Customer reviews and social media—boost rankings and trust

One of the most beneficial things you can do for your business is to build up your customer reviews and social media presence across the web. Doing so improves your ability to rank locally, while also providing endorsements of your business to would-be customers by the local community.

Building customer reviews and social media followers may seem like a difficult thing to do, however, there are simple ways to go about this and be very effective.

• “¨At closing—If you have just made a sale, hand out business cards with callouts on the back to review your store on Google+ and Yelp, along with following you on Twitter and Facebook. You’d be surprised how well this works.
• E-mail—Follow up recent purchases with a thank you e-mail to the customer. Encourage them to review their experience in your store. Don’t forget to imbed links in your message to your social media pages to give them easy access to your profiles.
• Social media—Anyone already following you on Facebook or Twitter is a prime candidate for reviewing your business online. Just ask!

Be sure to spread the wealth when it comes to building up reviews. Google+ reviews are the only ones that show up in Google search results pages, so you’ll want to make sure your listing stands out by getting as many as you can. Reviews from Yelp now show up in Yahoo results, and they’re quite beneficial for times when customers are doing serious research about your store.

Monitoring these pages for new reviews is something you should do regularly. Nothing is more detrimental to your online reputation than a negative review that has been missed or ignored. If someone leaves a nasty review, respond publicly and resolve the situation. Google and Yelp display your responses as officially coming from the store owner if you’ve taken the time to verify ownership of your listing. Responding publicly shows potential customers you stand behind your work and are willing to rectify any unfortunate mishaps. This goes a long way toward establishing integrity in the eyes of the consumer.

In the coming years, Internet search will become even more engrained in our everyday lives—we’ll rely on it for things we can’t possibly imagine yet. As more and more consumers flock to the web for all phases of the buying cycle, getting ahead of your local competition in the realm of search is going to be critical to your business’s success.

It’s time to take control of your online business presence. You either care or you don’t. No doubt, implementing the tips and suggestions discussed here will absolutely take time, but they don’t have to cost anything other than that. The benefits of improving your online presence can outweigh the costs. According to Google, 97 per cent of consumers search for local businesses online. If they can’t find you, you may be missing out on loads of potential new customers. Can you afford to?

Steven Domingue is director of e-commerce at Stuller, Inc., a Louisiana-based jewellery manufacturer and distributor of jewellery supplies. He has six-plus years’ experience with Internet marketing and local search stemming from his prior position as marketing manager at a prominent web design and marketing agency. Domingue can be reached at steven_domingue@stuller.com or (337) 262-7700 ext. 3558.