When it comes to the performance of your website, page speed is vital.
Your web pages must load quickly and seamlessly in order to lower your bounce rate and boost visitor engagement.
In this article, we'll explain why it's important, and show you how to measure it.
According to Google research, every second counts when it comes to page loading speed. Increasing loading times from one to three seconds increases the likelihood of a bounce (the visitor leaving immediately) by 32%.
A shocking 90% of visitors will leave a site if it takes longer than five seconds to load.
The speed of a website has a significant impact on user experience, SEO, and conversion rates. Improving website performance is critical for attracting visitors and keeping them engaged. Here are some steps that you can take with your developer to make your website load faster:
Run a Website Performance Test
Website speed tests determine how well a website performs. Testing a website can help developers identify some or all of the areas that are slowing down website performance. And, identify areas for improvement.
There are numerous high-quality site speed tests for measuring performance, many of which are free, such as Pingdom.com.
Google also provides “PageSpeed" Insights for more in-depth performance testing. Google Chrome "DevTools" can also assist developers in evaluating the performance of their website.
Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
CDNs increase website speed by caching content in multiple locations around the world. CDN caching servers are usually closer to end users than the host, or origin server. Content requests are routed to a CDN server rather than the hosting server. This may be thousands of miles away and spread across multiple networks from the user. Using a CDN can significantly reduce page load times.
Website Image Optimization
Images account for a large portion of Internet traffic, and they frequently take the longest to load on a website. This is because mage files are larger in size than HTML and CSS files. Image optimization and can reduce image load time. Image optimization typically entails lowering the resolution, compressing the files, and shrinking their dimensions. Many image optimizers and image compressors are freely available online.
Lower the number of HTTP requests
Most webpages will need multiple HTTP requests from browsers for various assets on the page. These include things such as images, scripts, and CSS files. Indeed, many webpages will necessitate dozens of these requests. Each request necessitates a round trip to and from the server hosting the resource, which can increase the overall load time of a webpage. Furthermore, because the resources are loaded from multiple providers, a problem with one of the hosts may impact the webpage's ability to load quickly, or at all.
Because of these potential issues, the total number of assets that must be loaded by each page should be kept to a minimum. A speed test should also help identify which HTTP requests are taking the longest. For example, if images are slowing down a page's load time, developers can look for a faster image hosting solution (such as a CDN).
Cache Your Website Pages
Caching is one of the most effective methods for speeding up your website. Caching saves copies of your website's files, reducing the amount of work required by the server to generate and serve a web page to a visitor's browser.
By requiring the server to use fewer resources to load a page, caching your web pages can help reduce Time to First Byte (TTFB).
There are several methods for caching your web pages. This can be done at the server level, which means your host will handle it for you.
Another option is to use a caching plugin, such as W3 Total Cache, a free WordPress plugin that makes caching web pages simple. After you've installed and activated it, go to General Settings > Page Cache and check the Enable box.
Reduce The Use Of External Scripts
Any scripted webpage elements loaded from elsewhere, such as external commenting systems, CTA buttons, or lead-generation popups, must be loaded each time a page is loaded. Depending on the size of the script, this can cause a webpage to slow down or not load all at once (this is known as 'content jumping' or 'layout shifting,' and it can be especially aggravating for mobile users).
Avoid Using Redirects When Possible
A redirect occurs when visitors to one website are forwarded to another. Redirects increase page load time by a few fractions of a second, or even whole seconds in some cases. Every second counts when developing a website that is optimized for performance. Redirects are sometimes unavoidable, but they should be avoided if possible.
Remember that every second your website takes to load increases the likelihood that your visitors will leave. If your website is running slow, how long can you keep running your business while losing leads? Is it time to speed things up?
Video marketing is a great way to get your website more clicks. You can even include testimonials and give your website that extra boost of professionalism. Click here to learn more about it!
When it comes to running a business in your local area, search engine optimization (SEO) is essential. If you aren’t sitting pretty in the top rankings on page one, it makes potential customers wonder one thing – how good are you REALLY?
With that in mind, if your business doesn’t have the search engine rankings you need, you might want to consider using some of these local SEO tweaks to give your rankings a boost.
Create more internal website links to boost local SEO
The first place we recommend you start for improved local SEO is more internal links. Internal links are links that take the user from one page of your website to the next. So, if you own a website where you provide various handyman services, such as drywall installation, tile laying plastering and painting, or you would find ways to link to each of your services across various pages.
Example: Applying plaster takes patience and experience. If you rush the process, you will likely end up with sub-par results. So if you don’t have the extra time needed then Painting the area will be your best option.
Internal links should be built around relevant keywords used across your website. It is a great way to ensure traffic is more evenly distributed across each page, improving your overall traffic level.
