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How to Get Online Reviews

/ Google, local search, page content / 8 Comments

How important our online review stars?

How important is it to get online reviews?

For more on the value of online reviews, see our infographic.

People use online reviews to pick a business

When searching online, people really do take online reviews into accout when deciding which listing to click on. For example, if you were looking for an Indian restaurant in Lake George, NY, this local 3-pack might well convince you to drive ½ hour south to Sarasota Springs. But if that’s too far, it’s an easy choice between the two local restaurants.

Avoid phony reviews

There’s an understandable temptation to sort of start the ball rolling by writing a review for yourself. Or to make up for a mediocre average star rating by creating some 5-star reviews.
Don’t do it.
Here are a few things to avoid – don’t do any of them:

How to get online reviews

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How to get online reviews

I strongly encourage all small businesses to actively get online reviews. They can make all the difference between just getting found on Google and getting chosen.

What are third party reviews?

Third party reviews are reviews on websites other than your own. Reviews on your own website are referred to as first party reviews. I have no clue what second party reviews might be.
Some of the most powerful third-party review sites include Google My Business, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Yelp. You may like our post about whether Yelp reviews really help.
If a potential customer already knows your company name and looks you up by that, you are very likely to show up in the Knowledge Card at the top right of Google’s SERP (Search Engine Results Page). When that happens, your average review stars from Google My Business are clearly displayed.

online review stars in Google search results
Beyond the Knowledge Card, when someone searches for your company name they are also very likely to see your pages on Facebook, Yelp, LinkedIn, MapQuest, vertical directories, and other sites. To the extent that those listings display review stars in the Google SERP, they all work toward establishing your reputation and encouraging people to look at you more closely. Obviously, the more stars that show up on your own Google SERP page, the better you appear to be.

How to get third party reviews

Third party reviews on sites like Yelp can help both your rankings and your conversions.
Ideally, your services are so outstanding that your customers are driven by their delight to want to provide positive reviews for you online. Pragmatically, we must admit that an unsatisfied customer feels more motivated to write a scathing review than a delighted customer is motivated to write a positive review. To counteract that, you will want to make it very easy for those happy customers to write about how wonderful you are. There are a few ways you can ethically increase the likelihood that satisfied customers will review you online.

  • Ask them. If they indicate a willingness to write a review for you, follow-up with an email to them which includes a link directly to your page on the third party site of your choice. In that email, tell them where to find the button or link to click to write a review.
  • Provide links on your website to your pages on third party sites that display reviews. You may increase the likelihood of people clicking to leave you a review with a call to action suggesting that.
  • Include a link in your email signature block.  That way, every email you send to a client includes a link to your page at one or more third-party sites that host online reviews.
  • Write reviews of others yourself. When you write a review for a strategic partner who may refer business to you or to whom you refer business, seeing that review may motivate them to write a review for you in return. The same thing applies to businesses in your networking circle. An honest positive review might make them feel at least slightly obligated to return the favor.

What are first party reviews?

First party reviews are simply reviews that appear on your own website as opposed to anyplace else.  BXB Media wrote a nice comparison of first party and third party reviews. And if you have them coded properly with  schema markup, Google will display your review stars in SERPs.

 A couple of quick warnings are due, though.

  1. You may not apply structured coding reviews you copy onto your website from somewhere else. That violates Google’s terms of service and you will suffer for it.
  2. For reasons only known to Google, reviews on your home page will not be reflected with review stars in Google’s SERPs. Review stars only appear when your internal pages show up in search results.

If you do it properly, however, those review stars showing up on Google can make a big difference in how many potential customers click on your listing, even if you’re not the first one. Here’s an example for one of our clients in a local search for floor tile repair. Which listing would you be likely to click on first?

Customer reviews on your website can greatly increase the number of clicks you get when people search for what you do.How to get first party reviews

I caution that this needs to be “done right”. Potential customers, and Google itself, are aware that you control your website and may be suspicious that the reviews displayed there are somewhat less than honest. So the first rule is to heed the two warnings in the paragraph above. Google explains that:

Google may display information from aggregate ratings markup in the Google Knowledge Cards. The following guidelines apply to review snippets in knowledge cards for local businesses:

  • Ratings must be sourced directly from users.
  • Don’t rely on human editors to create, curate or compile ratings information for local businesses. These types of reviews are critic reviews.
  • Sites must collect ratings information directly from users and not from other sites

The last item above means you can’t just take testimonials customers have sent to you and enter them onto your website yourself and apply structured coding to them. They really need to be gathered directly from your customer and entered on your web pages automatically. That’s to prevent you from cherry-picking only good reviews to display on your site.
The tool we prefer here at Rank Magic is Yext Reviews. As part of their location platform subscription program, they provide an automated review gathering form and a widget on your website. You can direct customers to the form and the reviews they enter will be automatically displayed on whichever pages of your site you have placed the widget on.
An added advantage of the Yext platform is that it alerts you anytime someone writes a review for you in either your first party reviews or any of the third party review sites in their network. I’ve written recently about how important is is too know when a new review is written so you can replay to it promptly.

