LEVERAGE YOUR ONLINE REPUTATION TO. Generate Quality Lead Growth

Transcription

1 LEVERAGE YOUR ONLINE REPUTATION TO Generate Quality Lead Growth

2 Table of Contents The Value of a Good Reputation Assessing the Opportunity Standing Out from Competitors Defining Your Process Tools & Resources There are near limitless ways to engage, connect, and get onto your customers radars. But before you do, it s imperative to make sure you have a handle on how your business will be perceived by your audience. Managing your online reputation is essential to good business, and a good strategy can generate exponential lead growth with high conversions. Sounds magical, but it isn t.

3 The Value of a Good Reputation A good reputation for your business means customers trust you and find your services of high-quality. This can be the difference between what drives your leads to convert, while a bad reputation sends them running to competitors. By taking time to cultivate a positive reputation through management of your on-site reviews, you are paving the way for higher lead volume, increased conversions, and better rankings. The very first step before beginning to learn about reputation management is getting to know your audience. It s time to think like a customer what are you looking for when you search for a product or service? The answer is probably expertise, reviews, and proximity. EXPERTISE Does your website and services look legitimate? Does the content on your site demonstrate your authority in the industry? These are important questions any company looking to be a competitive leader needs to ask. If you have testimonials and publish quality content, you can be considered an industry expert by search engines, which will also improve your ranking and make you more attractive for consumers. REVIEWS An incredible 85% of consumers report they read up to 10 reviews before making a purchasing decision. On-site reviews offer credibility and a nonbiased testimony of the quality of your services. Your audience places significant weight on reviews; not managing them can be detrimental. PROXIMITY Would you pick a dry cleaner that was 15 minutes or 5 hours away? So many potential clients are searching on-the-go on their mobile devices, so it s important to make sure your local listings and on-site reviews are perfect. This not only helps you appear in local searches but offers higher quality leads as well. Now that you understand a little more about what your audience wants, it s time to figure out where they are. 1

4 Assessing the Opportunity To find the true potential and opportunity for your business, you have to begin by identifying all of the external websites that generate traffic from your target customers. This research may seem tedious, but if most of your customers are visiting your Google Business Listing, you ll need to ensure all the information on your profile is correct and up-to-date. HELPFUL HINT We ve got a document for you to help you organize your local listings! Research, identify, and access any and all local listing sites and make sure your company address, name, phone number, and other info are all accurate. And if your business owns multiple locations, be sure to make a profile for each address to ensure you re showing up in local searches for all of your locations. Search engines often use the company information from these local listing sites in their search results, giving you unrestricted potential viewership. 2

5 The world is more mobile than ever before. 88% of smartphone users conduct local searches on a regular basis in a study by comscore. If your local listing sites are out-of-date, you could be losing potential leads. Not only are local searches increasing in popularity, they convert better. A May 2014 study, by Google, states that conversions within a day from local searches were at an amazing 18% while non-local searches averaged only 7%. But what makes traffic convert? Whether it s on your website, these 3rd party aggregators, or on your Google My Business page, you ll have to manage your reviews. This means responding to complaints, answering questions, and in general interacting with those who are posting. But there s a shift in the reviews atmosphere; now search engines are placing greater importance on on-site reviews instead of 3rd party reviews than ever before. Thankfully, investing time in managing reviews is becoming more about the reviews on your website, a feature you can control. As we discussed before; reviews, proximity, and expertise all funnel into how customers perceive your services and make a decision, but the big ticket item here is on-site reviews. These reviews are always the first priority of any reputation management program because they carry the most influence and benefits, and therefore, the most opportunity. Research with our own clients found that when we began integrating our on-site reviews into Google organic results, the average website generated 35% more organic sessions and 49% more organic conversions. Our findings show displaying on-site reviews makes it more likely that Google/Bing will rank you higher and searchers will click on your organic results. IN EXAMPLE: You have 1000 visitors a month and generate 100 leads, so you have a 10% conversion rate. With a reviews management tool, you can increase your visitors to 1350 a month and raise your conversion rate to 11.70%. That s 58 more leads a month for your business, all because of managing your reputation online! 3

