Local Ranking

This past summer, I brought my computer to the lake to get some work in, and out of no where a woman comes up to me and puts her purse/ wallet down on the picnic table next to me and asks… 

 “Can you watch this please?”

I told her of course. This isn’t the first time this has happened to me that a random stranger trusted me with the thing that was important to them.

Online Reviews, building trust and ranking with Googles trust is the very same. 

Reviews accomplish that for customers if they are making important decisions on who to choose, or how to evaluate a referral that just was given to them. 

It’s just their way of checking their work.

In fact reviews have the ability for customers to see your team dynamics, to see how you work, to see your expertise, they have the ability to move the trust factor up x 10, they are a window into their ability to move a little bit closer to you in your pipeline. Too many things to list here in a email. 

I can’t go into our whole methodology today on how we get more reviews. Things such as how we can get more reviews from customers that didn’t leave our clients a review, how reviews help you rank higher without investing in ads, and reviews are a cheat sheet to your marketing plan right now. Your reviews tell you everything that you need to be communicating so you can stand out versus either not communicating, or communicating like every other team. 

Instead start with these two things:

1. Ask for reviews at the right time

You already likely have a good amount of reveiws, and you know the power of this written refereral in most cases. 

But why do some clients leave a review and why do some not?

In most cases, it’s likely that you are asking at the wrong time, or you’re not asking. This happens a lot. 

One might think that asking at the highest emotional moment of a clients process is the best time. 

You might think that asking after the deal is done, might be a good time. 

I might in some cases, but not always. 

We approach referrals in a humanized way. We don’t ask a question that we don’t know the answer to, we don’t ask just for the sake of asking, and we put out clients first before asking. 

We do referrals very different that you might have been taught. 

The thing is… Reviews are not like referrals. People do not wait around thinking about all the moments in their day that they could leave you a review. 

You really need to ask for them at the right time, with the right intent if you want to add growth and numbers behind them. 

But if you ask, and you are not getting the response you want, or clients are just forgetting to do this kind act, this is normal. 

The best way to fix this on your own is making it as easy as you can for them to leave a review.  Leave direct links to where you want the reviews, and add very simple 1,2 or 3 steps to taking the “thinking” out of the way for them.  

If there is friction, they won’t do it. Even 2 seconds of friction. 

2. Get better reviews from your customers

Reviews are the written referral that oozes trust. But like one of our clients said to us one day. 

“You need to provide a service worthy of a great review“.

What makes this possible?  

One of our clients is booking plenty of work from clients that are finding her from her reviews. 

They received a email from their lead, which said…

“I was searching online and you had so many lovely reviews that I decided you were the one I wanted to  work with”.

People were finding her because of all their reviews. 

The customer obviously read each of the reviews and found “their situation” in the words of the other reviews. Customers want to feel like they are in the right place. 

Our clients get reviews often and exceptional ones because they are asking the right question at the right time with the right intent. 

Remember Day 2 on ranking?

Ranking and reviews all play together in Google’s secret way of trusting or not trusting you. 

If Google trusts you, it shifts your profile up higher. 
For us, reviews are more than just a written referral, but it also has an incredible way of creating marketing moments and opportunities for new prospects to look your way. 

Especially right now and for times like this. 

In your corner. 

Darryl and Jodi

How earning Google’s trust helps you rank higher online

 

Ranking higher, better, or at all. It’s what more and more agents and teams want which is why it’s high on my list as #2  for you this week. 

Ranking — when you know which buttons to push,  does two incredible things. 

1. It establishes an authority that you already likely possess.

2. It gives you a chance to showcase that authority through Google Reviews.

Customers right now are searching locally for someone like your team, or they want to validate a referral that they did get from a colleague or friend. That’s where ranking can help. 

For me, I’m not the technical person to tell you exactly what to do in every situation (that’s more Darryl’s role) but I do know how important this is if you want to stay ahead, get chosen, and keep the authority that you’ve build in your farmed area, or particularly city. 

The biggest problem with ranking is usually trying to figure how to get it, and what things to put in place to get it done. 

There is plenty of information on the web to weed through and I know this because when I started my design business in 2010 I tried to increase customers having the ability to search for me and what I did.  

Weeding through all the information, didn’t leave me feeling confident that I was or had what I needed to move the needle on my ranking. 

#1- Ranking esablishes your authority

So when prospects, and customers are looking on who to hire, which agent to choose and who will they find?

A new lead searching might come in though Google maps, SEO, and most often a referral in your case.  Either way ranking higher (or at all) is important because all the different factors ( although simple, there are a lot of them that weave in and out and affect each other). 

The way to rank higher? 

Ranking and being found even more has everything to do with Trust.

It is primarily based on information that Google has about you as a team. The more digital assets you have such as web links, socials links, articles, your profiles cleaned up and in line, the more Google trusts you and shows you and ranks you higher. 

Google Reviews play a heavy role and are factored into local search ranking which plays well into point #2. 

#2- Improve local ranking by managing customer reviews

More reviews, and positive rankings elevates your ranking. We’ve seen it with the clients we’ve helped and there are pluses to ranking and what that means for you. 

• The volume of reviews you have.
• How often new reviews are posted.
• How many positive versus negative or okay reviews you have.
• How many reviews you have mentioning keywords are all taken into consideration.

Which is why as much as it’s important to have more reviews, It’s also important for your customers to be reading  the right words that you want them to be reading about you to find you.
 

We’ve have clients solely found and hired straight from Google because of the words that those reviews declared on the web.  They stood out.  

**** Spoiler alert **** reviews are really important and I will break-in this down this week as a seperate blog entry because it’s just that important and valuable for you. 

Like I said above, there are many factors on how to rank or rank higher. You can do a bit of work to organically rank higher, and you can pay to rank higher. (although we are firm believers that you as a great agent should get chosen for your service, not because you paid to be there).

 Just know that everything you do or decide to do in the present or future all play a role and you do not have to do everything at once. 

 There are layers and layers to ranking, and raking higher which Darryl certainly has more knowledge on the specifics of HOW than myself.  

If you’ve been doing some of your own research, or if you have a question, or want a more detailed look at what this means for you, please feel to send us a message and we’d love to help you take your next steps.

See you next time.

Darryl and Jodi