You’re Google business profile could become a joke if you don’t keep a vigilant eye on key basics that include, but are not limited to: checking for keyword stuffing from your own business and competitors, check for review legitimacy, don’t review yourself or competitors, and don’t incentivize reviews. always check your photos and their relevancy and accuracy, and always make sure you’re business hours are listed correctly, and even use Google’s tutorial for setting special hours.

Key Takeaways:

• You should do some research if you think a competitor’s high rankings are stemming
• If you message Google, then there is no guarantee that they will act on the report.
• If someone falsifies reviews, then they are committing an illegal action.

“Putting a devoted watchdog between pranksters, spammers, and your vital Google listings is the smartest thing you can do to maintain them as an influential source of truth about your brand.”

Read more: https://moz.com/blog/guard-your-google-business-profile

Recent Uberall survey of approximately 300 small and medium sizes businesses (SMBs), shows that over 90% of SMBs think that the online reviews are important. At the same, full 54% of SMBs think the reviews are very important. When it comes to review generation, 63% of SMBs encourage the customers to review the business, and 81% of SMBs responds to these reviews regardless whether the reviews are positive or negative. Survey by LSA found significantly different numbers when it comes to review acquisition strategy of the SMBs and responsiveness rate. As with any survey, both Uberall and LSA survey may have had an “idealized”, not-so-representative samples of small and medium size businesses.

Key Takeaways:

• There are many surveys about the importance of local business reviews.
• There are more than 90 percent of SMBs that think online reviews are quite important.
• The survey showed that a striking 86% percent of SMBs respond to consumer reviews.

“The survey also found that 63% of SMBs encourage customers to post reviews online, while 37% don’t do anything to generate reviews.”

Read more: https://www.lsainsider.com/survey-63-of-smbs-now-encourage-customer-reviews/archives

For a majority of consumers, it is a routine that we check out reviews of establishments we intend to visit. That being said, the business owners also want to make sure that they are addressing those reviews that paint a negative picture of their business. Making sure that those reviews are taken seriously and dealt with in a positive manner will let customers know that the owner is all about providing quality services and goods.

Key Takeaways:

• Online reviews can have as much impact as word of mouth recommendations.
• Reasonable responses are a good way to counteract bad reviews.
• Some reviews should not be replied to because the issue cannot be resolved

“My search returned nearly a dozen options, each result showing details like star ratings, reviews, busy times, and links to articles that mentioned the business.”

Read more: https://www.fastcompany.com/40504968/how-to-respond-to-negative-reviews-on-facebook-yelp-and-google

The article is about how to increase your company’s SEO by getting involved with the community. By getting involved, you are able to make connections with successful people. These people can then help your business or community simply by referencing your site or business on their blog. The article also recommends offering services and becoming the face of your business so that when articles are printed, you can ask that they post a link to your site by your name.

Key Takeaways:

• Telling your story is important, but telling the stories of your community is the best local SEO strategy you’re not using.
• Once you’ve got some local photos, go to work and make sure they have the biggest benefit for your visibility when added to your site.
• Take advantage of any community-building opportunities provided by the platform. You can generally join groups, organize your photos into sets and share your photo.

“When you think about it, you don’t need search engines for most of those things. The world doesn’t happen online any more than Google defines who we are. Search engines are just a mirror that reflects our relationship with the world around us.”

Read more: https://www.brightlocal.com/2018/07/24/local-seo-begins-with-community/

It has become apparent in today’s technological world that more and more business people take reviews very seriously. Those that take the time to respond to a customer’s compliments or complaints really care about what is thought about them. Those that do not respond do not really care and are not interested in becoming a larger and more successful business.

It is very important to respond to reviews because it is viewed that the review of one person is the voice of one thousand people.

Key Takeaways:

• The survey also found that 63% of SMBs encourage customers to post reviews online, while 37% don’t do anything to generate reviews.
• It also found that among SMBs who respond, 81% do so for both positive and critical reviews; 12% only respond to positive reviews and 6% only respond to negative reviews.
• A 2018 LSA survey for SOCi found that 50% of SMBs (n=315) didn’t have a review acquisition strategy and 40% infrequently or never responded to reviews.

“Overall, the Uberall survey suggests a pretty digital-savvy SMB population.”

Read more: https://www.lsainsider.com/survey-63-of-smbs-now-encourage-customer-reviews/archives