Google Reviews have quickly become the most popular way for users to rate their experiences with a given business or service. Growing your company usually means making sure to track and view your Google Reviews. A Google customer review can provide you with great feedback on how well your business is functioning. You can respond to online reviews and find potential customers. You’ll also better understand how your customers feel about your service and support.
If you have a business with a place ID located on Google Maps, you may even have a Google Review link that you might not even know about. The search engine will often automatically set up a Google place ID for you. This means your business has a Google profile that may have existing reviews on it. Properly using and understanding your Google Reviews are important in making sure your online business listing doesn’t have a weakness in its service or reputation. You should absolutely follow these steps if you want to properly view your Google business review.
How To View Google Reviews
Viewing Google Reviews is much easier than you’d think, as it doesn’t require any additional hardware or external websites. You can do this entirely through Google itself, with only a few additional features if you have the proper account add-on to be the verified business owner.
Step 1: Google Business Profile
Before anything else, you’ll want to set up an additional part of your Google Account to ensure you’re verified as the owner. This is as simple as going to https://www.google.com/business/ to list your business name and address. From there you’ll be able to add more specific information about your business, such as its hours or services. You can also attach links to the business’s website or social media pages.
This will also allow you to reply to reviews as the owner. It’s important to engage with reviews and comments, whether they’re negative or positive. However, remember that you can’t just remove or hide reviews unless they’re specifically inappropriate based on Google’s standards. Your score is meant to be entirely dependent on your customers’ opinions.
Step 2: Find Your Business Through Google, Google Maps, Or Business Profile
Even without a Business Profile account add-on, you should be free to access a business’s Google Reviews. You can do this any time by simply looking it up through Google or Google Maps. It should appear on the side of the browser in either instance. There you’ll find multiple links to let you read featured reviews closer and go back to view older reviews.
If you want more analytical and detailed comments, you can also go into the Reviews tab of your Business Profile dashboard. This can be found by logging into https://www.google.com/business/. Here you can get more breakdowns of your review data and manage them much easier. You’ll also be able to create ads and upload official photos to help reviewers recognize your business further.
What Is A Good Google Review Score?
You might think that an ideal Google Review score is a perfect 5.0, but this is not actually the case. Many users find scores this high to be suspicious. Few services and businesses can truly be perfect. Having a range between 4.2-4.8 is more likely to be seen as a natural score. A perfect score of 4 or 5 will often make people think your reviews are fake, inflated, or potentially untruthful.
Having decimals is also helpful since Google Reviews don’t let you use parts of stars. If your score is a perfect 5 or 4, that might mean that your business simply hasn’t been reviewed many times. This will make it appear less popular than other alternatives. Having decimals like 4.6 and 4.7 are impossible to have without a decent density of reviews. This type of score will make people more trusting and interested in visiting your business.
How To Get More Google Reviews
Now that you know how to view and analyze your Google Reviews, it should be clear that your biggest goal should be to get a fair number of detailed and accurate reviews to help you reach an ideal score. There are several marketing strategies to help encourage this. These are three Google Review strategies that will best contribute to your Review score.
Calls-To-Action
Having calls-to-action is extremely important when seeking out Google Reviews. Most customers tend to not leave a review unless they have an exceptionally positive or negative experience. As a result, you want to encourage everyone to leave a review to help reach your ideal score and number of reviews. That means leaving requests and links in your emails and social media posts.
Have Ample Review Links
Google Reviews can be extremely visible thanks to their appearance in standard Google and Google Maps searches. But that doesn’t mean your audience will seek your Google Review page themselves. Make sure to include as many links as you can in your website, emails, and posts to ensure your customers and clients know exactly where to go.
Encourage Quick Reviews
Thanks to the reputation of review sites like Yelp, many consumers will often assume that writing a review involves a large amount of effort. Thankfully, Google Reviews lack this challenge, and you shouldn’t hesitate to tell customers how fast it can be. When sending or posting review links, it’s worth mentioning that all they need to do is give a star rating and a quick sentence. Most people can write a Google Review in as little as 30 seconds.
Conclusion
Google Reviews are still relatively new factors in online and offline businesses, but they’ve quickly become a deeply important aspect that’s worth monitoring and managing as best as possible. Having a strong set of Google Reviews is a great marketing tool. It’s also an excellent way for new customers and clients to quickly know the quality of your service.
With how easy it can be to find them, seeking out more Google Reviews and working towards an ideal score is absolutely worth your time.