Category: GoogleMyBusiness

Share your short URL with customers for Reviews!

You can share your GoogleMyBusiness short URL (as “https://g.page/r/CbZZYOeqL30xEBA“) with customers from your computer’s Google My Business dashboard or on the mobile app.

Through your short URL, Customers can leave reviews and view your Business Profile.

1. On your computer, sign in to Google My Business.
   • If you have multiple locations, open the location you want to manage.
2. In the left menu, click Home.
3. In the “Get more reviews” card, you can copy your short URL to share with customers.

Remember, it’s against Google review policies to solicit reviews from customers through incentives or review stations located at your place of business. Reviews that violate these policies might be removed.

Star rankings in GoogleMyBusiness are important.  Even businesses with just one review show the review stars. This is even more reason to start approaching clients to leave them. Don’t forget these stars have been shown to increase click-through-rate (CTR) by as much as 20%.

These stars and an excerpt from the reviews also appear in the Knowledge Graph. The Knowledge Graph also now contains reviews from 3rd party sources, so don’t limit yourself to just Google reviews.

How to ask for Google My Business Reviews

It goes without saying that the most genuine and natural looking reviews are the ones that customers leave without any prompting.

That’s not to say you can’t prompt someone into writing a review by asking them directly what they thought of your business and if they minded leaving a review. Engaging with someone directly about their experience is actually good customer service and will often prompt a positive review on your Google My Business page.

Your customers will need a Google account to be able to leave one. Many people do these days, either they’re a busy owner themselves and have one for their own Google Analytics or perhaps they have a personal Gmail account. 

Many of your clients or customers are likely to be very busy people so if they’re going to take the time out of their day to write you a review you need to make it as easy for them as possible. The best way you can do this is by giving them a simple link to click on that will take them straight to your Google My Business page.

If you have questions about your Google My Business profile, or would like to discuss setting up a new Google My Business profile, call us at 512-772-6960.

Google has been re-prioritizing organic search results in favor of ads and what are known as No Click, or zero-click, searches.

These searches are a search engine result page (SERP) that displays the answer to a user’s query at the top of a Google search result.  This kind of search result satisfies the user’s intent without having to actually click on any search result links. (binaryfountain.com)

According to research by Jumpshot commissioned by Sparktoro, in Q1 of 2019 almost 49% of Google searches were resolved without a click, meaning the searcher found the answer they were looking for within Google and never had to click through to another website. (https://www.stephanspencer.com/no-click-searches/)

Due to the small screens on mobile devices, “No Click Searches” account for over 60% of searches in some cases, and the small screens mean that ads get even more priority on mobile, according to JS Media & Marketing.

Google now prioritizes ‘Related Questions” as well, so now organic traffic is pushed below …

• Google’s “No Click Search Results”
• then ads
• then Related Questions
• even answer boxes

So organic results are rarely even above the fold, or often not on the First Page. This means that organic results get fewer & fewer click-thru’s to your business website and illustrates the lengths Google is taking to offer people information directly in search results – so they can keep them on their pages longer – instead of having them visit your site.

This dilutes the effect of any organic marketing that you may be using (and paying for).

So how do you fight back?

The answer is fight fire with fire.

Use the tools Google provides to help you brand your business without (at first) even visiting your website.  Your Google My Business listing is the most important online marketing tool now available to:

1. Brand your business in Google Search, and also give clients a prominent link to your website.

2.  Build your on-line reputation with Google My Business Reviews, and send you traffic, since up to 90% of local services are found using reviews. Lots of positive reviews builds your Google Rank. Don’t forget to reply to all reviewers with thanks!

3.  Use the new GMB Blog feature to brand your company as an expert in your field, and give prospects the confidence to call you for your services.

“Ask for the Review” Script for your Staff:

When concluding a service, ask the client: Did you have a good experience at the shop?

If so, can you give us a good review on Google My Business? It helps new customers find us.

In the Auto repair business, only 5% of independent shops ask customers for reviews, versus 49% of Dealerships.

Offer your staff incentives to ask for reviews. Capture emails of all clients up front.  After service, send them a “Thank you for your business’ follow-up email, including a link to your GMB listing and request a good review, using the text above.

Let us know if you have any questions, or need help with your Google My Business listing optimization.