We know that reviews help your company.
They act as social proof. If a prospect reads a positive review of your company, they are more likely to visit your site or contact you.
Reviews also help in the area of local SEO. In fact, a recent report from Moz shows that in 2017 reviews account for over 8%. So what is the best way to get reviews?
The best way is to ask for them.
Who do you ask?
Ideally, you ask people who are your clients or customers who like what you do.
The key to getting reviews is to make it as easy as you possibly can.
For instance, we made a template of how we ask for our reviews. Currently, we have a 100% response rate for this email because (well people love us) and we MAKE IT EASY.
Below is our template (feel free to steal it). The text in black is what we write in the email. The text in red are notes. Be sure to remove the red before you use this.
Hello Client,
I hope you and the family had a great Thanksgiving! (or Christmas or January or whatever)
I was wondering if I could ask you a favor? Could you take about six minutes (six minutes is pretty accurate. Also while 5 minutes can stretch to 10 minutes, six minutes by its specificity says that you mean six minutes) and give YOUR COMPANY NAME a review on Google?
It is a simple four-step process, and we walk you through all the steps below. (We even wrote a possible review below if you want to copy and paste it).
Emphasize how easy it is to do create a Google review. Even if your customers are not that technically savvy creating a Google review is fairly easy.
Step 1: This link will take you to where you can review us. (To get this link just do a search for your company name in Google, find the write a review button and click it then copy the link)
or drop this into your browser (add the raw link you copied). A pop-up should appear that asks if you want to review our company.
If the review popup does not pop up, you can see a button to the right of the screen that says “Write a review.” Can’t find it? Check out the screenshot attached. Attach a screenshot similar to this picture.
If your customer doesn’t use Chrome the review box might not pop-up immediately. However, you are so helpful you are going to be prepared with a screenshot of where to find the review.
Step 2: Login to Google (if you are not already) with any Gmail account. Pretty straight forward.
Step 3: Add a Review. You can then write a review or use this one that we took the liberty of creating. Go ahead if you want a create a review of your company. Concentrate on the things that your customer said about you, or the problem they wanted to solve.
Try not to go overboard though.
If there are any keywords that you want to rank for I would go ahead and put those in the review. By the way, DO NOT pressure clients to use your review. You want any good review that you can get even if it is not a perfect review.
Sample Review: We recently launched our professional services company, and 366 Marketing helped us build our branding and logo, as well as, our new website. While we are based south of Charlotte, in York SC, we need a national presence that reflects our professionalism. 366 Marketing helped us present ourselves as a cutting-edge solution to Fortune 100 companies.
Step 4: Press “Post”
That’s it.
Thanks for your time and if we can do anything to help you, please don’t hesitate to ask. Wrap it up and be thankful!
If your customers or clients don’t respond after the first email I think it is OK to send a reminder but don’t pester them, just move on and ask another client.
Would you would like more help with SEO or inbound marketing? You can contact us for a free assessment with actionable suggestions.