Get Reviews on Google My Business, Especially During a Pandemic

Get Reviews on Google My Business, Especially During a Pandemic

Reviews on Google My Business can be a great asset to local businesses, especially during a worldwide pandemic. We haven’t met a single business owner that was ready for something like the fallout from the current events the world is experiencing.

Think about it. Many businesses were caught so off guard by their local civic leaders imposing harsh regulations and mandates. They were left scrambling to make sense of it. Not only were businesses trying to adapt on the fly, they had to make the numbers and finances work while trying to figure it all out. For many businesses, many of which were in sheer panic mode, facing the reality of reduced revenue meant slashing expenses as quickly as possible.

Unfortunately, many businesses look at their options and end up slashing their digital marketing budgets, because it’s a “quick” savings for the business. However, they fail to take into consideration the long-term impact of that decision. That is why we wanted to provide the insights we’ve learned from speaking with over fifty small business owners in the past few weeks, and what we are doing about it.

The Current State of Small and Medium Businesses

Generally, our clients have fallen into one of three buckets over the past few months:

    1. Slashed their digital marketing budget to zero
    2. Maintained their digital marketing budget
    3. Increased their digital marketing budget to seize the opportunity

As you can imagine, our clients that have maintained or increased their digital marketing budgets during this time have done quite well. With much of the competition reducing their budgets, it creates a great opportunity for those that have the resources. Because of this, we want to encourage all business owners to maintain some level of digital marketing efforts, even in difficult economic times.

However, we understand what that looks like for each business can be vary greatly.

Our Pandemic Digital Marketing Recommendation

At this time, our number one recommendation is for businesses to focus on getting reviews on Google My Business.

Why?

In the current business environment, focusing on Google My Business reviews provides the greatest return on investment (ROI) for businesses. To put it another way, you’ll get the most bang for your buck.

Focusing on Google My Business Reviews for Five Main Reasons

When we made the decision to find a pandemic budget friendly digital marketing solution for our clients (and small and medium businesses in general), we didn’t know what it would look like. We considered all the options. And we ended up choosing a service that helps businesses get reviews on Google My Business because of five main reasons:

    1. Everyone is using Google right now
    2. Reviews last (almost) forever
    3. It helps search engine optimization (SEO) efforts
    4. It helps social media efforts
    5. Google My Business reviews are cost effective

Reason #1: Everyone is Using Google Right Now

Think about your day-to-day life before all of this happened. Now, how is it different today?

If you’re like us, then you probably find yourself on Google even more than before, checking what businesses are open, what their current hours are, and if you can go into the business, or have to use a curbside option.

Does this sound familiar? If it sounds familiar for you, then it’s probably the same story for your customers, and potential new customers.

So, what does this mean for businesses? More eyes on Google. And with more eyes on Google now than ever, that means there are more eyes on your Google My Business reviews.

If your competitors have higher overall star ratings and more reviews than you, you don’t stand a chance against them in today’s environment.

If you weren’t paying attention to your reviews on Google My Business before current events, you better be now.

Reason #2: Reviews on Google My Business Last (Almost) Forever

This is a really important point for us. Google My Business reviews are a great investment because once you get them, you have them (almost) forever.

Now, compare that to other digital marketing services. Paid ads, such as Google AdWords or Facebook Ads, only work when you’re actively spending money to run ads. The second you shut off the ads, there’s no benefit. While we love search engine optimization, if you stop doing it, you’ll start to see your rankings drop over a period of time.

What do we mean when we say Google reviews last “almost forever”? While they technically could disappear, it’s rare. Let us explain.

When someone leaves a review on Google, there are typically only two reasons it would ever be removed. First, the person that left the review could delete the review. Second, the business can flag the review and ask Google to remove it. Regardless, it’s rare that a review ever gets removed, unless it clearly violates Google’s review policy.

Reason #3: Google My Business Reviews Aid SEO

This may not be a surprise, but having a high number of Google reviews coupled with a great overall star rating aids your search engine optimization efforts. While this is true for Google search, it’s especially important for local or map searches. A business’s overall star rating and number of reviews on Google My Business greatly impacts local and map search rankings.

Great reviews and ratings show Google that real people like your business, making Google more likely to put your business in front of more potential customers. After all, Google is only as good as the information they provide to searchers.

Reason #4: Real Five-Star Reviews Give You Social Media Content

We’re surprised more businesses don’t share their awesome five-star reviews on social media. This tends to go overlooked. Maybe it’s because businesses feel awkward drawing attention to their raving reviews? But they shouldn’t. After all, the whole point of a business’s digital marketing efforts is to get new customers. We can’t think of a better way to convince people to do business with you than to show them what happy customers are saying about the business.

Every amazing five-star review you get is a potential post for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and even your website. We offer our clients a way to automatically share their new five-star reviews to Facebook as part of our Reviews package.

Reason #5: Digital Marketing at a Reasonable Price, Even in a Pandemic

Let’s face it, many small and medium businesses are hurting right now. Revenue is down and budgets are tight. Unfortunately, many businesses have abandoned digital marketing, reducing their chances of getting new customers. By doing so, they are worsening their chances of thriving, let alone surviving in this pandemic.

We want to change that.

In reality, it costs nothing to get a review on Google for your business. However, having the right tools and processes in place can be worth the investment. For example, one of our core offerings at KAHA is our Reviews package that helps businesses get more real five-star reviews online. Some clients pay $500/month for this service. That’s a fraction of what some of our other clients are spending with us each month, whose packages can easily range from $3,500 to $5,000 per month.

When the current pandemic began, we had discussions with all of our clients and assessed the situation. In doing so, we realized that some of our clients needed a cost-effective solution that allowed them to maintain their digital marketing efforts in uncertain times. After many hours of researching, gathering feedback, and running the numbers, we introduced a new offering. A $300/month service that helps small and medium businesses get more online reviews.

Get More Reviews on Google My Business

At KAHA, we understand the importance and need for businesses to maintain digital marketing efforts despite current events to remain competitive in the long run. Online reviews have become a much larger factor in influencing consumers’ behavior of where to spend their hard-earned, and sometimes scarce dollars in this current economic environment. Building credibility and a reputation of trust through online reviews, such as Google My Business reviews, is more important now than ever before.

Our new $300 per month online review service is built for the struggling small and medium businesses that want to remain competitive, even on a tight budget. Our service simplifies the process for the business and the customer, by effectively prompting customers to leave reviews and then showing them how to do so through an easy-to-follow guide. Our process is fast, simple and can be done from a phone. It can also be leveraged to get five-star reviews on every review platform that is relevant to your business, not just Google.

Our online reviews service gives you the process and tools to:

    • Ask customers to leave reviews, while in person or via your website, email or text message
    • Educate customers on how to leave reviews, with step-by-step instructions for each review platform (not just Google)
    • Monitor your reviews in real-time, so you can respond to all customer reviews
    • Let your customers choose which platform they review your business on (in the event they don’t have a Google account)
    • Helps you request reviews in a timely manner, and automates follow up to help get more reviews
    • Helps reduce the number of negative reviews by helping customers contact the business first to resolve the issue
    • Automatically share your best reviews to your website or Facebook to build social proof

Ready to Get More Reviews on Google My Business?

Let us help you generate, monitor, and showcase online reviews in a smooth, simple, and effective way. Our services are competitively priced and easy to use. Learn how to transform your online reviews with KAHA and book your FREE strategy session ($1,000 value) today!

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