According to research done by Fan & Fuel, nearly 90% consumers believe customer reviews factor into their purchasing decisions. Nothing creates brand trust quicker than customer testimonials do. Product reviews mainly consist of word of mouth advertising which is by far, the best form of marketing and probably always will be. For service providers, customer testimonials are worth its weight in gold.
In virtually every aspect of our everyday life, our eyes have shifted to evaluating quality. Amazon discovered how product reviews generate sales early on and has since capitalized on it.
In this blog we'll cover the following:
- How your customer testimonials affect your Google SEO.
- Why customer testimonials are so critical to your success.
- What Are LSA's?
- How To Automate The Process of Collecting Customer Reviews
How Your Customer Testimonials Affect Your Google SEO
As small business owners, most of us have some understanding of the importance of customer reviews.
In general, real estate professionals concentrate send most of their reviews to just one of these three sites, Facebook, Hubspot and Zillow.
Out of the top three search engines, Google is by far the most popular and the largest search engine in the world. Google reviews play a key role in how well you rank in search engine results.
And yet, it is often ignored by small business owners. Those who have caught on, are reaping the benefits.
If a person doesn't know a real estate professional personally, where do they start their search? On Google of course! When choosing which company, service or Realtor to use, they first look at the number of Google reviews next to their profile.
For instance, here are the top 3 keyword searches used by people looking for a real estate agent.Â
According to Google these keywords are among the most popular and thus the most expensive. Ranging in price from $7.63 - $10.34 per click.
Let's take a look at each one.
When you conduct a search for a business, Google will give you the top 3 business. This is called a 3 Pack. You'll also often see ads above the three pack.Â
Each verified business profile is rated by search map location. The keyword search for "Real Estate Agent Near Me" has over 33K searches every month.Â
- Meck Realty is the closest to this location so it appears at the top of the 3 Pack. Meck has 4 - 5-star reviews.
- Erica Moves me has 70 reviews
- Real Estate for Life has 1 review
I'd like to point out the big disparity between all 3 in terms of the number of Google reviews. Now, which of the 3 do you think people are more likely choose and why?
If you chose Erica Moves Me, you right! So why would the bulk of leads go to this listing? Quite simply because she has the most customer testimonials by far! What does that mean to a consumer? Even if they never read the customer reviews, it instantly grants Erica credibility and relates a sense of trust to people searching for Realtors locally.
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Next keyword search is "Realtor Near Me" with over 90K searches per month.Â
The top 3 are:
- Tam Team Realtors with 23 customer reviews
- Rall Realty Group with 19 customer reviews andÂ
- Remax with 11 customer reviews.Â
When you automate the process of generating Google reviews from your past clients, it won't take long for your Google profile to overtake any of these top 3. Whats more is that because you've automated the process, once you've reached the top, each new review virtually guarantees you will stay at the top of search results. All this without a dime spent on ads.
Last we have the search term "Real Estate Agent" with 110K searches per month.
- Meck Realty with 4 customer reviews
- Rall Realty Group with 19 customer reviews
- Remax with 11 customer reviews
There isn't much disparity here between Rall Realty and Remax. Although it stands to reason that Rall Realty is generating slightly more leads than Remax.Â
But because the Remax brand is more widely known, in my opinion, I'd venture to guess that they are pretty close in terms of leads generated for this search term.
According to most Bright Local studies, 52% of search result clicks go through this 3 Pack.
So a little more than half of anybody searching for this service will choose one of these options based almost entirely on the number of customer testimonials associated with their Google profile.
It's easy to see that Erica Moves Me is grabbing the lion's share of leads for the Google search term "Real Estate Agent Near Me".Â
Even when you consider that the same person can use this term more than once in a given month, the number of leads generated are still highly valuable. Why?Â
Because it's a very specific search term in a very specific location. It's more likely than not that anyone using that term is a potential new customer in the near future.
Why Customer Testimonials Are So Critical To Your Success
Customer testimonials and product reviews are so crucial when it comes to attracting new business. People trust customer reviews and use them in the final stages of deciding which product to purchase or what company to get a particular service from. The more Google reviews you have in your profile, the better your reputation will be and the more customers you will attract.Â
Local search results are based primarily on relevance, distance, and prominence. A combination of these factors helps us find the best match for your search. For example, Google's algorithms might decide that a business that's farther away from your location is more likely to have what you're looking for than a business that's closer, and therefore rank it higher in your local results.
What I’m getting at is that on Google, customer testimonials have unprecedented power. A power to influence brand trust, local SEO, and generate new customers.Â
- Google reviews increase trust in your brand.
- Transparency is becoming more and more relevant for consumers today.
- Customer testimonials give your business name instant credibility, this is referred to as social proof.
Customer testimonials are critical in todays consumer driven world. In fact, nearly 88% of consumers have read reviews to determine the quality of a local business. A large part of this research is generally done through Google reviews.
