Negative Google reviews for local businesses can cause extensive damage to even the best online company. If a bad review is at the top of your business’s page, it can drastically impact your rankings and traffic, and consequently your conversions. With so much at stake, it is crucial to address bad reviews quickly.
Why Are Google Reviews So Important?
As more and more people rely on their smartphones as they search for products or businesses, the importance of reviews continues to grow. Searchers have a great respect for reviews and often make decisions based on those reviews. Good reviews can drive in new customers while bad reviews may just be the factor that causes potential customers to choose the competition instead.
In order to take advantage of the power of online reviews, you must establish your presence online. Make sure that customers can easily find your business. Once they find you, they also need to come away with a positive impression.
Can You Remove Bad Google Reviews?
Even the best businesses will eventually get hit with a negative review, so you have to have a plan in place for dealing with bad reviews. In general, Google does not allow businesses to remove reviews. However, Google does have guidelines for reviews so that false reviews can be removed. For instance, these guidelines forbid off-topic posts, any reviews that contain advertisements, and any comments that are biased. If your negative reviews contain any of these violations, you can submit a request to get them taken down.
A Positive Response
Since most bad reviews are not going to violate Google’s guidelines, your business is going to have to deal with the problem directly. Google recommends responding courteously and promising to rectify the problem. This is a chance to learn from your mistakes so that your business can grow in the long run.
The first step is to issue a public response on Google+. This is your opportunity to respond positively and show your potential customers that you care about what your customers say. Your response should be calm and understanding – don’t let your tone get defensive! Use this opportunity to clarify how you are going to fix the problem so that it doesn’t happen again.
Once you’ve responded to the complaint, you need to work on obtaining more positive reviews to outweigh the negative review. Be careful not to be too pushy, but contact past customers and repeat customers who have had a good experience with your business, and ask them to post a review. You can contact your supporters in a variety of ways, including an on-site request, an email update, or a survey.
No matter how you respond, the key is to be professional and friendly so that future customers can see that your business is worth supporting. If you’re struggling to deal with negative Google+ reviews, you might want to hire a professional to help you manage your online reputation.
Contact one of our online reputation management experts today 1-877-769-0885