Trust and credibility are two of the most important factors for homeowners when they search for a local home service business, and local SEO helps businesses establish that reputation. Local SEO encompasses several key elements that help a business establish a robust online presence. One of these elements is online reviews, which can significantly impact your business’s credibility. In this blog, we will discuss the power of online reviews for home service businesses and explore a few ways to get more positive reviews on your Google Business Profile.
Power of Online Reviews for Home Service Businesses
Home service businesses are businesses that provide a variety of services, including foundation repair, basement waterproofing, crawl space encapsulation, mold remediation, house painting, and more. All these services are deeply related to a home’s structure, comfort, and safety. That is why homeowners often take into account the reputation, trustworthiness, and credibility of your business before hiring you to work on their home. People are more likely to work with a business that has a strong collection of positive feedback on its website or Google Business Profile. On the other hand, negative reviews can damage a brand’s reputation and deter potential customers. But reviews aren’t just a channel of feedback. They are also a public reflection of a business’s commitment to quality, customer satisfaction, and transparency. What your customers say about you directly impacts your conversion rate.
Why Reviews Matter in Local SEO for Home Service Businesses?
Online reviews play a big role in a home service business’s overall local SEO strategy. Here’s how reviews help you boost your ROI:
Improve Search Engine Rankings
Reviews are considered a ranking signal by search engines like Google. A higher quantity of positive reviews signals to Google that a business is reputable and relevant, improving its overall organic search visibility. Additionally, a consistent stream of new reviews further indicates that a business is active and thriving.
Help Increase Conversion Rate
Online reviews significantly help increase conversion rates for home service businesses by influencing customer decisions. Customers are far more likely to choose a home service business if it has positive reviews, as these reviews build immediate trust. For home service businesses, reviews hold the power to turn prospective customers into paying clients.
Build Trust & Credibility
Customer reviews are a key to building online trust and credibility, particularly for home service businesses that usually require a significant amount of time and money from homeowners. A growing percentage of people read and trust online reviews before making their decision to work with a business. When potential customers see a constant stream of positive feedback on your business listing, they are more inclined to trust you, find you credible, and hire you for their home improvement needs.
Local Pack Visibility
Reviews have a substantial impact on Google Business Profile rankings, which often appear in a map pack or local pack. The map pack, which often appears at the very top of search results for home service business keywords, heavily favors businesses with a high volume of positive reviews and high star ratings. Google’s algorithm uses review signals as a key factor in determining which businesses are most relevant and reputable. Therefore, consistently receiving more positive reviews is an effective way for businesses to improve visibility in the local pack.
Improved Click-Through Rates
Click-through rates (CTR) are an essential metric that determines users’ engagement with your business, and reviews help you boost this metric. When reviews and ratings appear directly in search results, typically in the GBP, they immediately catch the user’s eye. These visual cues, like star ratings, indicate quality and trustworthiness to users, making them more likely to click on your website and spend time exploring it. Businesses with higher star ratings and a greater number of reviews tend to stand out, making users more inclined to click on their listing over competitors.
Competitive Advantage
Home service is a competitive industry, which is why businesses need more than just an online presence to stand out. Reviews can give your business a serious advantage over your competitors in the home service industry. In this particular market, people are likely to choose businesses with multiple positive reviews rather than those with no reviews or, worse, negative reviews. That is because positive reviews serve as a kind of sneak peek into a business’s values and quality. Even if you rank lower than your competitors on search engine results pages, having more positive reviews and a higher star rating can give your business an edge.
Social Proof
Reviews help validate your home service business in the eyes of potential customers. When your audience sees that others have had positive experiences with your services, it creates a sense of reassurance and reliability. This collective thumbs-up from previous customers significantly reduces perceived risk for new clients, making them more confident in choosing your business. Reviews are also user-generated content (UGC), which is tangible evidence and social proof that your home service business is reputable and delivers quality work.
How to Get More Business Reviews?
