Your customers will find your business online in a wide variety of places, from Google to social networks like Facebook to industry-specific websites and local business listing sites like Yelp or Google Local.
It can be overwhelming keeping track of all your reviews. You might also not know where to focus your review-collecting efforts - after all, each customer can only write one review per purchase. You can't publish the same review to multiple sources without being penalised by Google for duplicate content, which in turn really harms your SEO and rankings.
So, before deciding on which site to focus your efforts on, you should first ask yourself what you're trying to achieve from reviews. Depending on the kind of business you have and whether you service just a small local area, your local region, the whole county or even the whole world, will dictate where best to collect reviews.
We'll first talk about the sites on which reviews can be collected, and then we'll look at a few business cases later on in the post that ties up where each business should collect reviews.
Google is the first port of call for the vast majority of all internet searches in the world, and so needs to be your main focus. For the purposes of this post, when we talk about collecting reviews in Google, we're specifically talking about getting stars under paid results (PPC text ads or PL Google Shopping ads) and organic results (stars under any non-paid listing).
How to get stars in Google is the topic of another blog post, so it is worth checking out to get an overview of how collecting reviews will get you stars.
In brief, though, if your business actively collects reviews with a licensed third-party review provider such as REVIEWS.io, they will be uploaded to Google regularly and eventually will give you Google Seller Ratings, meaning your stars will appear in those locations listed above in Google results.
It's imperative to collect reviews on Google if you are doing any form of paid advertising with them. This is because stars in PPC results will mean more clicks on your ads.
Google Local is a specific type of search result that is displayed when you type in a query that could be considered "local" in focus. For example, "plumbers near me" or "I need a florist". On a larger scale, if you type in the name of a company that has multiple branches, it's quite likely you'll be presented with the Google Local result containing a map of the surrounding area, with the company pinpointed so you can find it.
Google is all about making the user experience useful and simple, so the additional information provided in these results is taken from data provided by the company websites in the form of Structured Data. This data includes details like address, opening hours, contact phone numbers, and, yes, reviews. So as well as a list of companies on a map, you'll also have the option of seeing at-a-glance their local review score.
Here is the Google Local result for "plumbers near me". Which one are you most likely to call?
As a dupe version of Google Local, Foursquare also serves local business ratings and consumer reviews. By harnessing the power of location-based insights and user-generated reviews, it offers a golden opportunity to enhance online reputation.
Facebook can be a very visually appealing and engaging platform, and it allows companies to add descriptive images and videos to their pages. Facebook also allows users to leave reviews for business. Google reads this data and presents it underneath the Facebook page result for a business in its search results page. This is why you often see stars underneath the organic Facebook page results in Google.
Try Googling a company and seeing where its Facebook page ranks. It's usually pretty high, and you'll also see those stars underneath it.
Here's an example: If you search "VW Heritage" in Google, their Facebook search result is number 3. You can already see their review score at a glance on Facebook.
Google automatically imports these reviews, and you don't have any control over that. Therefore, the best thing for you to do is actively collect reviews on Facebook.
TripAdvisor is the big one for any hospitality business. Think hotels, bars, clubs, restaurants and cafes. In fact, if you type any of those terms into Google, TripAdvisor will give you a list of the top ten in your local area.
(Incidentally, I can vouch for the excellence of Divine Restaurant Coffee Bar’s cappuccinos - actual lumps of chocolate on top rather than the powdered stuff.).
Why would we mention Trustpilot in this list? Surely, they're a direct competitor? True, of course, but that doesn't mean that for consumers, they're not still an option. In fact, they've probably already called your business to try and sign you up for their expensive plans for fear of missing out on collecting reviews on the platform.
Fear not, you don't need to sign up for a Trustpilot account, and you're not going to lose out because you can use Reviews.io to send review traffic to your Trustpilot profile, thereby still maintaining a great online rating without needing to be locked into their 12-month contracts or expensive price plans.
It works for Mobiles.co.uk, and it can work for you, whatever your business size.
"Local review collection has been working extremely well, and our Trustpilot score has increased by 28% without impacting our Reviews.io score. The new feature is a game changer within the industry and something I would personally recommend to other companies."
Neemisha, Brand Executive
Carphone Warehouse
Yelp is similar to TripAdvisor but more extensive in its categories. It adds Dentists, Shopping, Spas, Sports, and Cars to TripAdvisor's main hospitality focus. Yelp is where people find local businesses in a wide variety of categories.