Local SEO is linked to local questions found on Google
Another key to local SEO is to make sure you have the answers to the common questions locals have. If you do a search for the product/service(s) your business offers, you will most likely find a list of commonly asked questions on Google. These questions are a great place to start to ensure you have answers to these common questions on your website. There’s 2 ways you can accomplish this.
Create an FAQ page that lists all these commonly asked questions in one place, with your answers to each question below but the best way to handle this is to…
Create a blog around these questions. For example, if you run a car detailing service, and one of your most frequently asked might be…. “Is it better to clean with steam or soap & water?” So now you have an opportunity to go into more detail about why it’s better to clean with steam VS soap and water and all the benefits your car will receive because of it.
Boost your local SEO with local directory listings
From Google My Business to business directories in your local region, you should be creating as many of these little profiles as you can. Also referred to as citations. Yelp.com, YellowPages.com, BBB.org, Manta.com, Angi.com, are all examples of business directories also called citations. Each one creates another link back to your website. Which is exactly what you want – Useful external links coming from relevant sources.
At the same time, though, these websites provide you a directory listing that helps people to find your business. So not only can you get a local SEO benefit, you will also get traffic coming directly from these sites.
Local directories are useful, but make sure you’ve got a Google My Business page. It’s the “Grand Pumba” of all citations. Technically it’s now referred to as your Google Business Profile, but it is the same thing – and it is free to create, so why not benefit from the potential it provides?
Turn your current content into new opportunities
If one of your main problems is coming up with new content and ideas all the time, that’s totally relatable. One great way to get the most out of your content is to repurpose what you already have. By taking a blog post and turning it into social media snippets, or an explainer video, you can stretch the content you already have and maximize its impact.
Do not ignore your user experience (UX) rating
In 2021, Google released a new search engine update that focuses on the quality of the user experience. Specifically, how fast is your website loading? How stable is your website – does it crash often? And how responsive is your website? Does it work well on all devices and browsers?
Working with your web developer to improve these elements of your layout, design, and back-end should be a priority. Google and other search engines will value your website higher if it meets its higher UX rating. Make this a local SEO priority!
Make the most of Google Discover
One of the best local SEO tweaks we can suggest you try out would be to use Google Discover. This is an AI-managed news aggregator that is created by Google. Essentially, it looks to pair people up with content and platforms the AI feels are relevant based on their previous activities.
Getting people to like your content on social media and on your website – such as leaving comments, sharing links, etc. – can ensure you are more likely to appear in this powerful news aggregator. You’ll need to create high-quality content that encourages engagement, this is a high bar to reach for.
Take your old content and improve it
As time goes on, it is inevitable that new information is discovered and your expertise in your business niche will grow. Is it time to go back to your older content and refresh it? Are there new details you could add now that were not available back when you first wrote that content?
Going back and updating old content is a great way to refresh the traffic volume and squeeze more juice out of what you have already done.
Conclusion
Okay listen, it’s a busy world. If you don't have time to implement all of the SEO tips listed above, that's fine. Start with one or two that seem to be the easiest and begin there. Businesses who succeed at SEO are the ones who take action, so anything is better than nothing. Once you see your rankings increase you’ll know it’s worth the effort!
We all know that small business owners face immense challenges every day. While many are solved with relative ease, solving the issue of generating traffic – both online and in-person is unfortunately looked over time and time again. Optimizing your website for local SEO is the first step towards achieving the traffic that you deserve.
The Benefits of Optimized Local SEO for Small Businesses
Firstly, physical businesses that have actual storefronts yet haven’t optimized their local SEO are perilously close to several threats. But those businesses that have taken ownership of their local SEO and relevant platforms already find themselves on the front foot with these vital benefits:
Improved visibility in online search results
Superior and more relevant traffic
Able to build meaningful relationships with local customers
Foster trust with the community
An overall increase in sales
5 Time-Saving Local SEO Strategies to Enhance Your Business
Website optimization and local SEO can seem daunting and even worse – time-consuming. However, we provide 5 time-saving strategies that will enable you to enhance your online presence while empowering you to continue with the day-to-day tasks as a business owner.
1. Optimize Your Website
Many small businesses handicap themselves right from the start by building a website that is poor quality and not optimized to rank well on the search engines. To avoid missing out on prospective customers you need to pay attention to the overall design and layout of your website. Make sure your website ticks all the boxes below.
Easy to navigate
Consistent theme and message
A detailed About Us page
Use of local keywords
Mobile Responsive
Ensure all relevant business information is available
Use of a specific location
Overall, these are vital components that can immediately improve the online presence of your business and its standing on the search engines like Google, Yahoo & Bing.
2. Create a Google Business Profile
During August of 2021, Google was named as the most popular search engine with a total market share of 92.03%. This incredible number indicates just how important it is for your business to rank highly in Google’s local search results. To get one step closer to improving your local SEO, create a Google Business Profile account and claim your business.
