No business likes to receive negative feedback, but we can’t deny the rest of us love to read them. In fact, about 97% of people will read local business reviews, according to a consumer study from BIA/Kelsey.

But humans aren’t the only ones who love customer feedback. Google and other search engines do too. In fact, one important ranking signal for local SEO on Google is customer experience, measured by online customer reviews. What this fact means is that, all other factors being equal, Google will push a local business higher than its competitor in local results if it has more positive and relevant reviews.

That’s why it’s so important for business owners to not only respond in a timely manner to negative reviews when they do pop up, but to also reply to negative reviews in the right way. After all, potential customers are reading your responses too!

Getting Started: Where Can Reviews Show Up?

Let’s start at the beginning. Where do search engines pull reviews from, and where do human readers see them, good and bad alike?

There are a few primary review sites that businesses should prioritize in terms of reputation management and local SEO value, including the following.

Google Business Profile (GBP)/Google My Business (GMB)

Google Business Profile (GBP), formerly Google My Business (GMB), collects Google reviews for your business. These reviews can then appear in both Maps and search results.

For example, if someone searches organically for your business’s name, your GBP listing will often appear on the right hand side of the SERP on desktop. The searcher will be able to see your review/star rating and even select reviews that appear at the bottom of the Google listing. While you can’t manipulate which reviews Google shows at the bottom of your listing, you can properly respond (more on that in a moment).

In the chance you come across spam reviews, you can report those to Google to review for removal.

Yelp

Yelp uses an automated process to choose which reviews to recommend and which to hide from a profile. Since this process is automated, Yelp’s support team will not be able to help you unhide a review. However, you can flag a review if it goes against Yelp’s regulations. 

Have questions about using Yelp? Visit their support center to learn more.

Facebook

Visitors can recommend and review your business from your social media page. While Facebook does give you the option to turn off reviews all together, we advise against it; this practice can lead to mistrust.

Tripadvisor

Users can find and leave reviews for hotels, restaurants, and other large and small businesses alike on Tripadvisor. Its brand reputation/ranking system is based on the volume of reviews, whether the reviews are positive or not, and if the reviews are recent.

Remember: The rules for leaving reviews, asking for reviews, and reporting reviews for offensive content differ drastically from site to site. Make sure to read each platform’s rules before taking action against negative reviews or before asking customers to leave reviews.

What to Know Before Responding to Negative Reviews

Before responding or reporting any negative review, make sure to do the following:

Read the review thoroughly. It sounds simple, but it can be easy to get swept up by the first few lines or headline of a negative review. Make sure to read the review completely, especially if it is detailed. Completely reading the review not only prevents you from giving an ill-informed reply, but there’s a good chance that there is valuable insight to be gained by reading the entire review— no matter how uncomfortable it may be.

Put yourself in the reviewer’s shoes. No one likes to have a bad experience, especially if the experience was something they were looking forward to doing. Now think of a time when you’ve been an unhappy customer and when you’ve left a review because of it. Did the business respond to your review? If so, did it make a difference in how you perceive them and boost (or hinder) customer loyalty? Remember that this reviewer will likely read your response (as will hundreds of other potential customers) and make a further judgment of your business based on how you handle their feedback.

Think before you write. It’s easy to give a cookie-cutter response to reviews, but don’t just think about the short-term gain of saving time. Think of the long-term consequences and the bottom line. Consider how you want customers to perceive you—both the reviewer and those silently reading the reviews.

How to Respond To Negative Reviews: 6 Tips

Is there a right or wrong way to respond to bad reviews? Absolutely. Here are a few tips to keep in mind when crafting your response.

