How Does Your Online Reputation Represent You?

Google recently changed the way in which it calculates ratings. Google, until recently, utilized the Bayesian average that browses the bigger data set for all companies. The method will calculate the likely average for your company as lower, if you just have a couple of reviews. If you have under 10 reviews online and 5-star arithmetic average, utilizing Bayesian, Google would only show 4.8 or 4.9.

Currently, in a big shift which largely has been overlooked by companies, Google has begun to use the arithmetic average to calculate business star ratings. That means you may just have a couple of 5-star reviews, and Google is going to display a 5-star rating. This new method is good news for companies that only have a few 5-star reviews.

However, here is the catch: If one of the two reviews is negative, you might wind up with a lower rating which isn’t representative of your real levels of service or the experience most of your clients have with you.

What will Influence Rankings?

Even though Google will take into account Google My Business signals (prominence, distance, and relevance) while generating a local 3-pack for the “near me” search, there will include additional factors involved — as a matter of fact, over 200.

If you only are paying attention to a few of these factors, your ratings are going to suffer, no matter how satisfied your clients are.

Two ranking factors have become more critical over the past few years, according to Moz’s 2017 survey on local search ranking factors.

Behavioral signals: How individuals interact with your site, which includes dwell time and click-through rate.

Review signals: The amount of reviews your company is receiving, and how rapidly you are receiving them and websites on which they’ll appear.

As the increasing impact of those critical ranking factors indicates, 3rd-party validation like quality content and online reviews are vital to driving search rankings up.

Take Action using Online Reputation Management

Below are a few important online reputation management tips to assist you in ensuring your reputation online is balanced, fair and representative of the service you offer.

Make it simple for all your clients to review you. Do not allow a single reviewer to tell your organization’s story — be certain there is an abundance of new reviews in order for the customer experience you provide to be reflected accurately. Send review requests via email and text after every transaction to gather a representative sample of your customer’s experience. Turn the “Review” feature on in your Facebook business page, as well as include a link to a form for reviewing on your site. The faster and easier you make it for individuals to review you, the more of them you will receive.

Make sure your listings are accurate: Nothing will frustrate customers more than out-of-date phone numbers, hours of operation, and location addresses. In addition, accurate business listings assist you in ranking higher in the local search results.

For more information on online reputation management contact Soaring Away at (910) 471-5030.