You’ve probably asked yourself the question, does responding to reviews help SEO? And why is it crucial to respond to reviews? The short answer is yes; reviews play a critical role in improving SEO.
First things first, customers trust reviews. More than 90% of customers consult reviews before they’re about to make a purchase. In today’s digital age, 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.
Reviews show customers the authentic experiences of other customers. Ultimately, they impact businesses more than you might realize. As a result, Google ranks businesses with many positive reviews highly.
In this guide, learn everything you need to know about generating positive reviews, responding to negative reviews, and how reviews affect your SEO ranking.
Why Respond to Reviews?
Responding to reviews is necessary for your fence company. Studies have shown that 53% of customers expect a business to reply to them on review sites. But there’s more. Responding to reviews increases the number of clients that will recommend your fence business to their family and friends.
Customers form their first impressions of your business based on your reviews. You show your dedication to customer service when you take the time to:
- Thank happy clients
- Apologize to unhappy customers
- Try to fix the problems they’ve experienced
By dealing with negative reviews, research shows that you can experience a 16% boost in customer advocacy. Responding to reviews helps you to boost your business by attracting new customers.
How Do Review Responses Affect SEO?
Google wants to give users the best results for their queries. So, the factors that Google relies on to provide search results are often similar to the factors customers use to determine if your business is trustworthy.
Google has confirmed that your reviews affect your business’s search ranking. The Google My Business support page explicitly tells businesses to interact with customers by responding to reviews customers leave. It also mentions that you show that you value customers and their feedback by responding to reviews.
Google’s search algorithm takes into account signals such as review recency, review diversity, and review quantity. You can make sure that people discover your business by paying attention to how your business performs in these areas.
When you spare the time to respond to reviews, your business will improve its local SEO. That improves the chances of your business appearing in the first three results in Google search queries. That translates to more customers, and ultimately, more revenue.
Build a Trusting Relationship with Customers by Responding to Reviews
Whether you receive a positive or negative review, it’s crucial to respond to that review to show your customers (and search engines) your commitment to customer satisfaction.
If you’ve spent time and effort attracting customers, then retaining them is just as critical. You should no longer view reviews as a one-way or static flow of information. Instead, they are a way to interact and engage with customers to create an open channel for communication.
Responding to negative reviews can have a positive impact on your business. Research shows that 33% of customers who received a response from a company after posting a negative review turned around and posted a positive review, and 34% deleted their original negative review.
Building a Review Response Strategy
According to a Trip Advisor study in 2018, hotels that responded to reviews increased their ratings by 0.12 stars and received 12% more reviews. The study confirms the positive impact of responding to reviews on search rankings and customer retention.
However, businesses have to do more than just respond to reviews. Most customers expect a brand to respond to their reviews within 24 hours. To achieve that, you need to invest in a review responding tool and a review response strategy.
How to Respond to Positive Reviews
If a customer compliments your business, be sure to thank them for the time they took to write a review. While there’s nothing wrong with generic responses, touching on something specific to the review in your response adds a personal touch that your customers will appreciate.
Finally, you want to give your customers a reason to come back either with a new product or just letting them know you’ll be happy to see them again.
How to Respond to Negative Reviews
Negative reviews help you implement changes to improve your current business practices. Whenever you get a negative review:
- Apologize for the experience and express your gratitude for the feedback.
- Remember that the conversation is public, so you shouldn’t argue with the customer or blame them.
- Ask for more details and provide them with contact information so they can contact customer service.
- Keep things short and sweet. Avoid saying more than what’s needed.
Instead of viewing the negative review as a criticism of your business, use it to find ways to improve. When you respond promptly and calmly to negative reviews and offer solutions, you can win back the disgruntled customers and show other potential customers that you value their feedback and will provide top-notch customer service.
Does Responding to Reviews Help SEO?
A review response strategy allows you to improve your fence company’s local rankings. Google has confirmed that you can improve your local SEO by responding to reviews. You should build and maintain a review strategy and have the tools in place to do so.
Fence Marketing Pros has been helping fence companies achieve their digital marketing goals. With over 15 years of industry experience, the team of marketing experts knows what it takes to make your fence business stand out from the competition.
Does responding to reviews help SEO? The answer is yes. Call now at 888-622-2964 to learn more about fence marketing and schedule a marketing strategy meeting.