Rank Magic can help.

Contact us to find out how we can help review stars make you a “star” on Google.

I welcome you to join the conversation in the Comments section below.

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All Your Startup Needs To Know About Local SEO

/ local search, page content, SEO practices / 7 Comments

Google Local Rankmings require local SEO

While SEO is the result globalization, the evolution of SEO has seen the rise in importance of bringing localization to your strategy; if your startup wants the highest sales figures possible you need to know about local SEO.

Below I’ve run through what local SEO is and how your startup can incorporate it into your strategy. Read on and you’ll be a local SEO pro in no time.

Recommended reading: Local Business: Get Found and Get Chosen

What is local SEO?

You and your startup already know about traditional SEO and will have your own strategy for it. However, local SEO is not the same and has tactics and features to the SEO skills you’re already employing. Here are the headline features of local SEO:

For local searches

When your customer make a search in Google, the search engine knows which part of the world you’re in. Google exists to give its users the best possible outcome to their searches and if that means giving them a local solution that’s what it will give them.

Targeted on local keywords

Most users who benefit from local SEO have a specific business in mind when they make their searches. However, they might not be seeking a specific company.
When Google compiles the SERPs (Search Engine Results Page) for these searches they target companies which have the closest match to the industry their user is seeking, along with the location their user is based in. The results are targeted around local keywords, so you need to make sure your startup is aware of how to find the relevant keywords for your locality.

It’s a mobile thing

Mobile phones and tablets now account for around 60% of all web searches made. Local SEO is particularly relevant to these devices and is especially relevant to your startup if you are based in the services industry.
Let take restaurants as an example: If a user is out and searching for the best food in their area, they’ll almost certainly be making their search via a mobile. Using local SEO means that your startup has the best chance of being the first business that your searcher sees when Google directs them to the best local restaurant.

All your startup needs to know about local SEO

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How can my startup make the most of local SEO?

Like traditional SEO, there are many different tactics that you can, and need, to employ in order to make sure your startup gets the most out of local SEO. These are:

Make sure your startup is listed correctly in Google My Business

If your startup isn’t in Google My Business, or your listing is incomplete, then you won’t feature on Google Maps – which isn’t much use to your searcher if they’re trying to locate your business.
Getting your startup listed correctly on Google My Business is quick and easy. Check out the excellent video below for a guide on how you can make sure you’re on Google My Business.

Incorporate online reviews

93% of your customers are influenced by reading online reviews. It’s for this reason that Google loves to use online reviews to build its local SEO rankings, and that you can’t afford to add them to your startup’s strategy.
If you’re not sure how to make the most out of online reviews to maximize your local SEO, spend a few minutes absorbing the information in the handy video guide underneath…

Use City Pages

This tactic is all about getting the maximum value from the surrounding areas of the city, or town, that your startup is based in.
City Pages use LSI technology to allow you to target any combination of service, product, or metro area. The benefit of this is that it allows your startup to appear in a broader range of local searches.
For an in depth guidance on the benefit of City Pages to your local SEO strategy, spend some time watching the following video…

Add content to Google Posts

Well-optimized content is a huge part of making the most of local SEO and Google has a place for you to publish it.
Google Posts lets you develop and upload content directly on Google. You can add your startup’s products, services, and events to Google Maps and Google’s search results. Your posts can be up to 300 words and you can add a CTA (call-to-action) button, date range, and image.
You create them in your Google My Business dashboard and they will appear immediately in Google SERPs. For more information on how your startup can start using Google Posts, watch the brilliant video underneath…

All about local SEO for your small business or startup

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Get your on-site optimization right

Onsite optimization accounts for 18% of Google’s decision making when it ranks your startup’s website in local searches, meaning it’s something you can’t overlook. What you need to know about your onsite optimization is this:

Title tags matter

Title tags are the most important part of on-site optimization. This means it is essential that you insert your locally optimized keywords into the title tags for your web pages.
Check out the video below to see how you can get your title tags right…

Write local content

Using Google Posts is a great way to link local content to your business, but don’t stop there; add local content to your website. There is a range of local content you can write for your website and this article is full of ideas to help you develop a local content strategy.

