You've heard of Google My Business, right? For those that haven't, Google My Business (GMB) is Google's free business listing tool. For absolutely no cost, you can create a business listing that will appear on search results, map searches and much more. You can update all your important business information, provide different methods for customers to reach you. It doesn't matter whether you are a traditional bricks-and-mortar shop or an online-only company - you can utilise GMB to reach potential customers. Even if you have a top-notch website and are doing a lot of SEO work on your current website, having a listing for GMB is vital for your local search exposure and provides another marketing arm for you to spread your message.
One popular feature of GMB is their 'reviews' section. Instead of the traditional review sites such as Trustpilot, CheckATrade, Feefo or Tripadvisor, there is no requirement to visit those sites to see the reviews - you can read the reviews left within a companies' own listing without leaving the search results. Whilst of course there is always the possibility that people can leave negative reviews or 'troll', you can be fairly certain that in most cases, the reviews are genuine...any erroneous ones can be flagged by the owner of the listing for removal.
The latest update to this feature is the ability to view the status of reviews that the owner has reported to Google. Before, you could flag a review but until you received a reply from Google, it was fairly unknown if the report had even been seen, let alone processed. Now, through a link within Google's Help Center, you can view all your reviews, and see the reports you have submitted.
This is long-awaited and much appreciated by SEO practitioners and business owners alike!
Do you have a Google My Business account for your company? Have you considered a platform for collecting reviews and feedback that can not only show off the quality of your service, but you can also use to improve your offering? We look after, maintain and update Google My Business accounts for our clients, and on top of that we’ve got a cracking multi-channel review management tool which we’ll tell you more about soon. If you can’t wait, get in touch today!
If you’d like to discuss this with us, send an email to hello@orcaonline.co.uk or give us a call on 01903 866143
