An account with Google My Business ensures a beautiful, reliable and professional appearance of your business in Google's online search results. This overview also shows the Google reviews your customers have left for you. These will become increasingly important in the future. The reviews are not only important for the reliability but also for the online visibility within the (local) search results of Google.
Google My Company
For a business, it is essential to have a Google My Business page. Chances are you already have one by now. Then when you type your company name or brand name into Google you will immediately see all the data as shown in the example below.
Don't have a Google My Business Page yet? Then quickly create a Google Company Page. Our advice is to fill out this business page as completely as possible. The more information Google has about your company the more relevant it can send traffic to your website.
How important are Google reviews?
More and more people unconsciously take a quick look at reviews of a product or service before making a purchase or contacting us. After all, we are always curious about what other people's experience has been. With the shift from physical in-store purchases to Internet purchases, consumers are increasingly looking for guidance, security and control. One big factor that can play a role in this is reviews. The growing world of online purchases is moving fast and, as a result, collecting and displaying (Google) reviews is also becoming increasingly important.
When you have collected at least 5 Google reviews on your Google My Business page, the stars are displayed in the local search results (see image below). This provides a significantly higher CTR (Click-Through-Rate, the people who actually click on the search result), as well as additional reliability and authority within the industry.
SEO benefits through Google reviews
Earlier in this article it was indicated that Google reviews not only serve for the reliability of a product/company, but that generating reviews through Google also has a positive impact on the online findability of a product/company. Literally Google has not said it but indicated that generating (provided they are positive) Google reviews in all likelihood benefits your findability in Google's online search results.
"The number of Google reviews and scores are taken into account when ranking local search results. The more reviews and positive ratings, the better a business's position is likely to be in local search results."
Google wants to show the most relevant search results to its visitors. For this reason, it includes the number of Google reviews and their score in the ranking of the local search results. So make sure you get as many good reviews as possible, so you will most likely achieve a better position.
How do you collect Google reviews?
Unfortunately, it is no longer possible to send people directly to the Google My Business page to leave a review here. However, it is possible to send customers a direct link containing an invitation to leave a Google review about the company. This way, customers can easily be invited without it costing them much time and effort.
Send Google review invitation (direct link):
- Navigate to the API for Google Places
- Next, search for your company name
- Click on the result for your company
- After this, copy the 'Place ID' that appears under your name
- Place the 'Place ID' after the following URL (https://search.google.com/local/writereview?placeid=)
Email customers and start collecting Google reviews. Once you have generated the direct link, it is possible to invite customers to write a review about your business.
