Google Reviews – An Old Time Tradition In A Brave New Digital World!

Google Reviews Are Already A Tremendous Influence on Consumer Decisions

So I went to this great coffee house a few weekends ago in Franklin. Set in a historic house It had a gorgeous cottage garden area that surrounded the house that seemed as suitable for a glass of wine as a cup of coffee. When I walked by I could feel it pulling me in. The inside of the house was old but nicely laid out with lots of different and colorful rooms as one would expect in a house built in the 1890’s.  The very nice and modern coffee bar was located near the center of the house and I ordered  my favorite – a Cappuccino Grande and then found an amazing place to write my weekly blog – next to the grand piano on a small single table. I turned on my favorite music thru my head set ear phones and as I sipped on my delicious cappuccino and began to blog I thought to myself “Could it get any better than this – I LOVE THIS PLACE”…

Enticing hey?

Well what I have just done is shared a great experience I had with you. If you were in my family or a friend or associate you might have heard me raving about this place for weeks on end. What a great place… you must check it out… the coffee was great… and you know most of the time if someone tells you about something they like you really do consider it in future decision making.  In actual fact word of mouth information sharing is the most trusted source of consumer information we know of!

So how do we share our experience digitally?

There are many ways to share a great experience digitally thru many popular social medias. You can tell your facebook friends or tweet your followers but the reality is this form of sharing is real time. A day from now know one will go back looking at your old facebook posts or tweets regardless of how wonderful your experience was. So if you want to really clarify a great experience digitally that is going to be read by future potential consumers as well as family, friends and associates then you really have to consider Google Reviews!

I have read recently that online reviews may contribute to 10% of search engine rankings. (where Google Places you in a search result).

So you are looking for a hotel to stay at. You search for Hotels in Mt. Juliet and google returns 3 hotels (listed in Google Review Results order). Our customer and good friend Justin Patel’s Hi Express Mt. Juliet receives many great reviews (all the time). So you can see Hi Express Mt. Juliet is featured prominently in the search results with a link to immediately see the reviews… (HINT HINT – that is most likely what the searcher is going to check on before making a decision to book a room)…

I have also read recently that it will take consumers 2-4 reviews to form an opinion – If I read 3-4 bad reviews generally I am gone BABY! So that stat certainly supports how I feel – and yes I look at reviews when making decisions online!

This Is Great! – Nothing But Great Google Reviews Right?

Getting a whole lot of great Google Reviews could really influence how much traffic your website gets (and maybe how many orders or bookings or prospects). Of course I have not told you the dark side of Google Reviews… the dissatisfied customer! Nothing will knock you over more than reading a bad review about your business.  In actual fact I will talk more about managing your Google Reviews in a future blog but the bottom line is you should actually respond to all reviews… thanks for the great review OR sorry you had a bad experience how can we help change that?  – it shows great personal touch and really shows you are connected to your online aspects of your business.

So the old time practice of sharing your experience with your friends and family certainly lives on with Google Reviews. The neat thing is if you genuinely have a high regard for a business you can share your experience online for others to read. And the good thing is you are fully in control of that review and can delete the review if you ever decided to. One other catch – you have to have a Google gmail account to leave a review which helps validate that the review is from a bonafide users and not an anonymous source.

So as part of getting you in the game I have provided a link to Bear Web Designs Google Reviews. It is embarrassing to say at this stage that we have never had a Google review but this is your opportunity to leave us a review and help Bear Web Design get on the scoreboard. (Of course only If you feel it is appropriate and please be authentic in your review). It is easy to do and will give you a larger voice in your digital world.  I have no doubt your company will receive reviews online in the future whether you solicit them or not. We have just started adding “Google Review” links to customer website to help to promote this critical aspect of Google’s Search Engine.

If you have any questions or need help in this area please be sure to contact me (615 504-6485).

Hope everyone has a great week!