The power of positive online reviews cannot be understated. Social proof from people having a positive experience with your business will make you stand out among the competition. Positive customer feedback lets potential customers know that a business delivers on what they say they can accomplish.
But is it possible that both a positive online reputation and positive reviews can also contribute to improved online visibility with search engines? Furthermore, does responding to reviews help with SEO? This article from the Cindtoro marketing team will will guide you down the path detailing everything you need to know AND give you actionable steps you can take.
What Is SEO?
First things first if you are new to the marketing you may or may not have heard of search engine optimization or SEO for short. SEO is the practice of optimizing a web page or pages for keywords that are important to a businesses products or services. Marketing professionals will commonly reference there are many different types of SEO. We are going to break down each one of them so you can have a better understanding of the roles they play.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is the practice of fixing underlying issues which may not be present to the human eye, however these technical issues are hindering the success of your website due to unseen problems being present.
What are these issues? These could be things like:
- Broken links or images: (People can’t find what they are looking for)
- Hissing heading tags: (Google cannot understand your content)
- Titles that are too long:(Causes titles to be cut off or tunicated by a search engine)
- Unminified JS or CSS: (causes slow load times)
On Page:
On page elements refers to anything that has to deal with things people can see. These could be things like your HTML tags, images, user experience design, and overall content on your website. (on-page SEO is also the place that keywords are placed when a website wants to be found for them.
Off Page:
Off page SEO refers to anything that has to deal with things that are not on your website. These can be getting other websites to link back to yours. This is where the name backlinks come from. Off-page SEO helps create trust and relevance for a website
If you want to go more in depth on these two topics read this article on the differences between On and Off Page SEO
Mobile SEO:
Mobile SEO is the type of optimization that takes place specifically for mobile phones / tablets. Search engines like Google have adopted a “mobile first indexing” this means Google will prioritize the mobile version of a website over the desktop version because of the number of people who are now using mobile phones opposed to desktop and laptop devices.
Local SEO:
Local SEO is extremely important for any business that services customers in a specific geographical area. This type of SEO will involve things like working to increase rankings on Google maps, leveraging a Google business profile and local directory websites to improve search rankings.
Image SEO:
A search engine cannot read images like people can it is up to SEO professionals to help Google understand what an image is about. This is where things like file names or alternative text comes into play. These things are useful to inform the search engine what an image is about. There are best practices to follow so to do it right make sure to not make these mistakes.
Video:
Did you know that YouTube was the second biggest search engine in the world? video SEO helps to tackle the challenges businesses have with gaining traction on platforms like YouTube or others.
Now that you have a good primer on what search engine optimization is Get ready to dive into If responding to reviews helps with SEO in addition that we will also discuss WHY it helps improve rankings.
Does Responding To Reviews Help SEO?
The shorter answer is yes absolutely! Responding to reviews helps SEO. This happens because why search engines need to protect their users at all cost. This is covered extensively in Googles Quality Rater Guidlines a 170 page document detailing what makes a high quality webpage and what does not.
A search engine wants to recommend the best quality content to users because their job is to make sure that the users of that product or service are not put in harms way or have negative experiences. They do not want to show businesses that do wrong by their customers.
Consider the position Google would be in if they continually recommended a mechanic that had a one-star rating for their Google Business Profile where thousands of people have complained they experienced poor quality service, long wait times and were subject to prices 3x the cost of others from said mechanic. Of course, there is nothing wrong with a high price but you need to be the best. The results would be devastating harming both the trust and reputation of Google causing them to lose market share and users.
With that being said lets look at the search engine ranking factors gaining positive feedback has on a search engine.
Google Ranking Factors Review Responses Stimulate And The Impact On Google Business Profiles
If this is your first time hearing about “ranking factors” let us explain: Google and other search engines have a number of systems and algorithms built to stop them from showing or in this case (ranking) websites that are deemed low quality, violates their policies, or places users In harms way.
Now that you know responding to reviews improves SEO visibility the CIndtoro team is going to break down the ranking factors that are influenced so you understand the reasons why this works.
Signals Trust
In order for search engines to provide users with the best search results for a given query they prioritize signals of trust. Where does Google get these trust signals? From the reviews customers are leaving about your business. As you gain more reviews the search engine will begin to show your website more recently as people search for a product or a service because they (the search engine) sees that people in real life are having a positive experience with your brand.
Signals Relevance
Relevance is something that you will hear SEO professionals talk about occasionally and in the context of using reviews to improve SEO this has to do with the content that is contained in a users review. Ask yourself this question in other words does your response contain keywords that are related to your product or your service? If so you will take precedent over other company’s reviews that do not contain keywords.
Impact Reviews Have On Google Business Profile
If you have a local business and are looking for ways to improve your local SEO rankings then review responses are an absolute must! In fact as apart of Google’s guidelines they specifically talk about the benefits reviews can have on a Google Business Profile. Here’s a summary of the section that is specifically about review responses: Replying to reviews shows that you value your customers and their feedback a high quality review will help improve your business discoverability in search. If you want to read more you can do so here
Best Practices Responding to Reviews for SEO
If you want to maximize the effect that reviews have on your business and SEO there are some best practices that you should follow to make things simple to understand here is a bullet point list for you to follow:
- Respond to ALL reviews both negative and positive
- When you respond try to use keywords or mention specific services
- Do not use templated responses for every person a review
- Respond ASAP to show you value a clients business
Ways To Turn Negative Reviews Into Positives for Your Business
In business mistakes happen and when they do people will sometimes leave negative reviews about your company. Google and other search engines understand this. So just because you get a negative review does not mean it will harm your SEO efforts. A negative review can actually serve as a positive here is why:
First: search engines are not expecting to see 5 star positive reviews from every person who you do business with. To Google and people That looks highly unnatural. Of course as a business owner you should always strive to do the best job you can to solve clients needs before your own and to provide an amazing customer experience.
Second: actively responding to negative reviews offers a chance to show how you solve problems further helping a search engine understand if you truly care about your customers and value their feedback.
Conclusion
We hope you enjoyed this article about review SEO and the best practices associated with maximizing their impact. If you need help generating more reviews for your business do not hesitate to contact us we would be happy to serve your needs.
FAQ
You have questions the Cindtoro team has answers see below for the most frequently asked questions.
Which 3rd Party Review Sites Matter Most For SEO?
Search engines prioritize signals from as many websites as they can find. Googles Algorithm and others look at review density, relevant and trust and the places reviews come from. That being said positive client reviews from reputable third party websites will help the most with SEO. Examples of these websites are: Trust Pilot, Yelp, Facebook, Better Business Bureau (BBB) and industry specific ones.
Does Deleting A Google Review Hurt SEO?
Google wants to see both the good and the bad reviews a business has. In-order for them to show the business that will do the most good for the customer. It looks unnatural to a search engine and users if every review is a five star. Don’t worry about getting a few bad reviews as long as it does not turn into a regular event. Use the negative customer feedback as a way to grow and get better.
What Industries Do Reviews Work For?
Leaving and responding to reviews will work for any type of business no matter if it is a hospital, dental practice, CRE firm or law firm or any other industry.
What Does Responding To Reviews Do?
Responding to Google reviews, and those on third party websites will do some of the following things:
- Improve click through rates (CTR)
- Turn unhappy customers into satisfied ones
- Sets your brand apart from competitors
- Improves search engine visibility
- Increases views on directory listing profiles by 5% or more
- Shortens your buying cycle
