Your Guide To Online Reviews

When a consumer wants to find out more about a business, where do they go? Many turn to online reviews. Consumers love online reviews because they can trust their peers more than business owners or marketing gurus. Customers will believe other customers and judge a business based on others’ experiences. This is why your online ratings are of the upmost importance. However, with so many review sites it can be hard to navigate the online review scene. We have put together this guide to help you understand more about each individual review site and what you can do to help your business get better reviews. We will go over the suggestions, rules, and regulations for Google Places, Facebook, and Yelp.

Google Places:

  • Suggestions:
    • Remind your customers to leave feedback on Google
    • Become an active presence on Google and respond to reviews.
    • Make sure your business information is verified.
  • Rules:
    • No Advertising, spam, phone numbers or links to other sites, off-topic reviews (someone else’s experience), obscene language, conflict of interest, illegal or copyrighted content, etc.
    • Reviews are most valuable when they are honest and unbiased. If you own or work at a place, please don’t review your own business or employer. Don’t offer or accept money, products, or services to write reviews for a business or to write negative reviews about a competitor. If you’re a business owner, don’t set up review stations or kiosks at your place of business just to ask for reviews written at your place of business.

Facebook:

  • Suggestions:
    • Keep your Facebook page current and engaging.
    • Make writing a review easy.
  • Rules:
    • Ratings and reviews must follow the Facebook Community Standards (no hate speech, inappropriate content, fake reviews, etc.)
    • Focus on the product or service offered by the Page and based on personal experience.

Yelp:

  • Suggestions:
    • If you receive a negative review, do everything in your power to make it right.
    • Let customers know you are on Yelp, but don’t ask for reviews.
  • Rules:
    • Inappropriate content, conflicts of interests, promotional content, relevance, privacy, intellectual property, demanding payment
    • Your contributions should be unbiased and objective. For example, you shouldn’t write reviews of your own business or employer, your friends’ or relatives’ business, your peers or competitors in your industry, or businesses in your networking group. Business owners should not ask customers to write reviews.

We hope this helps you navigate the online review process. If you need further assistance in getting more reviews, then please contact us today!

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