I'm always amazed at how important reviews can be. We've had MANY customers contact us because of our great reviews online. These reviews help us so that a) we are found and b) people really want to meet with us and c) they are more likely to close since the customers already have a favorable impression before we even arrive.
Yesterday, I got a call from a past "almost customer." This was a customer I met wth two years ago. They are an older couple, and we were going to sand and refinish their home. However, life got in the way, and they had to postpone the project. It now sounds like they are planning to do this work in late April or May. (Yay!).
The wife called me yesterday saying that they came across one of our wonderful reviews. She started reading it to me since she was so excited about it and said that she definitely wants to work with us. (The review mentioned me and 2 of our team members). I'm not sure where she found this review (I will need to ask her on Friday), but I was glad she did.
We have been trying to make a more concerted effort to gather reviews, and it's really becoming a big part of our plan for 2013.
For my business, it seems that the following 2 places have made the largest impact (based on what my customers tell me...the ones that actually call and choose us):
1. Angielist.com - this site is amazing for contractors and is based almost exclusively on reviews. My guess is that for real estate agents, zillow reviews might serve a similar purpose.
2. Google Reviews - I think this used to be google place or google local but is now merged with Google Plus. (and it looks like I still don't have this set up correctly linked to my biz page on Google plus...ughh). But, at least it's being found so that's a start. (also, long story..it's not even tied directly to my website - it's going to our corporate site). Nonetheless, our phone # is there and we are getting the calls!
The next priority for us is the reviews on our website. I recently created a new page on there where customers can leave reviews: Find a Westchester Hardwood flooring contractor. I'm trying to optimize this for some key word searches and making some headway here. The page is fairly new, so it's hard to say how it's doing. For "find a westchester hardwood flooring contractor, " we are now #3, and for "find a westchester flooring contractor" #1, For "westchester flooring contractor, " we are #3 and for "westchester hardwood flooring contractor," we are #8...(but my other site is in #3 position for this search, so that's not so bad). And, of course, when I add the word "reviews" to the search, I pop up even higher. (BTW, I have linked to this page a few times on Active Rain posts and on Google Plus, and I'd recommend you do the same).
Other places for reviews:
- Zillow
- Trulia (I believe)
- Yelp
- Yahoo reviews
- Kudzu.com
- There are many others...at one point, a couple of yrs ago, we had added reviews in about 15 different places, but it's really Angie's list and Google that gets us the most calls - the 80 for 20 rule.
My recommendation would be to focus on 2-3 places that you think will have the most impact for you/your industry. For sure, google should be one of them. Then, find an industry relevant one (e.g. zillow, angieslist or something). And, then the 3rd would be to put something on your website. The combo of having people find you in objective 3rd party sites and your own website, I believe, is the ideal situation.
Oh, and if you want to help me with the SEO of my page, follow the link above to my review page, scroll to the bottom and give us a plus one (from google plus) or a thumbs up on Facebook.
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