1. Respond in less than 24 hours. Don’t allow negative reviews to linger unanswered. A timely response shows the customer that you are engaged with the business and care about what your clients think. You can set up notifications to alert you when a new review has been submitted. This way you aren’t having to proactively check all your location directories daily for new reviews.
2. Let them know you’ve heard their concern. Acknowledge that you’ve not only received their message, but that you are sorry that they had a less-than-ideal time. Be sure to include specifically the customer’s name and the specific customer complaints.
3. Call out specific issues. If they are frustrated they were unable to get ahold of the manager or customer service team when they called, mention this problem in your response. It shows that you took the time to really read their review. A generic response can come across as disingenuous, leading to reduced customer satisfaction… and a poorer online reputation.
4. Offer a solution. Provide the customer with a solution to the problem. For example, if they were unsatisfied with their service, provide a phone number to call and talk with a representative.
5. Keep it professional. Don’t take the review personally, and definitely don’t attack the customer. Remember your brand image and how you want customers to remember your business.
6. Follow up with everyone. Respond to both negative comments and positive feedback alike. Responding to dissatisfied customers is important to help them feel heard and potentially turn their negative experience into a positive one—or at least a neutral one. Responding to positive experiences can help keep happy customers just that—happy and loyal customers.

If you keep these ideas in mind, you can craft a response that’s sincere and mitigates—or maybe even reverses—damage to your brand’s reputation.

Negative Review Response Examples

Look no further than the following two businesses for examples on how to reply to negative reviews graciously.

Empire State Building – Tripadvisor

What this review does well:

• Opens with reviewer’s name
• Thanks reviewer for their time and review
• Directly addresses the concerns
• Offers a new line of communication

Steve’s Hot Dogs – Google Reviews

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What this review does well:

• Opens with reviewer’s name
• Acknowledges customer’s disappointment
• Offers a new line of communication

Positive Review Response Examples

Looking for some inspiration for how to respond to positive reviews? The same businesses from above know how to respond to not just negative feedback, but positive experiences too.

Empire State Building – Tripadvisor

What this review does well:

• Clear enthusiasm
• Shows gratitude to reviewer

Steve’s Hot Dogs – Google Reviews

What this review does well:

• Addresses reviewer by name
• Gives thanks
• Includes specifics about the experience

Negative Review Response Template

Remember: the following are merely templates. Customize your own responses with the customer’s name, specific customer complaints, and offer a solution/way to get into direct contact with customer support or a manager (aka, include contact information like a phone number).

Thank you for responding, [Customer Name]. We are sorry to hear about your experience at [Company Name] where you experienced [insert Customer Complaint]. We strive to offer the best experience and excellent customer service. We would love to make things right with you. Please contact [insert Manager Name] at [insert Contact Information].

Don’t run from bad reviews again. Instead, use the tips above to reply to negative reviews and make a real impact.

Want to learn more about review platforms, local SEO, local listings, and practical digital marketing solutions available to you? Contact our team today.

We’re talking about the Google My Business Knowledge Panel.

While the Knowledge Panel was launched to give business owners the opportunity to easily share crucial information with prospective customers—location, hours, contact information, and more—Google hasn’t managed to get the Events listings in it under control.

In a nutshell, Google occasionally lists completely incorrect events on the SERP.

We handle local SEO management for many of our clients and run into this problem often. We’ve seen events listed on incorrect dates and times; we’ve seen the same event listed in several different languages; we’ve even seen events listed that don’t even exist.

Not only is this problem a massive one, there’s no way for you to directly edit this information yourself.

In an effort to find a solution, we’ve spoken to Google reps, searched Twitter threads and pages of forums, and have tested quite a few strategies ourselves. Despite our best efforts, we still see these problems constantly.

For example, one of our clients is a fitness center with multiple locations; they hold regular group fitness classes with several different instructors. Each location has their class schedule on that location’s page. When you search for one of the locations, here’s what you’ll see in the Knowledge Panel on the right side of the SERP.

Notice that there are three different Zumba classes—all scheduled in July, despite the fact that it’s February at time of publishing. And each is listed in a different language. It doesn’t make much sense at all to have all of the events in different languages. (Oh and those four other events? One, scheduled in July, is in Italian; another, in August is in Portuguese; the last two are scheduled for January 2020 and are in Italian and Indonesian, respectively.)

What’s going on here?

Google is pulling the information for these events from third-party site zumba.com, Zumba’s official website. While it makes sense that Zumba would advertise a class on their site, it doesn’t seem logical to pull that information—in different languages and for months away—for the gym’s Knowledge Panel.

Google is recognizing the a third-party website as the authority on another company’s events.

See, Google will scan the website in question in addition to third-party sites to decide what information to pull in for the Knowledge Panel. However, as this example shows, they aren’t doing it perfectly—often, they aren’t even close.

