Visible | Zephyr Marketing

So far I’ve covered an introduction to Google’s Local Business Center and the opportunity to create or claim a local business listing. This post is about an important section of the listings that can help boost not only your visibility (via placement) but in the process, your credibility and reputation as well. I’m referring to the section having to do with customer submitted reviews.

While I can’t predict reviews will increase the rankings of your listing, it seems that more often than not listings with reviews do appear towards the top. In a recent article by John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing on 5 Ways to Rock Customer Review Sites, Jantsch writes, “sites like Google Maps seem to be giving higher rankings to local listings with more reviews. So, now’s the time start going after reviews from happy customers in a proactive way.”

Try some searches like I did for “dentist benicia ca” or your “products/services city & state” and see if the local business with the most reviews isn’t placed on top of the results.

Google has this to say about ranking of listings:

All Google search results are based primarily on relevance, and Google Maps listings are no different. Google Maps ranks business listings based on their relevance to the search terms entered, along with geographic distance (where indicated) and other factors…

Google Maps and the Local Business Center are a free service, so there’s no way to request or pay for a better ranking. We also can’t provide additional details about our ranking algorithm. We do our best to keep the details of the algorithm confidential in order to make the ranking system as fair as possible for everyone.

So, with that said, the way to look at business listing reviews is it gives you one more dimension to leverage in having a robust and engaging listing. It also gives you, the business owner the opportunity to implement a strategy to build your reputation and credibility in the eyes of prospective customers. Don’t leave it to chance. Be pro-active and have a plan to have fair and honest reviews written and submitted by your customers!

Review Sources & Services

Digging a little deeper you may find there’s more than one way to see a review show up in your local business listing. Google’s practice of pulling in reviews from other sources across the web and populating the review section is similar to how they gather data from recognized sources in populating other sections within the listings. For example, they syndicate or pull in review content from Yelp (which had been in acquisition talks with Google), City Search and others.

Google also has business relationships with reputation marketing companies such as DemandForce.com. In fact, while researching this post I learned the dentist practice in Benicia, Benicia Family Dentistry shown at the top of the maps listing in the above example with 89 reviews is using the Demand Force service which has a data integration partnership with Google to import the certified reviews from clients into their maps listings. There’s no doubt that local business marketing is heating up with more and more focus and applications being directed toward making a local business more competitive, visible and credible online.

A Reputation Marketing Plan of Action

Subscribing to a service like Demand Force may be the best way to go for a local business wanting to implement a sophisticated customer communications and reputation management strategy. But, if you’re not there yet you can still implement a simple, but effective reputation marketing plan. In the following video tutorial, I describe how to see that your local business listing is populated with customer reviews. You can download the slides here: How to Promote Your Google Local Business Listing with Customer Reviews.

The key steps as detailed in the video tutorial:

Have a customer review or reputation marketing plan mapped out for your business.
Let customers know from the beginning you’re committed to excellent service and will ask them to complete a review.
Send them an email message with a link to your local business listing on Google.
Have a straightforward call to action in your email message.
Mitigate any issues that may have cropped up by asking them to contact you directly with any concerns.
Ask for the review. Don’t ask = don’t get. Most customers are more than happy to support you and will give you an honest and positive review.

If you’re a local business owner or marketer, you’re head should be starting to spin with ideas and a resolve to get started with reputation marketing. It will improve not only your visibility, it will enhance your online presence, deepen your relationship with your customers and increase your ability to attract new customers through building up your credibility and reputation.