SEO Reputation Management
Why Do Reviews Matter for SEO?
Research is cool and everyone likes to see charts of businesses getting more traffic, but you’re probably still unsure how online reviews affect businesses’ rankings in this way. There are actually a few relatively straightforward explanations for why Google reviews do help rankings.
Like the bookworm in your life, Google “reads” your site to understand the world (or in this case, the Internet). The more content that it has available to read, the more it will know about your business. When you leverage customer reviews on your site for SEO, or generate them on Google My Business, Google has lots of fresh content to read and lots of keywords to add to its understanding of your business.
Remember how I searched “cat shelter” and Google pulled my query out as a keyword from the businesses’ reviews? Customers will unintentionally describe your products and services to Google, and those reviews add SEO value to your business without the customers even knowing that they’re helping you. Reviews can even help fill in the content gaps that may exist on your website, and increase your rankings and overall visibility that way.
Google trusts your customers more than it trusts you.
Okay, that’s a little bit of an exaggeration, but the fact is that Google depends on signals to determine whether a site is worth good rankings or not. We’ve seen this since the very first days of Google with the importance of links. When your site receives a link from another relevant site, Google sees that as a kind of endorsement of trust, and rewards you with better visibility. Similarly, when a customer reviews your business (good or bad), it tells Google that not only is your business a real, legit operation, but that other people have interacted with it and can help future potential customers make decisions. In short, Google loves this kind of stuff.
Yelp SEO Strategies
While many business owners know of Google and utilize it to drive in online leads, Yelp is usually underutilized even though it is very popular in many markets. In fact, it is possible to run your business off of Yelp leads alone, especially because Google likes to rank Yelp listings in their search results and Bing Places depends on Yelp reviews as their review source.
Similar to other search engines, Yelp ranks its listings off of several factors. Here are some Yelp SEO strategies that will help get you to the top of Yelp and that will help get you more leads.
We help you make the right decisions.
It can be daunting to figure out what anything means in digital marketing. While having a conversation online about your brand is great, it can be hard to figure out what to do with that conversation. The reports we create for you will show you how your brand can take advantage of the results. We help you draw meaningful conclusions from your online content and engagement to help you get the most value out of your social media marketing campaign.