Likewise, Google Business Profile is easy to set up and manage all the intricacies of your online presence. Take your time and provide correct details and information. This includes:
Business name, logo, and other identification
Correct business category
Contact information
Business location
Operating hours
Other essential information that will help prospective customers find your business
Furthermore, continue to keep your Google Business Profile page updated by posting regular articles and other content.
3. Sign Up for Online Business Directories
Creating a Google Business Profile account may seem like that’s the last thing you need to do, but signing up to relevant, local business directories will improve your local SEO even further. Business directories are readily available regardless of your operating location.
Leading names in the business directory community have been led by Yellow Pages, Yelp, and TripAdvisor. We certainly recommend signing up to each of these directories to further improve local SEO but there’s another directory to consider.
NextDoor is a prime example of a directory that’s incredibly relevant to your physical location. A key factor that differentiates NextDoor from its competitors is that when you post any form of content such as an article or image, that content automatically appears in the feed of anyone who is within 2 miles of your business. Such a feature will help connect your business with a relevant, local audience and lay the foundation on which to nurture future relationships.
4. Ask for Reviews – and Respond to Them
The pursuit of building trust and authority is something that all businesses attempt to attain. For a small business, however, trust and authority are influential in determining whether that business will achieve long-term success.
Reviews in this instance function as a form of testimonial to your business. So why would you not ask for them? Asking for a review is the first step of engagement post-sale and cements your business in the mind of your customer – making it easier to receive another sale in the future.
Positive or negative, you must always respond to reviews in a professional and friendly manner. Prospective customers can make a buying decision based solely on a positive review. But if you’ve resolved an issue, it indicates to prospective customers that your business is willing to go above and beyond to rectify any potential issues.
5. Connect All Social Media Platforms
The popularity of social media platforms has surged each year with millions of people joining platforms from Facebook to Tiktok. Each of these platforms represents another opportunity to build your presence online and improve your local SEO.
Your business and target audience will typically determine your choice of social media platform/s. Some offer better chances of connecting with prospective customers. With the choice of platform/s made, ensure that all details and vital information is correct (similar to Google Business Profile).
Having inserted your details successfully, you can’t let your social media platforms lie dormant – it’s called social media for a reason! You must post regularly and engage with your audience. Further, create a posting schedule of stipulated content and maintain it. Your audience will begin to become more familiar with how your business operates and in turn, are more likely to engage with you.
So, treat your social media platforms as an extension of your website. Just like your website, they should send a clear message that’s closely aligned with your values and how your business may benefit them.
Final Thoughts on Local SEO
In conclusion, traditional SEO strategies have dominated the online landscape with larger corporations trying to establish themselves as the ‘go-to’ business within their industry. But local SEO has grown in importance and stature to such a point that it can truly elevate the efforts of a small business.
Continue to work on your local SEO and website optimization when you have the time to do so. Regularly update your information and post content that is relevant to your location and community. Local SEO will always remain a marathon. Make sure that your business is in it for the long run.
So, do you need help with your SEO? JVI Mobile Marketing can help! We offer a variety of SEO services to help you reach your perfect customer. Fill out the form below to get started.
Press Releases Can Increase Sales in Your Business
A press release can do a lot of good for a business. But perhaps the benefits business owners may love the most is that they can increase the sales in any business. And that’s the main reason why so many business owners invest in them.
So how can press releases do this?
They do it by allowing businesses to promote their new products and new services offered. By simply getting the word out, (something many businesses struggle with) that alone can increase sales and get more business through the door.
But that’s not all a press release can do, either. Press releases announce successes the business has recently achieved. Maybe a business received an award or a respected industry association noticed them. Maybe they recently embarked on a new technological development or joined with another prominent company to better serve their customers. All of these are great things businesses should want their customers to know about.
Why?
A customer automatically elevates a company in their mind when they make progress. If a business gets rewarded, they likely did something really great and know their stuff. If a business is a leader in their field, they must be the experts for their customers.
All of these benefits translate into new customers for the business. After all, the better a business is for the customer, the more customers will want to use that business. And that is always good news for both the business owners and the customers. A winning combination for all parties involved, and all thanks to a simple press release!
A Press Release Can Bring More Traffic to Your Website
One of the little-known benefits of press releases is that they can help businesses get more traffic to their website. While many business owners embark on press release marketing for various reasons, they may be surprised to find that traffic to their website also gets a boost.
This is because, in every press release, one or two links to a company’s blog or website can be included. If the press release is interesting, and the business knows how to establish themselves as an authority and provide useful, helpful content within the press release, customers will want to learn more. Customers will click on the link to learn more about the company or the product that piques their interest.
