients’ ratings from 3.5 to 4.8 in only 2 months, and increased reviews from 0 to almost 100.

• Increased positive reviews from a measly 10 to more than 30. This led to a boost in rating from around 2 stars to more than 5 stars.

• Increased positive reviews for another client from only a little more than 10 to more than 40 positive reviews.

• Improved another client’s reputation from 0 stars to more than 4 stars and increased reviews from 0 to more than 80.

Conclusion

By implementing a reputation building system, you can rapidly increase your positive online reputation.

Click here to check out HOTH Stars.

The post How To Get Tons Of Google Reviews (And Rank Higher!) appeared first on The HOTH.

In this presentation, you will learn:

• The reputation disruption that’s happening
• How your brand’s reputation influences SEO
• How to build a scalable reputation boosting machine
• Tactics to get more positive online reviews
• How to prevent negative reviews from going public
• How to make more money and increase sales with customer reviews

…And much more!

Reputation Hacking Presentation Video

Reputation Hacking Slides

We’ve used our own review getting software to boost the reputation of hundreds of brands online. Check out our Reputation Management software, HOTH Stars

The post Brand Reputation Hacking: How To Get More Reviews – Search Engine Journal Summit appeared first on The HOTH.