In today’s business world, having a positive reputation online can be the difference between having a successful business and having a business that needs to spend all its energy on damage control. But when your business is young and you don’t have a lot of customers or clients to speak for you, you’ve got to find a way to leverage the business you have gotten by encouraging people to leave your reviews online.
While you might think that you should only be happy about getting a positive review online, sometimes just getting the ball rolling with any review can be helpful. So to help you get past this point, here are three ways you can get more positive reviews online.
Make It Easy To Give A Review
To make people more willing to leave you a positive review, you’ve got to make this task as easy as possible. Generally, only people who’ve either had a great experience or a horrible experience will go through the trouble of leaving a review. But if you make the process seamless, you’ll be able to get a lot more people willing to comment on how your business worked for them.
One way to do this, according to Andrew Shotland, a contributor to Search Engine Land, is to give your customers or clients a direct link to where they can leave a review. By taking out the guesswork of where they should go or what the process is for navigating their way to your review site, you’ll find that people will be more responsive to leave a review.
Start Asking For Them
In addition to making the process of leaving a review a breeze for your customers or clients, you should also make it very apparent that you want reviews from anyone and everyone who works with you.
When soliciting requests for reviews, Inc.com recommends that you don’t ask for a review until the end of the transaction or interaction with your customer or client. If you’re too pushy throughout the purchasing process, you might annoy your customer or client into not leaving you a review—or leaving a poor review. But by bringing up the possibility for leaving a review at the end of your interaction, you may have more luck getting positive feedback.
Respond To The Reviews You Do Get
To further encourage people to leave reviews for you online, Ron Johnson, a contributor to Business2Community.com, advises that you respond to each review you get, whether it’s a good review or a bad review. By doing this, you can address any issues that get brought up in bad reviews and show your reviewers that you really care about what they have to say, be it positive or negative.
If you’re wanting to amass more online reviews for your business, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you learn how you can do just that.
