GOOGLE REVIEWS 1st Update in 10 years - Game Changer for Your Business?

google reviews are critical to your

business they can help your listing rank

higher on google maps

as well as build your reputation and

credibility with prospective customers a

few months ago google quietly launched a

range of attributes

that can be selected when leaving a

review customers can now express a

critical

or positive sentiment about the services

you provide using these attributes

without even typing a word and with just

a mouse click

largely unnoticed by most business

owners when launched

due to the pandemic this is the biggest

change google has made to reviews

in almost 10 years and is likely to have

a major impact on your google my

business listing

moving forward if you want to know how

this feature is going to affect your

business

and how to make the most of it stay

tuned hi my name is luke duran the

founder of rankingacademy.com.uk if it's

your first time here today

why don't you subscribe and click on the

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a new one so last spring google launched

the ability for customers to add

positive and negative attributes when

writing a review

about your business these attributes are

currently available for more service

related businesses

but i feel they will be extended to all

business types

soon enough any customer wanting to

leave you a positive four or five star

review

is now prompted with the following

question what do you like about this

business

and presented with the option of

selecting between three to five

attributes depending on your business

vertical these attributes may vary

in this example the five attributes for

these electricians

are good quality good value professional

responsive and on time

but if i try to leave a review for a dog

grooming business the on-time attribute

has been switched to the

reliable attribute if a customer chooses

however to give you

one or two star review it will be

prompted with this question

what do you not like about this business

and to choose from another set of

attributes

looking at the electrician example again

the attributes are as follows poor

quality

poor value not professional not

responsive and not on time

while for the document example the not

on time attribute

has now changed to not reliable

customers choosing to give you a three

star review will not be presented with

the option to add

attributes to it as it's kind of neutral

these attributes are displayed

right under the star rating of a review

in the review section

of your listing in google search and

google maps which makes them very

visible

if you want to find out which attributes

are associated with your business

just bring your listing up and try

leaving a review choose the five star

and one star option

to bring up the different lists but why

are these attributes

so important i hear you saying according

to a study conducted by the online

review specialists at

gatherup.com who analyzed just under 3

million business reviews

almost 35 percent of all reviews are

just ratings only

this means customers don't bother

providing any further information

besides giving a number of stars they

think is appropriate

for that business we all know that one

star is clearly not good and

five stars is great but there is no

further context to the review making it

difficult for

prospective customers and google to

understand what is good or bad about

this business

based on ratings alone this is not very

helpful to google who is

always trying to provide the most

relevant and accurate information to

searches

providing customers with the ability to

add attributes to reviews

helps google just do that and to

evaluate every small business

on a much more granular level and this

is clearly paying off for google

to measure the effectiveness of this new

feature the study compared the number of

rating only reviews for a group of

insurance

agents before and after the attributes

were rolled out

sure enough shortly after it was

launched the number of rating only

reviews with no attributes

dropped by a staggering 63 so what does

this mean for local businesses

google has made it extremely easy for

customers to add attributes to reviews

just a couple of clicks and it's done so

expect to see

more and more of these showing up on

your listing it will help

prospective customers make an informed

decision based on the strength

and weaknesses of your business but it

also means that google is now

able to access a much bigger set of rich

data to evaluate the performance of

millions of small businesses

on an almost individual level unlike a

written review

where content varies from one customer

to another attributes now provide

structured context

which is common to all businesses i'm

not a clairvoyant but you don't need to

be a genius to understand

how google is likely to use this new

data as a ranking factor let's imagine

you're a handyman and you have

105 star reviews all of which include

the following

attributes good quality good value and

professional

let's now look at one of your

competitors who also has

105 star reviews all of which include

the following attributes

good quality good value professional but

also responsive

and on time which one do you think

google is likely to rank

above the oven here is another idea to

consider how google may use these

attributes let's say you run a car

repair shop and the vast majority

of customers leaving your review use the

attribute good value

surely that makes your google my

business listing a prime candidate when

people are searching for

cheap car repair shop near me or

affordable auto repair near me

these are basic examples but you can see

how google is likely to utilize this

data

in the near future and will continue to

dominate the online local search space

because of it this means

paying attention to your reviews is

going to be more important than ever

before

and monitoring the attributes customers

choose to leave for your business

will provide you with key actionable

insight there are a couple of tools that

have started doing that such as

gatherup.com and whitespark.ca but they

are not free

so if you are on a budget but still want

to track your review attributes

i suggest you download my excel review

tracking sheet from the description

below

which is free and very simple to use

this

is how it works let's say a client has

left a four or five star review on my

google my business listing

in january in a positive role for

january i'm going to increase the number

by one

if the review also includes attributes i

will add them to the table

right below that let's say it includes

the good quality

and good value attribute therefore i

will increase the number by one for each

of those attributes

if however i receive a one or two star

review i will follow the same principle

and add the data

to the critical raw and critical

attributes table

the graph will update automatically

giving you a visual representation

of your overall customer satisfaction

and as time goes on highlight

where you may have some issues that need

to be addressed

in this example there is clearly an

increase of dissatisfied customers

starting in may and escalating in august

to find out what they were mostly

unhappy about

around that period you would just need

to look at the critical

attribute graph in which you will see

that at around the same time

most clients who gave you a negative

review were unhappy about

your time keeping and also a lack of

communication which would seem to go

hand in hand

how else would you find out these issues

with search clarity

you can now put something in place to

solve these problems this spreadsheet

will also work if you want to improve on

qualities

your business seem to be missing this is

exactly what the positive attribute

graph

can be used for in this example this

business does well for

value and professionalism but there is

plenty of room to improve on other

areas you may think filling in this

spreadsheet is a little bit cumbersome

but

if you're already doing your due

diligence and are responding to all your

customer reviews consider including this

as part of your process

it should only take an extra 30 seconds

but will provide you with an

invaluable amount of information please

note you can't log into your google my

business profile and collect the data

directly

from google my business panel sadly the

attributes do not show in the review

section

but will hopefully be added at a later

date the best way to collect the data is

to bring up your business listing

in google click on reviews and sort by

the newest

the other thing you can do with this new

data is

leverage it with content on your website

earlier i mentioned google is likely to

use these

new attributes to help rank businesses

in local search results therefore

it would make sense to use this

information to create

additional content pages on your site

which will be in line with the most

popular attributes your listing gets

tagged with

let's say you rent wedding venues in

florida and your listing constantly

receives reviews

that are using the good value attribute

this is such

a clear sign you should create relevant

content pages on your website for

similar terms to drive more visibility

and traffic

think lower cost wedding venue in

orlando affordable wedding venue in

miami

cheap wedding venue in fort lauderdale

etc the sky is the limit the more review

attribute data you will be able to

generate and collect from your listing

the more

information you will be able to gather

so whenever you're asking clients if

they are willing to leave you a review

ask them to also include attributes

obviously you can't blatantly say to

them please add the good value or the

good communication

attribute to your review they'll

probably think you've gone crazy

as they won't know what you're talking

about instead send them a review request

email in which you can ask them to leave

you a review and to point out where they

think you did well

using some of the preset attributes to

make

this easier for you i have created an

email template

you can use as your own and send your

clients you can download it from the

description below

if you enjoyed watching this video don't

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post any questions or comments below and

until next time

happy marketing

[Music]

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