We’re not the only one having these issues. See this tweet from Tim Capper, a consultant on local SEO:

If not even the headquarters of the United Kingdom’s government can stop this, who can?

An obvious solution to this problem is to stop third-party information from showing up on your business listing. Wondering how to get this done? 

Unfortunately, it’s not an easy answer.

In our experience, there’s not much you can do to stop it.

We’re not the only ones looking for solutions. Other local SEO experts have suggested the similar tactics that we already do for our clients: adding the correct information to your site, submitting your URL to the Google Search Console, and then adding information to third-party sites that you can control, like Yelp.

But that doesn’t guarantee that Google won’t give preference to higher-ranking sites anyway.

In fact, there seem to be very few guarantees on this topic—even from Google themselves.

When we spoke with a Google rep, they provided two solutions:

1. Reach out to third-party sites to change the information.

This plan assumes that the thousands of third-party sites that aggregate and disseminate your business’s information are willing (and able) to do this. It also assumes that Google will update the Knowledge Panel in a timely fashion. Neither of these are guaranteed.

2. Reach out to Google.

If you’ve ever had the pleasure of working with a Google representative, you’ll know that while they’re often quite friendly, they’re limited in what they can say and do. It can take several business days to hear back from them, and it’s easy for communication to drop. Stay on it in the hopes that they can change it on their end—or escalate it to someone who can.

While those strategies may work for you, they’re not what we like to rely on.

Sure, we go through that dance every time we see an issue, but we also choose to be proactive about our local listing information, in the hopes that we can prevent these problems before they start.

Here’s how Digital Strike handles events through Google My Business:

1. List individual events on their own page.

We noticed that the Zumba website in the example above had each event listed on its own page with its own unique URL. On the other hand, other sites sometimes put all their events on one page, utilize PDF calendars, or don’t list events on their site at all, instead relying on social media to get the word out.

By giving each event its own page, you’re hopefully signaling to Google that this event is important. Plus you’ll have room to add in all the important specifics, like the date, time, location, cost, and any other information your customers will need.

Be incredibly thorough with this step and hopefully Google will choose your correct information over a third party’s incorrect details.

2. Then add event schema to the page.

Schema is a data markup system that helps search engines, like Google, understand what’s on your page. Take the schema for Events and add it to your page through tag manager to help Google crawl the information and pull out what’s most important for your customers.

3. Actively maintain your entire Google My Business listing.

As part of our local SEO work for clients, we’re constantly making sure that each bit of information on their GMB is correct. That means looking at commonly searched information such as NAP (name, address, phone number) and hours, as well as pictures and questions from users.

While this may not have an effect on the events listings themselves, we still focus on putting your best foot forward for Google and all of your customers to see.

It’s important to note that these strategies are proactive ones, meaning we aren’t sure how effective they are if the Google My Business Knowledge Panel contains incorrect information.

If your GMB Events listings are incorrect, 1) know that we empathize, and 2) get in touch with us. We’ll give you a free consultation to help determine what’s going wrong with your Events listings—and we’ll show you how we can manage the rest of your local listing information to make sure customers are finding what you actually want them to see.

Hold up, wait a minute.

What is a location page?

And what is local SEO?

Okay, say you want to search for “best taco places in STL.”

All of the results on that page are there because of local SEO. It’s SEO for local businesses are in the community IRL (not internet businesses). Like the really good taco places in St. Louis.

Or dentists, grocery stores, nail salons, pizza joints, etc.

Local SEO helps local customers find you before they make a purchasing decision. 

Google can tell when there’s a local intent behind the search. For something like “best taco places in STL,” Google knows that I’m looking for the best place to get a taco in St. Louis. Or if I searched for “best taco places near me,” or even just “best taco places,” then it would use my location data to figure out that I’m in St. Louis and serve me results in that area only.

If you have a brick and mortar business, then a local strategy is crucial to the success of your business. If people can’t find you, then you won’t get any new businesses. Word of mouth is always great, but people are using the internet more and more to find new businesses in their area.

Part of a local SEO strategy is creating individual pages on your website for each location. It’s not good enough to have a single page on your website that lists all locations.

The goal of local SEO is so that people can find businesses or services they need near their area. If you want to learn more about it, check out our Digital Marketing 101 Guide.

