Your Marketing Needs Client Reviews to Back it Up

Recently, Google has updated its requirements to run local ads from 1 review to 5 reviews. If you’ve been neglecting collecting reviews, now is the time to start, as they increase the value of your marketing efforts.

Google Changes Local Ad Requirements

What’s a local ad? Google Local Services Ads (LSA) are online ads that feature local service businesses such as plumbers, HVAC, electricians, cleaning services, and other B2C and B2B companies. As we often note, Google focuses on local companies, assuming that when someone searches for a business, they are looking for something nearby. This is why you must ensure you market your business to your local customers.

When enrolling in Google local service ads, the advantage businesses have is that their ads appear first, above the organic search results and regular Google Ads. These ads are the first thing a potential customer will see when searching for a service. This is important because, as with page rank, the closer to the top of a search engine result, the more likely you will gain the attention of potential customers…before your competitors do.

One thing to remember is that Google’s primary mandate is to ensure users of its platform have a good user experience and the big G is constantly making changes to ensure this happens. For example, as a reaction to black hat SEO, Google now focuses on content and not keywords to determine which website has the best answer to a question. Google’s new requirement for five reviews before allowing a business to run a local service ad is a similar response to customers having poor experiences. 

Before this recent change, if you wanted to run a local ad, all you needed was a single review, making it relatively easy for any business to run local ads. Unfortunately, with such a low bar to entry, there was an increased risk of customers having a poor experience when interacting with some businesses. What we are witnessing is Google reacting to customers’ complaints and, as such, increasing the review requirement to install customer confidence in a business.

Why This Matters to Your Business Marketing Goals

While Google’s latest update focuses on local service ads, you should always view any changes Google makes as part of your long-term marketing strategy. There should be little doubt that Google will continue to emphasize the importance of reviews to give customers confidence in a business’ ability to do the job.

As we noted, Google is solely focused on user experience. We have seen this goal expressed particularly in how they rank websites. Websites that provide poor user experience or don’t understand user intent may find their page position lower, effectively limiting their ability to attract potential customers.

Does Your Business Have Enough Online Reviews?

Google’s recent change to local ad requirements should be a wake-up call for all businesses, regardless of industry, to the importance Google places on reviews. Google will only continue to use reviews to determine whether or not to show your business not only on page one but in a position above your competitors. So the question is, have you been collecting reviews?

While it can seem daunting, acquiring reviews doesn’t have to be difficult. Here are five easy ways to get the process started:

1. Provide great customer service
2. Add a Leave a Review link on your website
3. Leave behind a Leave-Behind
4. Send follow-up emails after projects to guide clients to your Google Reviews
5. Ask customers directly for a Google Review

Various commercially available review generation tools can make the review process much more streamlined and automated. Also known as social proof, reviews and testimonials are still considered and treated as one of the best methods to encourage potential customers to take a chance on a business.