Managing online reviews is essential for any business to maintain a strong online presence, good search engine rankings, and a positive reputation. It’s not just about how your company looks when people search for it, effective review management also boosts your SEO, PR, branding, recruitment, lead generation, and sales.

In this post, we’ll discuss how companies can claim and take control of their business profiles on review networks. We’ll cover managing and updating profiles, using analytics provided by review networks, accessing and monitoring reviews, responding to feedback, and flagging inappropriate content if needed. In addition, we’ll provide tips and hacks on improving your online reputation through effective review management techniques.

The Importance of Online Reviews for Business

Online reviews play a big role in the decision making process for both B2C consumers and B2B customers. Over 93% of consumers read reviews before purchasing a product or service, this one number is enough to signify the impact reviews have on consumer behavior.

For example, one of our eCommerce clients experienced over 20% increase in conversion rates and 18% drop in cart abandonment after we improved company’s reviews on platforms like Google, Yelp, and Glassdoor, raising their ratings from around 3 stars to 4.5 – 4.6 stars.

Good reviews also contribute to successful search engine optimization (SEO) efforts and PPC success, as search engines like Google and Bing display star ratings in their results. The same eCommerce client saw a 6% improvement in click-through rates (CTR) for both organic and sponsored Google ads.

Another client we work with, a recruitment agency, witnessed an increase in job applications after we improved their Glassdoor and Indeed ratings, before it was below 3 stars and people were hesitant to apply. Another proof that people read reviews before applying for jobs.

What is Online Review Management?

Online Review Management is the practice of monitoring, analyzing, responding to, and leveraging online customer reviews to boost business’s reputation, visibility, SEO, enhance customer satisfaction, and improve sales. This involves using strategic activities and tools to manage reviews across different online platforms, such as Google, Yelp, Trustpilot, TripAdvisor… and social media sites.

Think of online review management as maintaining your business’s profile on third-party platforms, similar to managing your own website content. It involves keeping your business information up to date with current product and service descriptions, company updates, photos, and relevant links to your website and social media profiles. This allows you to stay connected with customers who engage with your business profiles and leave reviews.

Identifying Key Platforms Where People Post Reviews and Find Your Business

While there are many platforms where people can post online reviews, business owners must identify the ones where their customers are most likely to find business and leave feedback.

First, locate local and business directories like Google, Yelp or Trustpilot, which list almost every company, are often the first place many shoppers go to research or leave reviews. Also, try searching your business name on Google with words like “directory”, “review”, “complaints”, “feedback”, and see what comes up.

Next, job networks like Glassdoor and Indeed allow employees to rate companies they have worked for. Any business with more than a few employees should monitor and manage reviews on these platforms.

Then, there are plenty niche networks that might be relevant to your business. For example, if you run a tech company, platforms like Capterra or G2 most likely already have profiles and even reviews for your company and tech product. If you offer travel related services, then TripAdvisor or Booking.com are crucial for review management and monitoring. Some industries may have multiple niche categroies to monitor, for example, restaurants can be rated on food delivery platforms, restaurant booking sites, and travel review sites.

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Claim and Take Ownership of Your Business Profiles on Online Review Networks

The next important step in managing online review networks for your business, is to take ownership and claim your business profiles on those networks. If your profile doesn’t exist, you should create one by clicking the link “add business”, “create listing” etc or contacting the network. If your business is unclaimed but has already received reviews and/or has a map listing with directions, there may be duplicate profiles that need to be claimed and merged together.

Networks often make it easy to start the process of taking ownership by clicking options like “Claim the Ownership,” “Are You the Business Owner?” or “Register as Business” to claim your profile. Then, you should verify it, many networks accept business email verification and it’s enough, but some require authorization by phone or even send a postcard to your business address for confirmation.

Make sure to claim and consolidate all locations if your business operates from more than one site.

Once you claim your business, you’ll gain access to a portal where you can update your business profile and address, add logo, photos and links, update other information, and manage reviews.

Risk of Not Claiming the Business Profile

If you leave your business unclaimed, it shows to potential customers that you are not taking your online reputation very seriously, it can negatively impact their perception and your sales. More importantly, others can claim your business by providing false information. These others could be competitors, disgruntled employees, scammers, spammers, or other “bad actors”.

One common scam involves fraudsters claiming your Google My Business listing and redirecting traffic to their own website and phone line. Once this happens, reclaiming your listing can be difficult, requiring significant effort to prove you are the rightful owner.

For example, one of our clients, a car dealership, experienced this firsthand when a former employee, holding a grudge, managed to claim the dealership’s Google Maps listing. He posted inappropriate photos, descriptions, and other content. It took weeks to reclaim the profile and remove the damaging content. And the worst part, there is nothing you can do from a legal standpoint because Google will never reveal from what account or email someone claimed your business.