But how do you optimize those individual location pages on your website? 

1. Optimize meta description

It might seem really basic to still say “optimize your meta description,” but it’s displayed in search results. It’s like a mini-ad that needs to be carefully crafted. You know what it’s like to search for something and then you skim the meta descriptions. Potential customers are doing the exact same thing.

2. Optimize title tags

Another basic tip, but your title tag is the other piece that shows up on search results pages. You need to use your title tags wisely and make sure they won’t be cut off in search results.

3. Optimize URL

Make sure your URL includes the place name of each location. That way your customers know they’re looking at the correct location and you can track which location gets the most traffic.

4. Include headings with keywords around targeted location and service

Make sure Google knows what your page is about with relevant keywords. If you’re a taco place in South St. Louis County, make sure to mention something like “South County Taco Place” in your headings. People will be searching with their locations in mind.

5. Embed a map

You want to make it as easy as possible for people to find you. What better way to show people where you are than a map? You can embed a map from Google Maps so easily on your page. Then all people have to do is click the map and then they’ll be on their way.

6. Make sure the page has all of the basic info:

• Name
• Address
• Phone number
• Business hours

That’s information people need to know about your business. It’s not just a user experience thing. It’s vital so they know how to find you, where to contact you, and when you’re available. Make sure it’s accurate and on the page.

7. Optimized images of the business

People want to see images of your business! The internet is a very visual place and if you aren’t showing off what your business looks like, then you’re missing out on an opportunity.

For example, if you’re a restaurant, show off pictures of the food, the seating areas, and people looking happy while they’re in your business.

8. Calls to action

Okay, you got people to the location page. What’s next? What are they supposed to do once they’re there?

Including a contact form and a prominent call to action is a great way to get leads and provides an easy way for potential customers to reach out.

9. Include content with keywords around targeted location and service

That’s right. You have all of this information on the page already, and you still need to add more.

Describe your business and the location that particular branch, office, or franchise is in. Talk about what you have to offer and why customers should come in. This is your chance to sell your business a little and to entice potential customers into visiting your business.

Looking to expand your SEO strategy? Digital Strike will develop a results-driven digital strategy with your company’s goals in mind. Contact us for a free consultation.

It’s the same with local SEO.

Sure, at one time clean citations and proper Google My Business (GMB) categorizations were enough to rank in the local pack and local organic.

No longer.

Citations and GMB listings are now considered foundational, similar to paying the entrance fee to get into a race.

Without them, there’s no way to rank in the local pack at all, and it’ll be harder to rank in local organic. But clean citations alone will not make you competitive in local SEO.

The things that will make you competitive and drive business are factors like the quantity and quality of sites that link to you, and the presence of robust, keyword-optimized content.

Competitive ranking factors harder to implement than foundational ones, but you can’t win without them.
To rank in local pack/local organic search results and, more to the point, generate leads for your business, you need to first build a strong foundation and then move onto what will make your website stand out from your competitors: the competitive local SEO ranking factors.

Moz, a key voice in digital marketing, recently released their annual Local Search Ranking Factors survey for 2018, detailing the top foundational and competitive ranking factors for local SEO.

We took a look at this survey and distilled it down to its core: the top foundational factors and the top competitive factors.

Basically, we’ll tell you what you need to enter the race—and what you need to do to win.