Amazon allows users to write reviews on products sold through its marketplace. Marketplace sellers (business owners like you who use Amazon as their main selling platform) are also able to collect reviews. Reviews are one factor in Amazon's algorithm affecting who wins the "Buy Box". If you sell on Amazon, you'll know what the Buy Box is; if not, you don't need to worry about it.
When it comes to reviews in the tech biz, G2 is the market leader. The platform empowers business professionals to make informed software purchasing decisions by not only aggregating customer feedback and product ratings but also offering authentic insights such as comparisons across various businesses.
These advantages are a magnet to users, so around four million people visit G2 monthly. Businesses of all sizes, from startups to large enterprises, can leverage G2's impressive traffic to enhance their online reputation.
Caprerra is an alternative to G2. It simplifies the search for the perfect software solutions by providing a treasure trove of client testimonials, user-generated content, and business ratings. Capterra tends to focus more on a broad comparison of various software options, while G2 emphasizes detailed user insights and in-depth analysis.
If G2 is the king of the software industry, Glassdoor is the queen of company reviews.
It gives employees a voice to share their workplace experiences, helping job seekers make informed career choices. Through candid reviews, salary information, and interview insights, the platform offers a transparent view into company cultures and work environments.
Businesses can use Glassdoor for reputation enhancement and feedback collection by engaging with employee feedback, showcasing their commitment to improvement, and attracting top talent. Companies of all sizes and industries benefit from maintaining a strong presence on Glassdoor, as it helps build trust and credibility in the competitive job market.
If your business specializes in home services, Angi (or Angie’s List previously) is the reviews platform for you. This trusted U.S.-based client review site connects homeowners with top-notch home service professionals like plumbers, roofers, electricians, and landscapers.
Home service professionals can leverage Angi to build a robust online presence, showcase their work, and manage customer feedback seamlessly.
It goes without saying that collecting and publishing reviews on your site should be your main focus, as this will enable you to get Google Seller Ratings and Stars in your paid and organic results. By using a site widget such as the ones provided by REVIEWS.io, you'll also reap the benefits of more conversions and a positive impact on SEO, owing to the presence of ever-changing user-generated content.
So now we've looked at the places where reviews can be collected and how they are displayed in Google, let's look at some use-cases for various business types and sort out where your review collection focus should be.
Notes: Sole trader/tradesperson results will most likely appear in Google Local search queries due to their nature and area coverage.
Notes: Google local searches give maps and locations of local businesses. A number of service—and retail-based businesses are usually present, along with a review score.
Notes: Most e-commerce stores will have multi-product catalogues so the collection of Product Reviews is at least as important as collecting Company Reviews for eCommerce stores.
Notes: By automating the feedback request process, you'll increase the volume of seller feedback collected in a short space of time. Positive, recent reviews have an impact on your chances of winning the "Buy Box".
Notes: While large multi-branch retailers will have an overall Company Review score, Google Local will allow individual branches to gain their own rating. REVIEWS.io supports branch-level review collection for larger businesses.
If you've gotten this far in the post, you might be feeling a bit overwhelmed. How can one person possibly manage reviews across all these different sources? It's common knowledge that reviews are super important to business, as is a consistent reputation across multiple sources. Your customers will find you everywhere online.
REVIEWS.io has a solution for you, though, so don't worry. We've implemented a very cool feature called Local Review Collection, which lets you manage all these review sources in one place, your REVIEWS.io dashboard.
It works like this. You send out review invitations to all your customers. In that email or SMS is a link which directs them to the appropriate business review websites where they can leave feedback. You can easily set up segmentation of your review requests by apportioning a percentage of reviews to each platform.
In this way, you could, for example, assign 80% of your review requests to REVIEWS.io, 10% to Trustpilot, 5% to Facebook, and 5% to Amazon.
It works, quite simply, by adjusting a handy slider in your REVIEWS.io dashboard like so:-
The benefits of collecting reviews are well known. Consumers are far more likely to come across your business in a wide variety of ways. It's important that your business presents itself in the best possible way across all these online review portals to maximise the probability of click-throughs to your site, or a customer picking up the phone.
Implementing a review collection strategy is the best way to make sure you're prepared for traffic from many different sources.
Want more advice about where you should be collecting reviews? Head over to our website or jump on live chat with one of our advisors.