But it’s important that business owners understand that they must be careful when inserting links to their website or blog into their press releases. This is because Google, the biggest search engine in the world and the to most likely get a press release the most amount of views, will penalize shady tactics in which business owners are simply placing link after link in their press release.
Instead, inserting links within the contact information fields, or ending the press release content with one simple link after including “Learn more here” will be very effective. Google will not penalize such links, and both new and existing customers will flock to those one or two links.
Business owners try many tactics to get more customers to their site. This includes optimizing their website and blog with SEO tactics, including keywords, descriptions, and meta tags. Press releases are not a reason to stop using those strategies, but they definitely give them a very big boost!
Get More Organic Traffic By Optimizing A Press Release
Do a quick Google search on how to increase SEO, search engine optimization, techniques on your website, and you’ll find a whole slew of websites and links that will tell you how to do just that. There are different ways businesses can increase their SEO efforts, but creating press releases is one of the best ways.
This is because press releases can be optimized just like the content on a website or blog is. Search engines pick up press releases that include valuable keywords or keyword phrases any time a user searches for those same words or phrases.
Press releases sometimes include metadata for titles and descriptions, which also helps search engines pick them up. Metadata entices people to click on your link and get more organic traffic to your website. It’s also used by Google and other search engines to understand what your page is about. Since press releases are released online, they can also include these, too.
Press releases optimized for SEO climb higher in the search engines. The company’s blog and website that publish the press release may also climb in those search engine result rankings, too.
Increasing organic traffic to their website or blog is something all business owners want to do. The more traffic that’s coming to a site, the more word is getting out about that business, and the product or service they offer. And perhaps best of all, getting organic traffic is absolutely free. All it takes is some strategizing and determining what SEO tactics to start including, and where to include them. Spreading the word for free? That’s something any business owner can get behind!
Press Releases Make Archiving Easy!
Ask anyone in any business to dig through their archives, and you’ll likely be met with some reluctance. And perhaps your own business has a stack of archives that you dread having to go through at any time. Even when archives are kept digitally, finding that exact thing you need at the exact time you need is difficult. But, press releases can change that. With a press release, you just need to keep one folder on your computer, transfer all press releases to that folder, and find whatever you need in just one click.
By doing so, you’ll quickly be able to see at a glance, all the events and activities your business has embarked on in the past. And that’s important, because sometimes you may want to revisit those events and let customers know about them.
And there are many times when business owners want their customers to know about events that happened in the past! Maybe you want to release a campaign outlining the history of your company. Or maybe you just want your customers to look back on the grand opening as you get ready for your business’ first anniversary. There are many times you may want to take a look back, and press releases can help you do it.
So forget about using that search function on your computer until it’s burnt out. And forget about sorting through all those archives that are down in the basement. Just start releasing press releases and then when you need to reach back into your company’s history, you’ll have everything you need at your fingertips.
Press Releases Can Follow Your Customers Wherever They Go
Did you know that 80 percent of all Internet users today own a smartphone? And that Google drives 96 percent of mobile search traffic? Or that over 50 percent of smartphone users grab their smartphone immediately after waking up? Why are these stats important, and what do they have to do with the press releases your company should be releasing?
The stats are important because business owners need to know that their customers are going mobile. And it’s not a trend that’s going to slow down any time soon. Most businesses think that this only concerns them when it comes to their website and blog. And still many business owners don’t bother to make their website or blog mobile-friendly. Not only does that get their page ranking docked with the search engines, but it also means that customers can’t properly view it when they’re on their devices.
But if companies just issue a press release, they’ll reap all the benefits of mobile usage by their customers regardless of the mobile status of their website. Since Google is optimized to perform well on mobile devices — as are the PR distributors that release the press releases — when a press release is created and viewed on these devices, business owners can still reap all the benefits.
That’s not to say that business owners who don’t have a mobile-friendly website and/or blog shouldn’t try to make it mobile-friendly by the time their press release is published. Ideally, links are included in the press release to both of those sites. Customers will likely click on those links when the press release is done well. And sending them to a mobile-friendly site will definitely be helpful for the customer.
But press releases can definitely be an added boost to any business’ mobile efforts, particularly those that haven’t delved into the mobile-friendly world yet.
JVI Mobile Marketing will happily help your business send out your first press release. Just fill out the fields below and email us at support@jvimobile.com to get in contact with us!
If you’ve been wondering what the big deal is about online reviews, you’ve come to the right place. Here you'll learn how reviews affect your search rankings, when you should remove your reviews (spoiler alert: not very often) and how to earn more positive reviews to keep your business booming.
Can Reviews Affect Your SEO Rankings?
You already know that local SEO is the name of the game. It’s essential to send Google signals – through keyword use and other SEO techniques – that your business is local. You also want them to know who it serves and where it is.
What you might not know is this:
Your online reviews play a direct role in your business making the cut to appear in the Google local three-pack.