Now that you know how powerful and beneficial reviews can be for your home service business, let’s move on to an effective review generation strategy. Below are a few ways that will help you get more positive reviews from your customers.
Create & Manage a Google Business Profile
First things first, create (and constantly update and manage) your Google Business Profile so that your customers have a good platform to leave reviews on. If your customers have to “find” you to leave a review, you’re already behind your competitors.
Provide Excellent Customer Service
You can’t expect a customer to leave a 5-star rating if you haven’t provided them with 5-star service. Don’t cut corners; provide excellent customer service, focus on solving customers’ problems, and be completely transparent throughout the entire process.
Send Review Requests at the Right Time
Customers don’t like it when you ask for a review too early in the service process, and they also don’t like you texting them two weeks later about a review. The right time to ask is after the final quality check. Make sure that the customer is satisfied and that your team is paid for their work. After that, send your customer an email or a text (with a link to your Google Business Profile) and nicely ask them to leave an honest review about your service. Keep in mind that not every customer is going to respond or leave a review, and that’s fine.
Make it Easy to Leave Reviews
Customers don’t mind leaving reviews. What they don’t like is when the process of leaving reviews is lengthy and complex. If you want more reviews, make your process simple. If you are sending a text or email to customers to request a review, give them a direct link to visit and leave a review. If you are leaving behind a card or a flyer, ensure that you include a QR code that directs your customers to the review page.
Responding to Reviews
Receiving reviews is not the end of the process. Responding to them appropriately is as important as getting the reviews in the first place.
Responding to Positive Reviews
Responding to reviews can make all the difference in how your customers perceive your professionalism and digital presence. When a customer leaves a positive review on your profile or business page, it’s essential to appreciate their feedback, thank them for their positivity, and encourage them to share their experience with others about your business and its practices. A key is to respond in a timely manner when the experience is still fresh. Late responses can often get ignored by customers.
Dealing With Negative Reviews
Negative reviews are a challenge that almost every business faces at some point. Although they are a challenge, they present a unique opportunity for reputation management and improvement. The first and most critical step is to apologize sincerely for any negative experience the customer had. Even if you believe the complaint is not true, an apology can de-escalate the situation. The next step is to encourage the customer to have a conversation offline or compensate them for their poor experience. Your ultimate goal is to demonstrate professionalism and focus on resolving the issue.
Summary
Reviews play a huge role in local search engine optimization for any business. However, for home service businesses, reviews are even more important because homeowners take reviews very seriously when they are choosing a company to work on their home. A strong online presence with positive reviews can help you achieve better search engine rankings, higher conversion rates, and increased click-through rates. In addition to these metrics, reviews also serve as social proof of your business’s transparency and commitment to quality. Therefore, if reviews aren’t already part of your local SEO strategy, it’s time to develop a review generation strategy. If you need help updating your home services SEO strategies, contact the experts at Outpace SEO today.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Yes, bad reviews can hurt your local SEO, but the impact isn’t always direct. Search engines like Google consider the overall sentiment of your reviews when determining your local search ranking. A single negative review may go unnoticed, but a high volume of negative reviews can signal to search engines that your business may not provide a good customer experience, which can lead to a lower ranking in local search results.
The best time to ask a customer for a review is typically right after they’ve had a positive experience with your service. For home service businesses, this could be after the project is complete and the customer is satisfied. Make it easy for customers to leave a review by providing clear instructions and giving them a direct link.
You cannot remove a negative Google review, but if you think the review should not be on your profile, you can report it to Google. Depending on the nature of the review and the reason for your report, Google will decide whether to remove it or leave it as it is.
Yes, it’s considered a good practice to reply to every review, whether the review is good or bad. When you are answering positive reviews, thank your customer for their kind words and for taking the time to leave a review. To answer negative reviews, acknowledge your customer’s concern, apologize for any inconvenience (even if you believe you are not at fault), and offer a solution or invite them to contact you offline to resolve the issue. If the customer’s account is incorrect, it may be appropriate to present your side of the story.
