Maintaining an up-to-date, accurate Google Business Profile (GBP) and gaining reviews are essential for your business. Quality reviews serve as essential trust signals that help AI-powered search algorithms like Google’s identify your business as credible and worthy of higher visibility in search results. It’s incredibly important not only for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to significantly increase your visibility online, but also helps to build credibility, a solid reputation, and provides searchers with the essential information they need to understand and contact your business!
GBP & Review Tips
Your online listings and reviews are more important now than ever before (and we don’t see that changing any time soon). Let’s review some important reminders and tips for GBP maintenance, review etiquette & policy violations to make sure yours is in tip-top shape!
- Keep Your Information Up-to-Date: If your website doesn’t appear in organic search results and your Google Business Profile information is outdated, your potential customer has reached a dead end. Customers can’t find your contact information, website, or determine if you’re open, resulting in lost business! Keeping your information accurate and up-to-date will help improve your visibility and make sure customers can find you!
- Obtain Frequent Reviews: Reviews are incredibly powerful social proof and can significantly impact not only your search engine visibility, but be the determining factor whether or not someone becomes a customer. If you can obtain a regular frequency of positive reviews, you’re on the right track!
- Accept & Respond to All Reviews: It’s important to accept and respond to all reviews that are given—even the negative ones! This may sound counterintuitive, but actually a well crafted response to criticism will get you a long way. If you’re interested, you can learn more about the impact of responding to reviews in another post.
- Do Not Solicit Reviews for Money: Never offer money, discounts, free products, or prizes in exchange for reviews! This is a violation of Google’s policies and can really hurt customer trust. Simply asking for a review is totally OK, and part of a good strategy to increase the number of reviews given. But if Google finds out that you paid for a review, it will be removed and you could face other negative penalties.
- Do Not Ask Your Employees for Reviews: Avoid asking your employees to leave a positive review. Reviews should only come from customers who have actually experienced your products or services first-hand. If an employee were to leave a review, this would appear inauthentic, and could even be removed by Google.
- Never Post Negative Content About Competitors: Posting negative information about your competitors is a no-go, whether that’s within your GBP listing or in a review that you post. This is another violation of Google’s policies, and can really hurt your business!
Take Control of Your Online Presence
Google Business Profile is a powerful tool that helps to build trust, improve visibility, and earn credibility. By following these tips you can create a solid representation of your business that can attract and engage potential customers. Your online presence is often the first impression customers have of your business, so it’s important to stay proactive, authentic, and watch your online reputation grow!
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