To really hammer home the power of customer reviews, the same survey reports a staggering 72% of consumers say positive reviews make them trust a local business more than they may have otherwise. This provides a great opportunity for local small businesses to gain a competitive advantage over another by collecting customer reviews.
Google reviews have an impact on Google local search. According to (SEO)Moz, roughly 9% of Google’s entire search algorithm is driven by review signals like the ones you’ll find in a business’ Google profile.Â
Any smart business owner knows that it’s vital to get customers to click on your link when it shows up in a search engine. You could spend all the time and money in the world on your SEO strategy, but if people aren’t actually clicking on your link, all the effort is in vain.Â
Luckily, focusing on building your customer testimonials is an excellent way to increase the click-through rate when you show up in a search engine. Your Google review rating will show up next to your business name, so a good collection of positive ratings will undoubtedly increase clicks through to your site.
Customers who have chosen your Google listing over the others are already coming in with some level of trust based almost exclusively on the number of positive reviews associated with your business profile. For this reason, any of you with a strong rating on Google should be advertising that rating all over your website. This rating will increase new referrals even if they’ve never read your online reviews.
Fortunately, requesting reviews from past clients and generating new reviews is super easy using Real Leads Finder Pro automation.
What Are LSA's?
Sometimes you may come across ads such as these. They appear at the very top of a search result page and above PPC ads.
These three ads are called local service ads or LSAs, and they are pay per lead ads.Â
That means, rather than being charged each time someone clicks on your ad, you are only charged if the lead calls or messages you through the ad. Google's minimum budget is $45/week.
But through Real Leads Finder integration, you can connect your Google LSA to your Google or outlook calendar making it possible to book appointments with you right from the ad. Consumers can click on "more real estate agents" just below the ads.
Where they can filter agents by location and customer review ratings. Â As you can see, there is a big disparity in the number of reviews per agent
- 101 reviews for Future Davis
- 66 for Brian Kasper andÂ
- 10 for Weaver Team
This disparity means there is still a great deal of availability for you to climb the ranks.
Many small business owners shy away from asking for reviews. Chasing a client and begging for a testimonial is not something we want to spend time doing.Â
With the help of Real Leads Finder, you can entirely automate the process of building your Google reviews. The system harnesses the high open rate of text messages to gather product reviews and generate customer testimonials more consistently.Â
As soon as a transaction is completed and the contact is tagged as "Closed" for instance, the automation kicks in and sends out a series of review requests.
First request is sent to their mobile phone right away followed by another request via email. The automation can be set to repeat until your client clicks on your review link and leaves you a review.
How To Automate The Process of Collecting Customer Reviews
Here is what my review automation looks like.
Automations are completely customizable.
This automation will trigger as soon as the contact is tagged "closed" or the opportunity is moved to "Closed" stage in my pipeline.
The first request is sent to their mobile phone right away followed by another request via email. The first request asking them for a review is sent via text message.Â
Here, I've set the automation system to wait an hour before moving on to the next step in the sequence.
You can easily adjust the time to minutes, hours or days.
After an hour, the system sends out another request by email.
Now, I've told the system to wait one day before sending the same text and email sequence again.
In general, I let this sequence repeat up to 5 days.
As soon as my client clicks on the link provided and leaves me a review, the sequence ends and no more requests are sent.
All of your reviews will appear in your dashboard which is easily accessible on all of your devices.Â
The system displays your most recent review at the top. As well as the rating and the actual comment in the review.Â
Here you can also reply to your reviews, and that too will appear on your Google profile.
Always reply to reviews. The more activity on your Google profile the higher you'll climb up the Google ranks.
You'll be notified of each new Google review via text message and email so you won't miss out on the opportunity to reply.
Your Real Leads Finder Pro account comes fully equipped with a many automation recipes (or templates) ready for you to customize and set in motion.Â
It's hard to let go of your current CRM. They are expensive and you don't want to walk away from that money.
We understand that. The good news is, you don't have to abandon your current CRM system. Instead you can run Real Leads Finder Pro alongside your current system as your marketing and lead generation system running all of your own automations.
Let Real Leads Finder Pro system build up your online Google profile with automated review requests. Build websites and landing pages. Manage all of your Facebook ads, FB messages, web chats, SMS, emails and all your social media postings funneled into your Real Leads Finder Pro dashboard.
We believe that once you realize just how powerful the Real Leads Finder Pro system is, you'll determine you can't do without it.
Real Leads Finder Pro is an all in one lead generation and CRM system. Unlike most other CRM's, email providers and social media planners,Â
Real Leads Finder Pro doesn't force you to upgrade every time you've hit a certain thresh hold of calls, texts, or contacts.
There are no limits to the number of emails you can send, the number of contacts you have, the number of websites, team members, or the number of pipelines you create.
