
As a lash salon or mobile technician, you’ve probably listed yourself on review sites in the past. Sites like Yell, Facebook, Trust Pilot and Yelp all allow users to review you, so others can see what you do before they buy from you. However, in recent times Google has become the premier review site. Here’s the ultimate guide to Google reviews. You’ll see why you need them, how to set them up, and how to manage them.
Why Use Google Reviews for your Lash Business?
So firstly, why should you use Google reviews for your Lash business? In the past, customers have trusted external review sites to get the lowdown on what you do. Now though, they’ll actually go straight to Google to see what others think of you. Right now, around 64% of consumers are going to check Google before anything else.
It makes sense for Google to become the number 1 review site online. As searchers will be on the site already, it’s very easy to check out the reviews before you do anything else. It also makes it easier for customers to leave a review of your business. This is why it makes so much sense to use this to your advantage.
Also, be aware those reviews of your lash treatments will factor into your overall ranking on Google. Google don’t make public exactly how they rank sites, but reviews definitely factor into it.
How To Get Started
If you want to allow customer to start reviewing you eyelash extensions business on Google, you’ll need to first set up a Google My Business account. This is very simple, and highly advisable. With these accounts, you’ll be listing accurate info about your business on the search engine. This in itself will help your rankings, as long as you keep it updated with correct info.
Once you’ve set the account up, you’ll be able to see a ‘reviews’ tab on the homepage. Click it, and you’ll see all the reviews that have been left for you. Right now you won’t have any, so you’ll need to generate some.
How To Generate Reviews for your Eyelash Extensions Business
Now you’re ready to get reviews, so you’ll need to get customers to leave you some. How do you get Good reviews? You can simply ask directly. If you’re already using social media, you can ask customers who have had their lashes done by you to leave you reviews on Google. This works well as you’ll get accurate reviews. This helps your overall score and search rankings.
If you’re going to ask directly, be sure to share a link to a page where this can be done. Make the process as easy as possible for your customers. The easier it is, the more likely they are to do it. That way you can garner a lot of genuine reviews.
Be aware that you shouldn’t give people incentives to review you, though. It sounds like you should, after all, why would anyone do it if they’re not getting something out of it? The problem is that if the reviewer is being rewarded for doing so, they’re not going to leave an accurate review. Google will penalize you for this, so don’t do it.
How Your Rating Is Calculated
Now that you have some reviews, you’ll see that you’ll have an average review score. What you’ll notice is that even if you have perfect 5 star reviews across the board, you’ll still have an overall score that’s slightly lower. Many average scores come out at around 4.7 or 4.8, even if all your reviews are 5 stars. This is because review scores aren’t calculated in the normal way to get an average. Instead, you’ll see it’s calculated on Google’s own algorithm. Again, it isn’t certain what that algorithm is, as they aren’t telling. The expert opinion, though, is that they’re using the Bayesian method to calculate this score.
This method actually extrapolates what your score would be if you had more reviews. This is done for sites that don’t have a lot of review scores. As the sample size is so small, it decides what your score would look like if you had more. This helps keeps rankings relevant to the customer. If you have only 6 or 7 5 star reviews, you shouldn’t be ranking higher than a company that has 98 5 star reviews and 2 or 3 3 star reviews.
The best way to improve that overall score is to get more reviews. The more you have, the more accurate that score becomes. Plus, having more reviews will be encouraging to any new customer.
Interacting With Reviews
When you check out reviews on your reviews tab, you’ll see that you have the option to reply to them. Is this something you should do? It’s highly recommended, as interaction with you customers increases brand loyalty, and shows you as a company that cares about your customers. It’s the same as interacting with customers on social media. The more you interact with customers, the more you can increase that trust and loyalty.
It’s easy to respond to reviews right there in the reviews tab of Google My Business. When you do so, remember that your response will be visible to others, and will need to conform to the terms of service laid out by Google. You can edit that response after you’ve posted it, to clear up any typos.
You’ll have positive reviews, but you’ll also have negative ones too. How to deal with negative reviews? Many would want to delete them, but there isn’t actually a way to do this. It makes sense, as deleting a review would impact the algorithm and give the company involved a better rating than they should have.
If you get a negative review, it’s better to respond and see what you can do to fix the problem. Most of the time, you’ll be able to solve their issue and change their outlook on your business. This has another upside, too. As you’re interacting and helping that reviewer out, you’ll be seen more positively by other customers.
This is the basics of Google Reviews, so you can get started with them today. Use them to your advantage, and bring in more custom online. Your Google My Business listing which lists your reviews should be used in addition to listing your business on websites like Eyelash Extensions Near Me.