The Google 3-pack is a collection of businesses that appear at the top of Google’s SERP when someone searches a keyword. It turns out that one of the keys to landing a coveted spot in the three-pack is getting good reviews. Here’s what you need to know.
The Proof That Reviews Matter
How can we tell that reviews make a difference in SEO rankings? Google’s algorithm is proprietary and the known ranking factors (keywords, links, and Google Rankbrain, to name a few) don’t include reviews.
Local SEO experts have been saying this for years, but it’s actually fairly easy to see that online reviews are important. Google any local business category and you will get a list of results with a three-pack at the top. When you look at the businesses that made it into the three-pack, you’ll most likely see the following:
Star ratings pulled directly from online reviews of the business
Keywords in those reviews
For example, if you searched for the keyword “Spokane hair salon,” you would see reviews that related to that keyword. That’s all the proof we need to know that reviews make a difference in determining which businesses appear at the top of the SERP.
The Local SEO Guide found that local reviews were the second most influential factor in determining search rank in their 2017 Local SEO Ranking Factors study. The influence in this study appeared to be limited to reviews that specifically included the keyword searched. Customers, however, are likely to use the most commonly searched terms naturally.
In addition, LSI keywords that are related to the search term may also play a role. Try Googling your top keyword and looking at what’s highlighted in the reviews in the three-pack. You may notice that reviews that use semantically-related words show up even if they don’t use the precise term you searched.
You want your business to be in the top results when customers are looking for businesses like yours near them
The Reasons Google Likes Reviews for SEO Rankings
There are some concrete reasons that Google thinks reviews matter. They’re directly related to the ways that Google’s algorithm has evolved. In the early days of the internet, it was possible to get a page to rank highly on any search engine by stuffing it with keywords.
That changed because it omitted any concern for the experience of a user who clicked through to a site. After all, if you could click on a site because it ranked for a keyword only to find that it was useless to your needs, you wouldn’t revisit it. You might even resent the search engine that directed you to it in the first place.
With that in mind, here are:
The Top Three Reasons Google Likes Reviews for SEO Rankings
It trusts outside sources more than it trusts you (at least when it comes to the relevance of your site.) This first reason is related to the ongoing importance that Google places on authority backlinks. It stands to reason that it would accept mentions and references from other sources as proof that your site is relevant to certain keywords and topics.
Google uses written content as a way of determining authenticity. When customers write reviews, they describe your business. They may even include information that’s not on your website. Even if you don’t list reviews on your site, these things can help flesh out the information on your site and give Google more context for its interpretation of your site.
Click-through rates also influence Google’s ranking algorithm. That might seem obvious, but what you need to know is that a business with lots of good reviews is, inevitably, going to get more clicks and traffic than a business with a few mediocre reviews. It’s in your best interest to encourage online reviews if you want to boost your Google rank.
These three things explain why reviews matter to Google. The key takeaways here is that Google takes outside resources into account to help it determine the authenticity and usefulness of your website. Users “vote” for your site by writing reviews and describing your site. Just as web users trust peer reviews to help them make buying decisions, Google trusts them to help it make recommendations of which sites are most likely to be useful for the keyword searched.
How to Make the Most of Your Reviews
Here are some quick tips to help you make the most of your online reviews:
Claim your listings on all relevant review sites. This includes Yelp and Google My Business, as well as local review sites. You want to make sure that you use keywords in your listing, link to your site, and include relevant information that will help people find you.
Link to your review pages directly from your website so customers can leave reviews if they want to.
Put a reminder about online reviews on your receipts or comment cards. Remember that dissatisfied customers are often motivated to leave online reviews, but happy customers will do so if you make it easy for them.
Send a note to your email list with a link to your review sites and ask them to leave a review.
Reply promptly to negative reviews to try to resolve them and get the reviewer to update their review.
These things will help you dial up the impact of your reviews and help you get into the coveted local three-pack for your most important keywords.
Reviews matter…
You know that, and now you can do something about it. Organic traffic is increasingly difficult to come by but encouraging and highlighting your reviews can help you get the biggest possible bang for your marketing bucks.
Not too long ago, business reviews were written by subject-matter experts and printed in well-known publications. In today’s world, that’s simply no longer the case. Nowadays your customers can easily voice their opinion and experience they had with your business online for the world to see.
But that’s actually a good thing – and there are plenty of good reasons why your business should be listed on review sites. The first is that you get to add a link to your website which will boost your traffic – and secondly, people can also get some basic information about your business such as the name of your hours of operation, where it’s located, your phone number and so on.
But most importantly it’s the customer reviews on these review sites (they call them review sites for a reason!), that makes them so important, but it also can be a double-edged sword.