Foundational local SEO ranking factors: Your ante into the game

• Your business’ proximity to searcher
  You have little control over this, but proximity is by and large the greatest factor for the getting into the local pack. Lately, proximity has outweighed every other factor, at least when it comes to the local 3-pack.Let’s say you own a pizza shop. If someone looks up ”pizza near me” on their phone, but your shop is located all the way across town from the searcher, you are unlikely to show up in the local pack (the 3-listing box atop search results).It’s important to note that local organic results—the results that lie below the local pack—are significantly less affected by proximity.Still, for both organic and local pack results, you need to have a physical location in the city of search, especially where there’s a geo-modifier—a city or location attached to a keyword phrase—in the search.Essentially, you won’t show up for local intent searches if you aren’t close to the searcher.But proximity hardly guarantees ranking, and only gets you into the running.
• Google My Business Category Associations
  Your Google My Business category associations help Google determine what kind of business you are.If you are a plumber, but your GMB category is ’electrician,’ then you are less likely rank for your business—plumbing. Now, that isn’t a likely scenario, but it drives the point home.You won’t rank for your business in the local pack if your GMB listing doesn’t accurately portray what you do.Make sure your GMB listing aligns with your business. But your GMB listing will not help you compete with other businesses in your vertical—it simply gets you in the game.
• Citation consistency
  Google wants to display accurate results to its searchers, especially in local where there is a high likelihood the searcher is looking to call or go to a business.Because Google doesn’t want to frustrate its users with incorrect addresses or phone numbers, it has a ”trust but verify” policy when it comes to the business name, address and phone number (NAP) in your GMB listing.That’s why Google cross-verifies your NAP across hundreds of other directories across the internet. Still, don’t worry too much about hunting down every single listing. NAP listings from primary data sources are given more weight. Start with cleaning up your listings in prominent directories, and then work down from there.After all, citations are important, but will not set you apart from the crowd.

Competitive local SEO ranking factors: The key to winning business

• Inbound links to your site
  Your site’s link profile—the collection of sites that link to your pages—is one of the most important ranking factors.In fact, it’s the most important competitive ranking factor for local, according to Moz’s 2017 Local Rankings survey.Google takes inbound links as votes of confidence in your site’s authority and relevancy. The more inbound links you have, the better your chances of ranking in the local pack and local organic.Back to the pizza shop example: if sites all around town are linking to you menu with the anchor text, best pizza in town, Google will begin to believe that your pizza shop does, in fact, have the best pizza in town, and be more likely to feature your business when someone’s looking for pizza.The key here is that you need quality, relevant links, and you need a lot of them. And, especially when it comes to ranking locally, having local magazines and resources link to your site is an extra bonus. For ranking in the local pack, you’ll also need to earn inbound links to your GMB landing page—the page you link to within your GMB listing.
• Your site’s domain authority
  Developed by Moz, your domain authority is a score assigned to your site out of 100 that gives you an indication of the strength of your domain.The number of unique domains linking to you, as well as your total amount of links are taken into account when calculating your domain authority. As implied, good domain authority numbers point to high authority in your vertical because many other sites are talking about you.Generally speaking, the higher your domain authority, the more likely you are to rank locally.
• Inbound link diversity
  You link profile cannot all be comprised of all the same link.The pizza example again: If all your inbound links are from your city’s food magazine, point to your menu and use the anchor text ”best pizza in town,” Google might think something is up.You need diversity in referring domains (the sites linking to you), anchor text (the text in the hyperlink), and pages they link to (i.e., menu, homepage, blog).Google wants you to build natural authority—not just trade or buy them.And it knows your link profile is natural if a variety of sites are linking to you within relevant articles with varying anchor texts.If your link profile is diverse, you stand a greater chance of ranking over your competitors.
• Keyword-optimized site content
  And the last competitive local SEO ranking factor we’ll talk about is keyword-optimized content.Basically, to rank for a keyword phrase, you need to talk about that keyword somewhere on your site.Seems pretty straightforward, right?It is. For Google to think you might answer a searcher’s question or satisfy their need, they need to know that you provide the answer or solve the problem within your site content.Without a keyword-optimized content marketing plan, it will be much less likely you will appear in local search results.

Local SEO is a hard race to win. What’s true today won’t necessarily be true tomrorow—the only constant in local SEO is change.

You need a dedicated team of local SEO experts who will stay up on changes—and implement them—for your business.

And you need your local SEO team to know what tactics are simply the foundation, and which ones will push the needle. You need them to get the foundation right, and move quickly to working on the competitive local SEO ranking factors that will improve your rankings and drive business.

Digital Strike is that team. We will tailor a local SEO solution that takes into account what you already have, and helps grow your business.

If you’re ready to get start growing your business, then let’s talk. Schedule a cost- and obligation-free consultation today!

“Why am I not ranking #1 in the local pack? We optimized our Google Business Profile listing.”

This is a question we get a lot. Business owners come to us wondering why their phone isn’t ringing off the hook after optimizing their local listings.

Allow us to explain:

Yes, You Need To Optimize Your Local Listing

Your local listing management strategy needs to include having completely up-to-date information.

