Let’s talk about Google reviews - we all want em, we all need em, how to get em?

Online reviews heavily influence purchase decisions. And we all know that what customers have to say about your business carries more weight than what YOU have to say about your business, especially to first time buyers. Enter: a Google review strategy for your shop.

Knowing how much value consumers place into customer reviews, Google has factored them into its local ranking algorithm—not just the quantity, but the quality of those reviews. In this series of articles, we’ll cover a few things:

- The importance and impact of Google reviews for your floral business.

- The best and most efficient ways to get more of them.

- Examples of these strategies with samples so that you’re not starting from scratch. (Nobody wants that!)

- How to respond to those new reviews

Ok - so let’s start by talking about WHY we want Google reviews?

More reviews lead to more sales leads

Did you know that 88% of shoppers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations? Building up your reviews increases the likelihood that a Google searcher will engage with your business when they find it. They are more likely to click or call if they see multiple positive reviews. We all do this, right?

More positive reviews, more purchases

Consumers research before making purchase decisions. In fact, they read a minimum of 10 reviews before feeling confident in making a decision. The more Google customer reviews you have, the more likely a purchase is to be made. I had to laugh when I read this stat because I just booked a hotel and did this very thing! I don’t just look at the star rankings or even the top reviews. I dig through to find the most recent reviews. I want to know the current state of the hotel services, cleanliness, staff, etc. So you can bet I’m reading more than one review to make my buying decision.

Higher reviews, higher rank

Google straight up says that it rewards businesses that have frequent and positive reviews. They are a definite local SEO ranking factor. A reminder - SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization, which is essentially making it as easy as possible for Google to find you. I did a deep dive into some easy SEO boosters here if you need a review.

The last reason we want google reviews - they’re free!

There are no fees to leave reviews or to respond to them. Positive endorsements for your business on your Business Profile serve as free Google advertising for your business on the world’s most trusted platform.

Ok before we dive into getting reviews, we need to cover the ground rules.

Ask, don’t incentivize.

You cannot reward a customer to leave one. No freebies or coupons. You must follow Google’s Terms of Service when asking for reviews.

And you can’t “lead the witness” so to speak - don’t put words in their mouth. Google reviews are intended to be an honest opinion. If you happen to get a bad one - no worries! You can turn it into a good thing and we’ll talk about that in the Reviews Part 3 article.

Your business needs to be a “Place” on Google Maps.

This will give you a Google Business Profile on which customers can leave reviews. If you have not claimed your Business profile yet, or you haven’t looked at it in a while, it is time my friend. Click here for your Free Profile Checklist.

You need to have your Google Business Profile verified.

Creating a listing on Google Maps (which automatically creates a Business Profile) does not give you control over that listing. You need to create a Profile account and verify ownership of your Business Profile through that account. It’s not hard, it’s just filling in some basic information and then waiting a bit for the verification code. But do this first if you haven’t. I’m guessing you probably have, but I didn’t want to put the cart before the horse!

Ok, now that the ground rules are out of the way, let’s get to gettin’ reviews.

The first step is to create a link to your review page.

You don’t want your customers to have to jump through hoops to leave you a review - that’s going to significantly decrease the odds that they’ll do it. So creating a link that you can easily share and that takes them exactly to the spot on your profile they need to go is your first priority. Here’s how:

Go to your Google Business account, click the Home tab, and find the “Get your first review” (or “Get more reviews”) card. Click “Share review form” and copy the link to your clipboard. Save a copy of this link where it’s easily accessible for the next few steps. I like to save a copy in my Notes app on my phone and we have it in our shared Google Drive Documents at work as well. If you want to shorten the link or customize it - say you want it to say “Review [Your Shop Name]” you can use a free link shortener site.

An example is bitly.com. It is not necessary, it just looks nicer and cleaner than having a 74 character jumbly link floating around. While you have your link handy, use it to generate a free QR code. Those are those scannable little squares that we’re all so familiar with post-covid. I use www.qrcode-monkey.com but just Google Free QR Code generator and you’ll get lots of options… Man I need to start asking for sponsorships from these guys huh?? These are NOT paid ads :) Just sites I’ve used and I’m passing along to you.

So we have a Google listing and profile and we are armed with our review link. Now what? In the next article I will be breaking down 6 different places to ask for reviews - our website, our email, our social media platforms, our phone customers, in-person and other small businesses. For the next part of the series, click the button below!