Why Your Business Needs Online Reviews

Brian Freeman with Buildit Media. Hey, want to talk to you today about online reviews for your local business. Why do you need them? Why are they important? 

The first thing we can do is put ourselves in the role of the consumer. You are searching for something new, a new product or service that you need. You go online, you make the search. What happens? Businesses pop up. Google throws up business suggestions to you, right? You’re going to see some that have a lot of reviews, some that are four and a half to five stars, maybe 50, 60 reviews, 20 reviews, whatever it may be. Then you’re going to see the guys that have one review or three reviews, and they’re at a three star or a two star, okay? How do we know which business is the right one to go with? 

Well, the thing about it is regardless if you want to I guess agree with it or not, we trust people we don’t know. We trust the people that have gone on there, and actually said something positive about these businesses, or negative about these businesses. Now this guy that has one or two or three reviews and he’s at a three star, he may be an excellent company, but maybe the one person that didn’t have such a great experience came and actually left them a negative review, but he didn’t put the time in to make that up with some new, with some really positive reviews from the clients that he’s worked with. 

So to go out there and get reviews for your company online that are positive is so, so important. So when you have a customer that’s had a positive experience, go to them and ask them and say, “Hey, would you mind leaving us a review on Google? Would you mind leaving us a review on Facebook? Would you mind leaving us a review on another channel that you guys are on?” Another social channel that your business is on? So, so important. Okay?

Now the other thing you have to do is you’ve got to go and you got to Google your name, Google your business name. Go on there and say, hey, B2B business reviews, and see what pulls up. Check the first page, check the second page of Google, and see is there any negative feedback about your company? A lot of times there is, and it’s something that maybe some troll out there wrote about your company just to try to put you down, but you’ve never responded to it, but it’s still showing up on the first page or second page of Google. You’ve got to own the conversations on the first and second page of Google. So get on those sites.  You may have to clean the account, whatever it may be, for your business. Go on there and start to build positive content to offset any negative that may be out there already. So you can take back over the conversation and put your business in a very top position to where in the eyes of the consumer out there, that they want to do business with you. 

And if you do have negative reviews, respond to them, and make sure that your consumers can see that you are very serious about having a good reputation. Reaching out to them and saying, “Hey look, I don’t know what happened. I’m not sure if I even know your account.” Some people will leave leaving like a fake review and say, “We will want to do anything we possibly can to resolve this with your company. Please contact me as soon as possible. Our company wants to resolve this with you.” So engage in the conversation if there is something negative to try to right it, so even though it’s negative and it won’t get removed, that it’s a sign to your customers that you’re willing to back your product and to follow up and follow through. 

So online reviews are absolutely vital to your business, local business especially, very, very, very important. So make sure you go after that and just dial in your online reviews, always asking for them. 

That’s online reviews for local businesses. Thank you so much for watching. Please hit subscribe below. We’d love to keep the conversation going. Have a great week!