Online review stars are a crucial part of your online marketing strategy, or at least they should be.

Maybe not necessarily you as a business owner giving others reviews, but more so you focusing on yours.

The way I see it, the customer has all the cards in their hands nowadays. It truly is hard for the business owner to retain a 100% positive look online because we all know, you can’t please everyone. Speaking of pleasing everyone, I saw this quote recently, “You can’t please everyone. You’re not a jar of Nutella.” LOL!

Back to the reviews. Let’s focus on which ones are important. The number one place you should be concentrating your reviews on is Google. Why? Google is the most used search engine. And guess what? When someone searches for you, you want your great reviews to come up next to your name. 

Here’s a tip:

When someone Googles your business, if you have a Google+ page, your reviews and description will come up on the side of the desktop or as a display on your mobile phone. Here’s what it looks like on a computer:

As you can see, not only does my company show up, my reviews, address, phone number, business hours and website link all show up too. This is so essential to helping clients or customers find you.

How do I create a Google+ page?

Glad you asked. It’s very easy to do this. Go to Google and type in “Google my business.” This will come up with the first link that says, “Free business listing on Google.” Click this option then follow the prompts on the screen to create your business page.

Once you’ve done this, you’ll either need to wait for a postcard to come in the mail to verify your location or sometimes Google allows you to receive a call from them on your business phone verifying you are who you say you are.

In the meantime, if you do need to wait for a postcard you can start filling out your page, just like a Facebook page. You’ll need to create a cover photo, a profile photo and fill in your About page with your business’s information.

When you’ve completed your business profile and you’re approved by Google with your postcard or your phone call, it’s time to start getting reviews.

How do I get reviews?

Getting reviews is easy because you already have the connection with your clients. What I do is send them an email with my Google+ link and ask them to please review me.

Who do I ask for a review?

The logical thing to say here is that you should only ask people you know will review you well. This is the same thing. Ideally, everyone will be happy with your services, but that’s not always the case for a multitude of reasons.

What we do is send emails asking if someone will please review us before we send them the link. If we’re meeting with the client, we’ll mention it to them in person to see if they’d be open to it. Most of the time people are thrilled you asked them, and they don’t mind reviewing you.

If you’re still not convinced that reviews matter, do a little research on your competitors. See what type of reviews they have. If they have better or more reviews than you, it’s time to get busy. If they don’t have any reviews, it’s still time to get busy. If you have better and more reviews there’s also a better chance your Google+ page will come up in search results.

Have more questions about online review stars or other sites that you’ve been reviewed on? Shoot us a tweet @SouthStreet_Co or email us at Hello@SouthStreetMarketing.com.

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