Positive reviews can do wonders for your business, as review websites are considered more credible than any form of advertising. But negative reviews can have disastrous consequences to your bottom line. The complaint can be serious enough to significantly derail your business. Like a report about seeing bed bugs in a hotel room or a cockroach in an entrée at a restaurant. What’s really frustrating is when the report is not true and no merit at all.
But the question is, when should you remove reviews – reviews that make your business look bad?
Advantages of Removing Negative Reviews
Purging negative reviews can be a good thing. First of all, it limits the number of people who’ll ever read them – keeping the damage to a minimum. After all, it’s not unusual for a potential customer to reconsider their choice after reading just one negative review over a dozen positive ones.
Another benefit to removing negative reviews means that your average rating will go up. Studies show that a high customer rating means a potential increase of 55% in sales. According to Yelp, a restaurant with a 4-star rating is 63% more likely to be full at any given time than a restaurant with just a 3-star average rating. And a one-star increase in the average rating can bump up your revenue by 5 to 9 percent.
So it’s blatantly obvious why anyone who runs a business would want to remove negative reviews.
Disadvantages of Removing Negative Reviews
But these reasons alone for removing negative reviews doesn’t mean you should necessarily do so. In fact, websites like Yelp, Facebook, and Google don’t make it easy for you to remove negative reviews for one very simple reason— it damages the credibility of the site and the business
Removing reviews is to remove trust People trust review websites because they believe that by and large the reviews are honest and unbiased. To most people it’s an obvious red flag if they only find positive reviews. There’s got to be some contrast. You can’t please everyone and consumers know that. They will become suspicious if all you have is raving reviews about your business.
In this way, negative reviews are helpful because almost 7 out of 10 consumers are more likely to trust the reviews when they see that there is both positive and negative reviews in the mix. In fact, it’s been found that shoppers who read negative reviews are actually 67% more likely to convert than the average consumer.
What to Do When Slapped With Negative Reviews
First of all you need to understand that unless the review is inaccurate, a fake review, or violates the policy of the review website in question – you don’t stand a very good chance of actually getting the review removed.
To start with, you need to keep an eye out for online reviews – whether they are positive or negative. But if you can’t spend the whole day manually monitoring these website, it’s a good idea to consider using an online tool like reviewpush.com to help you monitor the sites automatically.
If you want a free alternative, setting up a Google Alert will pretty much do the same thing.
Once you have been alerted to a new review, it’s best if you can respond to it right away, good or bad. When you respond to positive reviews, it shows that you’re a gracious business owner who acknowledges the importance of your customers.
But when you are responding to negative reviews or complaints, you have several options. For example, if a customer felt your business fell short in some way then you should apologize and promise to do better.
But you can turn a negative into a positive while by taking responsibility but also emphasizing how you’re going to do better next time to balance things out.
Or you can even engage with the customer and ask ideas from them. Apologize for any inconvenience caused and then ask if they have suggestions on how you can do things better.
Whatever you do:
Just be polite.
The good thing about responding to negative online reviews is that 33% of the reviews are amended and become a positive review instead when they get a response from business owners. So it’s a win-win solution.
Negative reviews with inaccuracies or negative comments of your business that are flat out lies posted maliciously–often by competitors, or disgruntled ex-employees are the reviews that you’ll have the best chances of getting removed – but there must be a legitimate reason.
How to Remove Online Reviews
Each review site has its own rules and guidelines, but for most reputable sites you can’t just remove a review simply because it says negative things about your shop. However, you can take a peek at the guidelines governing such reviews, and you can flag a negative review if you think it has violated a rule or guideline.
For Google local reviews, check out the Google local review content policies and see if the review violated any one of its guidelines. If it has, you can flag the review and bring it to Google’s attention. Examples include offensive content, advertising for your competitors, or conflict of interest such as a review which was written by a competitor.
Contact the website’s webmaster, requesting them to remove the content, or at least indicate to Google that it shouldn’t crawl or index the page. They will probably require a compelling reason to remove reviews, so back up your request with as much proof as possible.
Whether you plan to keep or dispute a negative review, your main priority should be to boost the trust of your customers. Remember, positive reviews can make them trust you, but the presence of negative reviews doesn’t always mean that they will trust you less.
It may be better to simply respond to negative reviews in a proactive way than try to remove them. When you show to your customers that you value them by making every effort to give them a positive experience, then even bad reviews can be used to your advantage.
We have 6 tips for you to generate more positive reviews in a smart way. Who doesn’t love receiving positive reviews from a satisfied customer? Every business owner knows the value of positive reviews – and they’ve never been more important than they are right now.
Did you know that more than 80% of all consumers say that they trust a product review from a stranger as much as they would a personal recommendation from a friend. Not only that, people trust user reviews more than the official descriptions of products.
