Reviews on Google, Yelp and Facebook or “the Big 3” as I like to call them, have been getting more and more important with each day that passes.
Though the idea of online reviews is not new, the trust factor and acceptance rates of these features continues to grow.
A number of business hate reviews because of one or two bad ones, but the fact is that the public has grown to USE these reviews to make buying decisions.
Just recently some interesting testing has started. Google has now started a beta test to put ads in the Maps section which INCLUDES the star rating for that business. I have seen some businesses using this with as low as a 2.5 star rating, which is surprising, but I bet they are getting lots of clicks! And if the website handles the objection to the low reviews, then they could be getting loads of new business from these ads.
One of our clients just got an invitation for Facebook’s new beta test of showing that client’s Facebook Page reviews in their Facebook ads! Lucky for them, they have been using ReviewWave for the last year and they now have 79 reviews on Facebook (they got as many reviews in the last year as they got in the 2 previous years combined) in addition to the 121 Reviews on Google (up 6x from the prior 20 years combined).
Now even though these are both BETA tests, I can guarantee you that it will roll out to their platform since the reviews will certainly inspire more clicks. Facebook reviews are going to be even more relevant than Yelp Reviews after this rolls out, and could make Yelp join Myspace if it really tried. Obviously Google isn’t going anywhere, but because there is currently ONLY 1 spot for this type of ad, it will be very expensive. I would not be surprised if they add 1 more spot soon, and have 2 ads in the Maps section and 2 ads in the Organic section.
So at the end of the day, the biggest media outlets of our day are focusing on displaying reviews, making reviews more relevant, and getting more of their users to act on them…
What do you think you should do as a business? I’ll give you three guesses but you probably only need 1: GET MORE REVIEWS!
Reviews are money in the bank. They are a game – the one with the most reviews wins, as long as the reviews are above a 4.5 star rating in most cases.
It is an exciting time for our clients who are stacking up the reviews and seeing a direct correlation between the reviews going up and their leads from the internet going up.
Grab our 14 Day Free Trial and see for yourself.