Think of your local listing like a spot in the local yellow pages. These traditional directories organized companies by industry, then services, then alphabetically.

Google made this model more efficient over the years. Instead of sorting listings in alphabetical order, they serve the business that is most likely to be able to satisfy a searcher’s needs.

One of the principal ways Google determines that search ranking is by checking and cross-checking key business information to ensure you’re legitimate. It takes your NAP data (address, phone number, and business name) and ensures it is consistent across other online listings, including Bing, Yahoo, and local directories.

If your NAP data is the same across all these data aggregators (and the more then better), then your business is seen as legitimate. remember, legitimate businesses are more likely to solve a searcher’s needs, so Google is more likely to show them at higher levels.

But Your Online Listing Management Is Just One Factor

Citation building and local listing management is just the beginning of local SEO. It gets you into the game, but it doesn’t guarantee to win any business.

Simply ­­having consistent citations in Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Yelp used to separate you from your competitors, but now the competition has woken up and smelled the search engine optimization coffee.

Unless your business exists in a non-competitive location and vertical, there is so much more you need to do if you want to drive traffic and generate leads from your local listing.

Managing your local listings and citations is a good foundation for your local strategy. But it will not set you apart from the competition, and will not help you generate business.

Link Authority & User-Experience

Google and other search engines take your business’s overall online presence into account when deciding to reward the best search rankings.

When we say your overall online presence, we mean the authority you have generated from other websites, such as local blogs linking to your site. Your online presence can also include your listings across multiple directories as well as the satisfaction a user gets when they visit your website.

Here are some questions to get you started:

• Are other popular websites linking to your website? 
• Does your site also include in-depth service pages that address customer FAQs? 
• How about regularly published blog posts that demonstrate thought-leadership in your industry? 
• Do you make it easy for your visitors to understand your business model and how it will make their lives easier?

If you’re shaking your head to these questions, you can start to see why simply optimizing for Google My Business isn’t enough to land you on spot number one.

Sure you might have a superior product to your competitors, but if they are doing a better job sharing their message across a broader and easy to digest online presence, they’ll be rewarded the online traffic (and thus the revenue).

A Coffee Shop Example

When someone runs a local search for “Coffee Near Me” in Google maps, they don’t want a list of run-in-the-mill coffee shops, they want the best coffee shop near them.

Search engines will likely give the highest rank to the business who demonstrates that they are the best shop near the searcher. So first of all, your NAP data must check out across multiple directories and review sites. You also need to be clearly defined as a “Coffee Shop” or that coffee is one of your core specialties.

Now that you’ve gotten this far, you’re probably competing with about 10 other shops who have done the same, so search engines take it one step further by crawling your website, analyzing its authority and content marketing.

The most effective tactic for local ranking by far is local link building.

If every food magazine and lifestyle blogger around town is linking to your site in a post talking about how your coffee is the best in town, Google will get the hint.

And when a searcher in your city asks Google where the “best coffee shop in town” is, Google is more likely to serve up directions to your shop right there in the local pack.

Beyond link authority, web crawlers might look at if you describe your location on your website, making it easier for searchers to understand the area you are in and the things that set you apart. They may even look for a gallery page and how many pictures you have coffee.

In addition to having a website with lots of information about coffee coffee coffee, Google recognizes that the best coffee places also have smiling baristas and serve dishes that complement coffee, such as breakfast sandwiches. With that in mind, having content around topics related to coffee is important, too.

They’ll even crawl your social media pages to ensure you’re active on there.

Also, do you offer free wi-fi? If so, it better be known to your searchers and search engines alike.

Expert Local Listings Management

As you can see, ranking at the top of a local search is about much more than local listing management. Suddenly you need to optimize a laundry list of things to stay competitive. 

Technical website management, along with a comprehensive content marketing, link building and review management strategy is the competitive difference-makers that will help you stand out from your competition.

The recipe for local SEO success is complicated. Partnering with a digital marketing agency that goes beyond a simple Yext update is almost a given in today’s landscape. 

At Digital Strike, we take your entire online presence into account to get you to the top of search queries that matter the most for your business. We work with large and small businesses across the country to maximize local results. 

If you need digital marketing services to make your online presence more robust, give us a call today.  

Photo credit: https://www.masslivemedia.com/