If you’re thinking of customer reviews as something that you can’t control, think again. Business owners can do a lot to encourage reviews – and of course, you can increase the chance that you'll have mostly positive reviews by providing excellent quality and service.
Still, those things aren’t enough. You can’t afford to sit back and hope that customers leave reviews of your business.
Fortunately, you don’t have to take a backseat to your customer’s whims. Here are six smart ways you can get more positive online reviews.
#1: Email Customers After a Purchase
Do you send customers an email after they make a purchase?
I’m not talking about the confirmation email where you send them an order number if they order online. I mean an email where you specifically ask them how they like your product and request that they write a review.
This is a practice that’s become increasingly common – and for a good reason. Some people automatically leave reviews for everything. They’re the well-known Yelpers who have thousands of reviews.
Many people need a reminder. They’re not going to leave a review of their own accord – but they just might if you ask them nicely. This is the review version of the call to action on your website. It’s a specific request to take a specific action.
Try sending your review request email a week to ten days after the purchase. That way, the customer will have had a chance to use your product and may be ready to offer an opinion.
#2: Empower Your Employees to Ask for Reviews
Sometimes, making the right request at the right time is all it takes to get the reviews you want. That’s why it makes sense to have your employees ask for reviews.
Some Uber drivers do this. Just before they arrive at their passenger’s destination, they ask about the review. The simple request puts the idea of leaving a review in the customer’s mind and greatly increases the chances that they’ll comply and leave a review.
Why ask at the point of service? When a customer has just made a purchase or used your service, the experience is fresh. A cashier who provides a friendly checkout and some banter is ideally placed to ask for a review because they have an opportunity to build rapport with the customer.
If you decide to use this method of getting reviews, consider printing cards asking for reviews and putting links to your review pages on your website. You don’t want customers to be confused about what to do – so eliminate the guesswork and you’ll reap the rewards.
#3: Use a Reviews Provider
The benefit of using a reviews provider like JVI Mobile is that they can get you a bunch of reviews at once. They’re real reviews from your real customers and they can give your page instant credibility.
These providers are a good option for start-up businesses because they can make your website appear to be well-established and popular. As you go, you can supplement the online reviews you get through a service with new online reviews from your customers.
#4: Try to Get a Google Local Guide to Review Your Company
Google Local Guide is a program owned by Google that designates certain reviewers as local experts. The process of getting a local guide can be a complex one, but here are some tips to help you do it:
Make sure your Google My Business listing is up-to-date and active
Join Google Local Guides on your own – you can write reviews of local businesses and raise your visibility provided you don’t use the platform to promote or favor your business
Attend local events with other guides
Invite other guides to come to your business
This isn’t a quick fix, but the nice thing about Google Local Guides is that when a local guide reviews your business, their designation shows up in the review and that gives it more weight than it would have otherwise. Another benefit is that Google requires guides to use their real names, so there’s less of the anonymous ranting that shows up on Yelp.
#5: Automate the Asking Process
If there’s a way for you to automate the process of asking for online reviews, why wouldn’t you do it?
Automation means that there’s no worry that a stressed-out employee will forget to ask. It turns the process into part of your customer service – a hands-off way of encouraging customer feedback and garnering the kinds of online reviews you want.
Here are a few suggestions to help you automate your system:
Set up an autoresponder to send an email requesting a review. Instead of manually sending those emails, link the date of a customer’s purchase to their email and have it go out on schedule. If you link customer purchases to your email marketing provider, you can rest easy knowing that every customer will get a request for a review.
Print up review request cards and put them in the customer’s bag at checkout. This method eliminates the need for your cashier to ask for a review, and makes it simple to do even at times when you’re busy and have a line at the register.
Put review links on your product pages. That way, when a customer makes a purchase they can easily read reviews of it – and it may help to remind them to leave a review after their purchase.
With JVI Mobile's reputation management platform, you can have your review process automated using our tools. Automating your review request system makes good business sense because it eliminates the guesswork.
#6: Set Up a Review System in Your Company
Even if your business is small, you shouldn’t fly by the seat of your pants when you’re requesting reviews. The method you use to ask for online reviews should be part of your company’s standard operating procedures.
Your review system should:
Specify whose job it is to ask for reviews
Specify the language to be used when requesting a review
Specify methods to be used (email, conversation, links and printed cards, to name a few)
Specify the timeframe for requesting reviews
Lay out procedures for responding to both positive and negative reviews
If you codify your system for requesting and managing reviews, you can be sure that there isn’t any confusion and that customers always get the request you want them to get.
Don’t Sweat the Negative Reviews…
We’ve focused here on garnering positive reviews for your business, but don’t get too stressed about negative reviews. If you handle them properly, they can help your business too!
Respond quickly and graciously and offer solutions. Don’t get defensive. Many businesses use negative feedback to demonstrate that they care about their customers.