Be aware of schema markup

This is the code that you use to tell Google what your website is about, making it essential that you get this very technical aspect of on-site optimization right.
There are a number of great apps to help you with this. Schema App Total Schema Markup is an industry leader and comes with a range of great features. It makes optimizing your schema markup easy and can be added to your business in minutes.
The video underneath has even more information on the importance of schema markup…

If your startup isn’t aware of and employing the benefits of local SEO, then you won’t feature in Google’s SERPs and will lose potential customers. Thankfully, you now have everything you need to know about local SEO, so you won’t be losing any customers.
Victoria Greene

Victoria Greene is a branding consultant, freelance writer, and SEO content specialist. On her blog, VictoriaEcommerce, you’ll find an array of articles to help your startup make the most of ecommerce tactics to increase your revenue.
 

We welcome your thoughts and observations. Join the conversation in the Comments below!

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Why hire a professional copywriter? One word: Conversions

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Not sure of the value of a professional copywriter?

Copywriters create cintent your customers will love.Everybody thinks they can write, and to a degree they have a point. Anyone can write. Most people can add, too, and know how to use scissors. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re equipped to prepare their own tax return or cut their own hair.

As veteran copywriters, we’ve seen firsthand how poorly constructed writing can derail your communications and position your brand in a less than stellar light. Imagine an ad for an Ivy League college began with the headline, “You Can Never Have To Much Knowledge.” Readers would view the typo as a reflection of the school and the quality of the education they might receive. This is the type of mistake spell check doesn’t catch.
But effective copywriting is about much more than mechanics. Most businesses don’t know when it’s better to use short, snappy sentences versus long-form copy. Or how to incorporate keywords into a blog post to boost the chances it will rank in organic search. Or why headlines are more effective when you use sentence case rather than initial caps (another strike against our fictional Ivy League example).
Good news — an experienced copywriter knows all that and more, including how to boost conversion rates with targeted, high-value content. So, in the age of “content is king,” why should you hire one rather than do-it-yourself?

Content is critical to top rankings in Google. Here’s why you may need a professional copywriter.

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SEO rankings are heavily related to the quality of your content.Copywriters are a quick study.

A professional copywriter knows the ins and outs of writing for various industries and is skilled at quickly getting up to speed on a new subject. Regardless of the topic, we also know the right questions to ask to uncover valuable market differentiators and showcase your product or service in the best possible light.

We’re objective and persuasive.

Business owners are often so immersed in their product/service/industry, they find it hard to step back and be objective. As a result, you might not be doing your business any justice when it comes to writing content that generates leads and sales. It’s the copywriter’s job to get inside the head of your ideal customer, understand what motivates them to buy, and turn your product features into irresistible benefits.

Copywriters can help you make the most of your content budget.

Why hire a professional copywriter? Conversions!

Today’s copywriters don’t just write; we strategize ways to give you the most return for your content marketing investment. For example, you’d like to develop an e-book and a landing page to capture leads. But you may not think to craft each section of the e-book so it can also serve as a stand-alone blog post. Or turn a hefty research report into a series of quick-read infographics that appeal to more visual learners.

We understand the sales process.

Your content marketing should be leading prospects down the sales funnel — bringing them step-by-step closer to a purchase. By digging into how your buyers buy, we can produce content that answers questions and addresses concerns at the right time in the sales cycle. The result? Higher conversion rates.

Writers understand the power of language and storytelling.

Professional copywriting increases both readership and conversions.Do you know the words or phrases that can maximize response? Or that a single user story can be exponentially more memorable than a laundry list of features? From anecdotes and word play to sentence structure and even punctuation, clever content strategies are second nature to experienced copywriters — and we can implement these tricks of the trade to engage your customers and build your brand.

We leave the grammar mistakes to the amateurs.

Whether it’s a typo, a mixed metaphor or random capitalization, even the most minor mistake can ruin your credibility. Most copywriters are also skilled proofreaders, so your marketing content is as flawless as it is persuasive.
There’s no doubt that creating and distributing consistent, high-value content is a significant commitment. But the value is clear — research from Aberdeen shows that those who become authorities based on content receive nearly 8X more site traffic than those who don’t.
The right copy partnership is a collaboration, helping you cost-effectively leverage your professional expertise without wasting countless hours crafting subject lines, calculating keyword density or writing compelling tweets. For us, it’s all in a day’s work — and lets you focus on what you do best.

About our guest blogger

Professional copywriter Lisa FahouryLisa Fahoury is Chief Creative Officer of Fahoury Ink, a New Jersey based content marketing agency that provides B2B and B2C content strategy and development services to mid-market companies. The former creative services manager for the New York Daily News, Fahoury is also an in-demand speaker and corporate trainer on content marketing. When she’s not creating content, she spends her down time  plotting to win the Pillsbury Bake-Off and convincing her husband that three cats really did seem like a good idea at the time.

