Reviews Are Crucial to Marketing Your Business

So you’re at the forefront when it comes to small business marketing. Your website is completely optimized and you’ve done search engine submissions along with directory submissions. Basically you have a web presence that should stand out above the rest. Although when you search for your business on local sites like Google Local Business Listings, Yahoo Local and Bing Local you are on the first page but at the very bottom. Like most small business owners who have taken on the task of search engine optimization for their website and search engine marketing for their business you are at a standstill once you’ve reached a certain position on the search engine page rankings.

Where do you go from there? If you are doing small business marketing you probably do not have a lot of time to research how to fix your problem or even manage your reputation online. Most likely you are helping customers out or you are out doing work but that’s the beauty of this tip. While you are helping customers and servicing their needs you have the opportunity to provide your business with local SEO. Expert or not all, you need to do to help boost your page on the local business listings is ask for reviews and ask for them properly. What do I mean by properly? Small business owners are a friendly group of people who usually get along with members of the community.

You’re a business owner …and that’s how you are, right? Sometimes a customer may ask you what they can do for you, other than just paying you. If you are an internet savvy owner then you know that a review on the internet could help boost your company’s reputation. So you ask them to post a review about you on Google or Yelp but you forgot to add in the most important part.

The TIP

Reviews have a greater impact when they contain keywords that support searches. Let’s say for example I have an insurance agency in Los Angeles, CA. It is probably a very competitive market and most likely it will take a lot of work to climb to the top of the searches. Reviews from clients that contain keywords will help to boost me up to the top of the searches. Do not be afraid to teach your customers how to add keywords into their reviews. It’s as simple as letting them know, if you write a review about my business please don’t forget to tell everyone which service I provided you and please let them know that I am this type of business.

In my example a review by someone stating they got the cheapest boat insurance around after searching many insurance agencies would help me to rank for prospective clients searching for boat insurance and insurance agencies. So a proactive owner looking to do small business marketing without the help of a reputation management company or a local SEO expert can help to boost their business to the top of the local searches on the Google Local Business Listings, Yahoo Local and Bing Local could find that the answer is right under their noses. Asking customers if they could write reviews about your company or service and asking if they can add in important facts and keywords is probably the easiest way to help your search engine marketing for a small business.