If you’re getting so many reviews that you’re having trouble keeping up, you may want to consider using an online review management system to help you – and having too many reviews is the problem you want to have! That’s how businesses grow.
See how your business stacks up! Get your FREE Review Scan here to generate an instant reputation report and check out how your business appears on local review sites.
Blogging is still one of the best ways to drive traffic to your website and attract new customers. But are you making the most of your local business blog? Maybe not.
If you’re not, the big question is what should you be doing? The answer starts with numbers and ends with specific advice. So, let’s dig into some statistics, and then we’ll look at 5 tips you can use to put your blog to work for you.
Blogging by the Numbers
A massive study of blogging, which reviewed 912 million blog posts, revealed some helpful information that can help you improve the performance of your business blog. Here are some of its key findings.
Backlinks
Backlinks are still one of the most important ranking factors for Google. The blogging study found that long-form content gets 77.2% more links than short-form content. That’s a huge difference, but it also has its limits.
The study also found that there was a sharp drop-off in links once a post crept over 2,000 words. But, that said, 94% of all the posts analyzed had no backlinks at all.
It’s also worth noting that some post formats and titles get more backlinks than others. The three most popular post types for backlinks were:
“What” posts
“Why” posts
Infographics
Those three formats got 25.8% more backlinks than “how-to” and video posts.
Social Sharing
You might think that blogging can help you out on social media, but the numbers don’t bear that out. For example, there’s no correlation between social sharing and backlinks.
It’s also interesting to note that very few blog posts perform well on social media. The study found that 1.3% of “power” posts generate 75% of all social shares.
There were some specific findings about the length of headlines (longer headlines get more shares) and questions (local business blog posts with questions in the headline get more shares than those without questions.)
List posts are more likely to be shared than other posts, too – and by a significant amount. They get 218% more shares than “how-to” posts and 203% more shares than infographics.
The so-called ‘sweet spot” for getting your blog content shared on social media is between 1,000 and 2,000 words.
One final statistic to inspire you: one study found that blogging can improve your chances of getting a high rank on Google by as much as 434%. How’s that for an impressive number?
Tips to Improve Your Local Business Blog
The data from that study is useful because it can provide you with a framework to improve your business blog. Of course, there’s more to worry about than backlinks and social media, but other bits of data from the study point in a direction that may be useful.
With that in mind, here are 5 tips to improve your blog.
#1: Create (and Stick to) a Blogging Schedule
The first tip is to blog regularly and stick to a schedule. There’s some evidence to suggest that blogging four times a week is optimal. In fact, companies that blog at least 16 times per month get 3.5 times as much traffic as companies that blog between 0 and 4 times per month.
16 blog posts might seem like a lot. But what you may find is that creating a blogging schedule will help you be more disciplined about coming up with blog ideas and getting those posts written. And remember, you can always hire a writer to create blog posts for you if you don’t have the time or inclination to do that much writing.
#2: Give Your Posts Compelling Titles
It turns out that titles make a big difference when it comes to generating traffic, social shares, and backlinks. Here are some pointers:
List posts tend to perform better than other types of content on social media. That’s part of the reason that sites like Buzzfeed have so many lists. People like them and you can use that knowledge to grab more traffic for your site.
Give your posts long-ish titles. One study found that blog posts with titles that had between 6 and 13 words performed the best.
Ask a question. That big blogging study found that blog titles that asked questions got 23.3% more social shares than posts without a question.
Be provocative. Saying something that’s surprising or controversial can get people to click even if they’re not inclined to read blog posts. There’s a reason they say that curiosity killed the cat!
Earlier, we mentioned that the “sweet spot” for blog length is between 1,000 and 2,000 words, with longer posts getting more engagement, backlinks, and sharing than shorter posts.
Does that mean every post you write must be long? Of course not! But, if you’re in the habit of cranking out 300-500 word blog posts, it can help you to write a long post occasionally. It might turn into one of those so-called power posts that generates traffic on social media and Google.
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#5: Add Social Sharing Buttons and Widgets
People are far more likely to share your blog posts if you make it easy for them to do it. That’s why it’s a good idea to add social sharing buttons to your posts.
Be smart about it, though. If you offer a full menu of social sharing buttons, you may find that it has the opposite effect to the one you want. Where’s your social media audience? If they’re mostly on Twitter, put a Twitter button and use the “Tweet this” widget to allow people to share key quotes from your blog. If you’re marketing business-to-business, put a LinkedIn button on your blog.
The good news here is that it’s not hard to improve your business blog. It’s mostly about being aware of what the numbers say and figuring out a blogging schedule and strategy that’ll work for you. If you do that, the clicks, shares, and links will follow.
Need a review of your local business blog? JVI Mobile Marketing can take a look and give you suggestions for what you can do to get more eyeballs to your posts!