Role of Customer Reviews in Local SEO

Every small business organization wants to establish their presence in the local market before they compete global and this is the reason why local SEO is gaining importance as the day passes by. Many business owners who want to initiate local SEO   for their business are confused about starting point of their marketing strategy. However, this is a difficult nut to crack. Here is a guide to help you open the doors for local marketing of your business online.

If you are in the wake of increasing your local rankings for business, you might be aware of the importance of reviews and ratings here. Let’s start our journey of local SEO with the reviews from the potential customers that works great in increasing in customer engagement and boosting sales across different channels. Though many business owners know that reviews are important in the digital marketing arena, they might not uncover the full potential of reviews in their marketing strategies and this article is to help you with the related information.

Why are reviews important in local SEO?

Recent updates in the Google algorithms have brought great changes in the local search results. Giving due importance to the reviews and provide the users with some insightful information, Google maps has presented the ratings under each listing and this played as a primary driving factor in ranking up the search results. Benefits of the local SEO for the small business are endless, the business organizations that learn to build the right strategy will enjoy ripples of success throughout their business journey.

Benefits of reviews for local business

It is an un-denied truth that reviews can benefit any business online but, they enjoy unique importance in the local SEO strategies. Explore the benefits that reviews can add to local business in the search results.

Increase CTR and improve search rankings

When you are offering good quality products and services to the customers, you may have a good number of positive reviews from them. Why not take the leverage of these positive reviews to gain a top place in the search engine rankings or click through rate?. Local SEO service companies will help you achieve this by placing your reviews adjacent to your organic search results with the help of the code. This enables the customers to gain easy attention to the positive reviews and increase your click-through rate.

Help your ads stand out

With the intense competition, small business organizations to invest in the paid ads to rank top among the search results. Though this is one of the effective strategies to rank up top among the search results, your click-through rate will be high when your paid ads are accompanied by positive reviews. Reviews accompanied by paid ads will have a double impact on your search engine rankings. If you are running an ad words campaign in local SEO, make sure you display positive reviews to get the best value for your money. You can expect a 50% rise in the conversion with decent number text reviews displayed with paid ads.

Stand out in map results

For any local business, lead generation is an important benefit that one would be looking for. Having positive reviews for your business listing will rank up your search results on Google map listing.  By making your citations correct and getting positive reviews from the customers, your search results can rank up high in the map listings so, the importance of reviews in the local SEO cannot be ignored.

How can you get the reviews?

When you know that importance of reviews for your local SEO cannot be ignored, you should learn some effective ways to get reviews from the customers.

Follow up customers with calls

After the customers have purchased a product or availed a service, you should call them to get a review of the product or service sold. Though it seems to be time-consuming, it offers you double benefit in terms of increasing your local SEO rankings as well as your click-through rate. Understanding the importance of reviews in the local SEO, follow up of the customers through calls is worth investing for the small business.

Get reviews through mail

I know following up all the customers through a phone call is a challenging game for mid-sized business but, this cannot make them ignore the importance of reviews in the local SEO.  An easy alternative, in this case, is to seek reviews through email.   You can add a note to make a review of the product on your post-purchase emails, receipts and invoices to leave a review.

In summary, whether you are running a local SEO campaign or global SEO, it is time to give utmost importance to reviews and increase your click-through rate along with the search engine rankings.

About Writer:-

Amit Chauhan is the Founder & CEO at SearchClap. Amit is an Internet Marketer, Blogger, SEO Consultant, Link Building specialist & Maps marketing Specialist. You can connect with him on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.