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Does Your Site Use Intrusive Interstitials? Better Not!

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Why you need to avoid intrusive interstitials

What’s an Interstitial?

An interstitial is an ad that appears in between two pages. Sometimes they can appear before the home page on your site. Often interstitials are pop-up ads, but sometimes they will be helpful, like an offer to chat with a live person. An interstitial ad is a form of interruption marketing used by advertisers who want their ads to be more like broadcast ads.
Many interstitials are just fine. But you want to be  sure your interstitials aren’t intrusive.
Examples of intrusive interstitial's that can generate a Google ranking penalty.

What’s wrong with an intrusive interstitial?

An intrusive interstitial or pop-up ad is one that annoyingly blocks all or most of a page. This is more problematic on mobile sites where there’s much less screen real estate. With less room on the screen it’s very easy for an interstitial to be considered intrusive.
One thing intrusive interstitials do is that they annoy your visitors. That’s a bad thing in and of itself, especially if it’s annoying enough to drive the visitor away. They also slow down the loading of your site because it’s extra material to download into a phone or browser.

You need to avoid intrusive interstitials on your website!

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Why is it important to avoid them?

It’s been well known for years that Google favors fast sites. If your interstitial is slowing down the display of your pages, that might hurt your ranking. But even beyond that, Google hates them. Google announced about a year and a half ago that at the beginning of 2017 intrusive interstitials would negatively affect your ranking. And here at  Rank Magic we are always concerned about the health of your rankings.

A few exceptions

Google has identified three types of interstitials that “would not be affected by the new signal” if “used responsibly.”

  • Interstitials that appear to be in response to a legal obligation, such as for cookie usage or for age verification.
  • Login dialogs on sites where content is not publicly indexable. For example, this would include private content such as email or unindexable content that is behind a paywall.
  • Banners that use a reasonable amount of screen space and are easily dismissible. For example, the app-install banners provided by Safari and Chrome are examples of banners that use a reasonable amount of screen space.

Please join the conversation and share your observations in the Comments section below.

If you’re struggling with your online visibility, please call us. Because at Rank Magic, we can fix that!

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Is It Time to Abandon Flash?

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It's time to abandon flash content on your site.Do you really need to get rid of flash on your site?

[There’s an update below as of May, 2020]
I’ve written about the demise of Flash in this blog as long as 10 years ago. It’s been a slow process, but it looks like it’s finally on its death bed.

The news is not good.

Recent news about the Adobe Flash platform for audio and video web content is not good. Google says it’s working hard to “make sure the web is ready to be Flash-free.” Already by default Flash doesn’t work on mobile or Chrome and having it on your site may be a negative ranking factor as a result.
Flash is undeniably on the way out. Adobe will stop supporting Flash at the end of 2020. According to Mozilla in July,

This morning, Adobe announced its roadmap to stop supporting Flash at the end of 2020. Working with Adobe and other browser vendors, Mozilla has prepared a roadmap for Flash support in Firefox, and guides for site authors to make their final transition away from Flash technology.

Bolstering that, Microsoft wrote an article entitled “The End of an Era – Next Steps for Adobe Flash”, saying

We will phase out Flash from Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer, culminating in the removal of Flash from Windows entirely by the end of 2020.

Still using Flash on your website? Read this!

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Does that mean we have until 2020 to remove Flash content?

Ominously, The Verge predicts

Google is making HTML5 the preferred and default way to display website content in a change that’ll take place over the next couple of months. This means that unless a website has an HTML5 content player, video content will not automatically display. All Flash content will be blocked, unless users manually enable it on a site-by-site basis. [Emphasis added]

HTML5 is the new standard for video content on websites.Adobe has reportedly ceased development of Flash for all mobile devices, so industry watchers like LifeWire agree that it’s close to 100% certain that Flash will never be available on the iPhone. If you want your audio, video or animations to work on an iPhone, Flash is out of the question.
The Google Play store isn’t supporting Flash for Android devices. That means that if you install a Flash player from elsewhere for your phone you won’t be able to get any bug fixes or updates .
And as if to put a final nail in the coffin, Forbes has a recent article entitled “The Death Of Adobe Flash Is Long Overdue”.

Where to now?

If you have Flash content on your site, it’s time to ask your webmaster about converting it to HTML5.
[Update: Mozilla plans to drop Flash support in Firefox 84 (December 2020)]

If you’ve made that transition on your own site, please share your experience with us in the comments below.