How to register your business. How to give and get Google reviews:
Free internet marketing for local businesses.
Google is the most widely used search engine, comprising around 90% of all internet searches. The power of getting ranked high by your primary keywords (i.e. “home inspection nashville tn” for a home inspector in Nashville, Tennessee) can make a big difference in having your business found online. There are many ranking factors that influence this. Blog activity is thought to be the most important one, but for local businesses, I have found that there are more important priorities.
I recently helped a local coffee shop get on the map with Google. I noticed that when I Siri’d “coffee shop” right in front of his cafe, they were not showing up. The first problem was, that no one had registered his establishment on Google (many web designers don’t do this). Not having a Google business listing, there was no way for anyone to give them positive reviews, which is clearly a big ranking factor in search results. I registered his site with Google, and after a few reviews, abracadabra: #1 in that geographical search!
How to register your business for free on Google:
Get, or use your Gmail account username and password.
- Go to Google for business: select your category of business, search for your company name and claim it, if it’s not there, list your business. Google will send you a post card in 1 – 2 weeks. It will have a verification code on it, that you will need to enter.
- Go back to Google for business and enter the verification code. That’s it!
Download this PDF to see what the process looks like.
The process is similar for Bing and FourSquare. Yelp uses a phone verification the last time I checked.
NOTE: One of the newest tricks in the book are unscrupulous telemarketers calling, claiming to be with Google, wanting to verify your business. Fraud! Google will not call you to do that. These callers are selling something else.
How to give a Google review:
Add a rating & review
- Open Google Maps on your computer and make sure you’re signed in (Gmail username and password).
- Search for a place.
- On the card that appears below the search box, click Write a review.
- In the window that appears, click the stars to score a place and write a review.
NOTE: Do not try to rate yourself, or let someone else rate you on your device. This will get it deleted, or worse.
How to get reviews on Google:
I was looking for a new HVAC this week after my upstairs 20 year old unit died. I went to Google and searched HVAC. Google did a local search of the area and gave me several pages of companies. Near the top of the organic list was Heritage Heating & Cooling L.L.C., with an astonishing 4.9 out of 37 reviews. I called the phone number listed, and immediately got the owner: Jeff Parks.
We talked at length about the estimating process, and my options to replace the system. I told Jeff that I was very impressed with the ranking they had and the number of positive reviews. They were not the lowest estimate, but I never take the lowest estimate when it comes to a service. Here is my review on Google and Yelp:
“These guys are real pros. Fast, friendly and a fair price (I got 4 estimates). Next day service on one of the hottest days of the summer, interest free financing, attention to detail and a complete clean-up inside and out. They have my highest recommendation!” (5 star rating)
The only way to the top is to be the “real deal”, but one of the ways Heritage encourages online feedback, is to mail a survey after the job is complete with a $10 Star Bucks gift card. This is one way to encourage good reviews on Google, the largest search engine on the internet.
The owner was a little frustrated with the one negative review out of 35 five-star’s, but he understands that everyone gets a bad review eventually, and 100% positive reviews looks suspicious to most people anyway.
#googlereviews #howtogetgooglereviews #googlebusinessregistration
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