Back in September we talked about how the simple act of claiming your Google Local Business page would give you a small boost in your Google 10-pack ranking, which, as we covered, translates directly to fame, fortune and the domination of all who oppose you. Well, should you want to buttress this newfound popularity a bit let’s cover another factor in this land of Local Search Visibility: the volume of your customer reviews.
That’s right, it’s not good enough to just claim the thing and leave it by its lonesome, now you have to actually nurture it. Let’s think about what it will take to get your customers to bother actually going all the way to your listing, and then having to type words… “Ugh, I didn’t expect homework, I just wanted to buy a pair of shoes!” See, this imaginary person I just made up doesn’t even want to do any of that!
How about if we incentivize this whole thing for them? Maybe a 5-10% discount on their next purchase? Maybe you run a competition for a month or three where a random commenter wins a prize? You could even incorporate a video into the listing (yet another boost in the Google 10-Pack – ho-ho!) where you pick a name from a hat, throw a dart at a wall of names, see which bowl the neighborhood cat eats from, however it is you decide to divine your winner. Make it fun, make people want to go and at least check it out, and make it fun for you, or whichever lackey you put on it, to actually do it.
Local Search can be a boon to businesses of any size, all it takes is a bit of attention and maybe just a bit of imagination.
