It’s pretty common knowledge that a good review from your customer is going to have a positive effect on your web visibility.  Clearly those map listings that, in addition to  the standard information also show a star rating, are more than likely to get a better click through rate. Note the screen shot below. Which two reviews are going to catch your eye?  But there’s more to the power and value of a review than just click through rates.

Semantic SEO is playing a larger and larger role in how your site will be ranked and who will view it (depending on Googles perception of the searchers intent.

How that might affect your sites visibility is in the words the reviewer uses in the review. It would seem to be common sense,  but when asking for a review, you may want to help your customers with some of the words they could use.

If I was a dentist, and I wanted a certain type of dentistry to stand out, I would ask for the reviewer to mention  “Orthodontics“.  I don’t think you need to ask them to use the word…. but you could suggest they mention the procedure they had. 

When you request a review or encourage your clients to write one, it’s very helpful to them if you give some ideas on what they might want to say….

For our clients we  suggest they send out a request, with full step by step instructions on the process of getting to the review page, and then give a few ideas to get them started.

Things like… what was the project we worked on for you?

What city are you in?

Were you happy with the?

– Service

– Scheduling

– Office staff

-Customer service

– value delivered.

By helping in this way you should see a better response, and a better result in web visibility because semantically your reviews are matching the services you want to be highlighted.

And it doesn’t hurt to take a look at your company description on your Google My Business listing, and make sure it reflects your business goals as well.  Again, if you are a Dentist (And we don’t do web visibility for Dentists) and you want to do more Orthodontics,   well then you may want to use that word as well as the phrases that relate to it in your description, and mentioned in reviews.

And, I guess it goes without saying, ask the type of customers you want more of to provide reviews. <<<<<  Smart.

I want to caution you to never write a fake review or have one written. Following Googles guidelines is important,  as well as any other platform you want to see reviews of your business on.

Call me if I can help!

720-254-1234

Mike