4 Barriers (and Solutions!) to Getting Positive Local Reviews for Your Business [Part 1]

By Nicki Ong

For business owners, positive reviews can be powerful and even make or break getting new customers.

It’s good practice to ask your happy customers to leave a review on their favorite local search engine…but what happens when there are barriers to making that review for your customers? Or if the great review they leave never actually posts?

While it can be frustrating, there are ways to prevent such issues and help your customers with the process.

Barrier #1: There are too many local search engines

There are a ton of general local search engines out there, not to mention the niche or industry-specific sites. Here are some of the most popular – and highest visibility – engines:

In order to find even more, you can trying Googling “[your business names] [your business location] reviews”. If you’re a new business, try doing the same for a competitor.

Before you help a customer leave a review, make sure that you start by ensuring that:

  1. Your business is listed on every local review site possible (you can find out where you are/aren’t listed quickly at Moz Local).
  2. You “own” your listing at the site. In other words, you’ve created an account and can edit your information, add photos, reply to reviews as the owner, etc. You’ve also spent the time to do this on as many sites as possible and have filled them all out to the best of your ability.

Barrier #2: Local search engines are confusing

Local search engines are difficult to navigate. There are a ton of ads and links, and I honestly have yet to find one that I actually enjoy using completely. 

That said, there are some that are easier than others. Some review sites will even pull in reviews from other review sites and include them within their own. (For example, Citysearch reviews show up on InsiderPages. InsiderPages and Yelp reviews show up on Google.)

Now that you’ve gone through the process yourself of creating accounts and understanding the way each local search engine works, it’ll be much easier to help your customer leave a review. Remember, you’re letting them actually write the review; you’re simply helping them log onto the site and get started.

Now, ask your customer:

  • Do you currently have a Gmail (or Google) or Yahoo email account? If they say “yes” to either, have them log into the site of their choice to leave the review.)
  • Do you have an account on another review website? (e.g. Yelp, Citysearch, SuperPages, TripAdvisor are some of the most popular) If the answer is “yes” to any of these, have them log in and leave their review.
  • If the customer does not have an account to any local review website already, you can help them create one. Certain websites like InsiderPages make the sign up process easier by the ability to log in via Facebook (if your customer has a Facebook account). Every site is different and the steps can get somewhat complicated, so make sure you’ve already created an account so you know exactly how to help your customer along in the process.

Next time, we’ll cover the last 2 barriers of getting local reviews.

By Nicki Ong

Ready to start showing up higher in Google results?

read more