6 Standing Out from Competitors Now that you re armed with the knowledge of your potential lead growth and where your customers are going, it s time to check out what you re up against. Who are your competitors? What do their external profiles look like? How do they reach their best customers? Where do they rank in a keyword search? DO BETTER Investigating how your competitors are executing reputation management is a great way to jump ahead to get the best strategy that works for your industry. Succeed where they fail and study them to see how to build your on-site reviews and external profiles to stand out amongst the competition. When you search sunrooms Des Moines in Google, both the first and second position is held by one of our clients, Midwest Construction. On the next page, you ll also see that alongside with being ranked higher than sites like Angie s List and the BBB, Midwest Construction s second listing displays a 5-star rating. 4

7 If you were a customer in Des Moines searching locally for sunrooms, a brief glance at the results page would immediately draw your eyes to not the first position but the position with those glowing stars. Midwest Construction s stars and ranking are displayed because of their on-site reviews and reputation management strategy, and you can stand out from your competitors in the same way. By using reviews software tools, your company has the unique ability to integrate on-site reviews with search engines instantaneously giving them the visibility (with star ratings and visibility) and credibility (through positive reviews) needed to rank higher. One of the biggest benefits about a reviews management tool is not so much it communicates with search engines but how it gives the business full control over their on-site reviews. With the proper strategy and tools you can propel yourself forward ahead of your competitors. 5

8 Defining Your Process The goal is obvious here. You want to have the best online reputation as possible to boost your rankings, leads, conversions, and traffic. But now it s time to talk numbers. Without a concrete Reputation Management Strategy, your plans for dominating your industry are likely to fizzle. Perhaps the most difficult part of reputation management is keeping your strategy alive. The internet is constantly changing, rankings are constantly fluctuating, and search engines are always evolving. To get to the top and to stay there you have to be just as much on top of your game. The Drive to Succeed Know Your Audience: - Reviews - Proximity - Expertise Importance of On-Site Reviews - Study Your Competitors - Set Goals for Your Business - Make a Dedicated Plan Organize Your Local Listings Build Your Reputation & Reviews Use Reputation Management Software Tools to Automatically Integrate Your Reviews REPUTATION MANAGEMENT We already know you can expect an average 49% increase in conversions when utilizing reviews and reputation management (assuming average results). But this will only happen if you re feeding your website reviews in the first place. You want as many reviews as possible each month but the real question is how do you get reviews in the first place? At any point in time that your business has had contact with a lead, customer, or other business in a professional setting is a legitimate reason to request a review. 6

9 We ve put together a quick list of Dos and Don ts in reviews of who you can send review requests to. Obey these simple guidelines to keep your website from being penalized by search engines: DO Businesses or suppliers you ve partnered or worked with DON T Your friends or family Potential clients about the quote request process Your employees (except if it s about work life & is on your careers page) Potential customers about their consultation experience Made-up people (duh) Customers who ve purchased or used your products and services Yourself (double duh) People you ve contacted/interacted with through your business Now you have to devise your plan to develop and build your online reputation over a period of time, say a year. Your plan should consist of a calendar or checklist of daily and monthly tasks that include: Requesting legitimate reviews Time to manage your local listings Responding politely to negative reviews (we know, it s hard) Checking your social media outlets & posting Removing any spam posts Posting on-site reviews to your website HELPFUL HINT Check out our Sample Task Calendar at the end of this guide for free! 7

10 Tools & Resources What if you could have one tool to do it all? Keep all of your contacts, calls, quote requests, contact forms in one place. Have built-in templates for sending different kinds of review requests. Automatically syndicate your positive reviews to search engines Increase your ranking in search results and add stars to your listing. Have the ability to track and monitor your reviews. Managing your reputation online without the right tools can not only be time consuming but also not as effective. With Reputation Management software, you can have everything you need to ask for reviews, manage your contacts, and most importantly integrate your reviews with search engines like Google all in one place. 8

11 Remember that example from earlier? Midwest Construction s success in search results and ranking is due to an active reputation management strategy executed through our Spectrum Reviews Tool. Check out some of our free resources below to get started with your reputation management strategy today. Click on any link to download for free. Sample Task Calendar: An example monthly calendar of to-do items to help manage your reputation. Local Listings Chart: An Excel document listing popular external websites to keep track of all your online profiles. Reviews Template: As simple review request template to help you get started on asking for legitimate reviews. Your reputation is your first impression with your customers. If you re interested in learning more about our Reputation Management Software and Tools, call Spectrum today to schedule an appointment! Software as a foundation. Service as a solution. 9

12 ON-SITE REVIEWS + STRATEGY CONVERSIONS Learn about our REPUTATION MANAGEMENT TOOLS today. Software as a foundation. Service as a solution.