Update and Manage Your Business Profile for Better Reviews

Once you claimed your profile, you can start managing it. Update your logo, business description, and links to your website. Ensure all necessary information is accurate and complete, including your address, links to your site, phone number, business hours, and details about the services and products you offer.

Start Managing Your Reviews

Once you fully updated your business profile, it’s time to start managing reviews.

First, check if you already have reviews from the past. It is not recommended to reply to reviews that are years old, as future customers might see the delay and think your business unresponsive and incompetent. Instead, focus on responding to new reviews. Make your goal to reply within 24 hours to demonstrate your support and dedication. Research shows that over 90% of customers are willing to overlook a bad review if they see that the business responded professionally and fast.

Next, identify any fake reviews or reviews that violate the network’s community guidelines and rules. Flag and report these reviews, even if they are years old. Removing such reviews can instantly improve your online star ratings.

Finally, start collecting new reviews by asking your loyal and happy customers to leave feedback. Your top customers are often your top advocates.

Leverage Review Network Tools, Analytics, and Insights

Many networks provide data and insights how visitors interact with your business, including visits, clicks and review submissions. This information can offer insights into traffic, visitor patterns, and overall sentiment. Analyzing customer traffic and feedback helps identify areas for improvement.

In addition, many networks make it easy to integrate businesses review profiles with websites and social media. They offer badges and widgets to display and promote your ratings and reviews, as well as collect new reviews directly from your site or application.

Finally, some review networks can be integrated with other marketing platforms like HubSpot, Yext, and more. This integration streamlines your marketing efforts and helps you manage your online presence and all marketing channels from one place.

Summarizing the Steps to Effectively Manage Your Business Review Profiles.

Here’s a summary of what we discussed earlier in this post on how to manage your business review network profiles and reviews effectively:

1. Claim and Verify Your Profiles. Search for your business on review networks and claim existing profiles. Create new profile if the business doesn’t exist there. Verify your business using the network’s preferred method like email, phone, or postcard.
2. Create and Update Your Profile. Ensure all business details are accurate and complete. Update as much information as possible and don’t forget to include photos and descriptions to show your brand and how unique it is.
3. Monitor Reviews Regularly. If possible, set up notifications for new reviews. Regularly check your profile for new feedback or use 3rd party tools by integrating your profiles and managing in one place.
4. Respond to Reviews. Thank customers for positive reviews and address any negative reviews professionally and constructively. Make sure to reply within 24 hours to show your support and dedication to resolve any issues.
5. Identify and Report Questionable and Fake Reviews. Look for fake reviews or reviews that violate community guidelines. Report these reviews to have them removed and potentially improve your star ratings.
6. Encourage New Reviews. Ask satisfied and loyal customers to leave reviews.
7. Analyze Data and Insights. Use network provided analytics and data to understand traffic, visitor patterns, and overall sentiment toward your business.
8. Integrate with Your Website, Apps, and Social Media. Utilize badges and widgets to display and promote your ratings and reviews.
9. Leverage Marketing Platform Integrations. Integrate your review profiles with other marketing platforms to streamline all your marketing efforts.

By following these steps, you can accurately manage your business review network profiles and reviews, improving your online reputation and building stronger relationships with your customers.

Assess the Value of Signing Up for Featured or Sponsored Profiles on Review Networks

Most online review networks offer sponsorships and featured profile options to rank better or stay above competitors. These comes with a monthly or annual fee, a pay-per-click model, or pay-per-lead. From experience, some networks charge quite hefty prices, ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars to sponsor a single category or location, and it adds up if you need additional features for your profile. Often, you may receive phone calls and emails after claiming or creating a new business profile, and some sales approaches can be quite aggressive and annoying.

What does sponsorship offer, and should you go for it? This is a critical question for business owners to assess, and when needed, ask for advice from professionals in digital marketing or reputation management.

Is Investing in a Sponsoring Review Network Worth It? Evaluating ROI and Benefits

Many networks claim to deliver traffic, leads, and sales through sponsorships. However, not all networks can deliver on these promises, even some big names. While some businesses found success with featured listings, dominating their category or local area and gaining real customers and leads, others have found sponsorships to be a waste of money, failing to deliver promised results.

For example, one of our clients found success in sponsoring Software Advice and Capterra for his software products. Despite the price, the company was able to close a few large deals and came positive in terms of ROI. Another client, a plumbing company, reported that despite years of sponsoring one of the major networks for finding trades, they never received a single valuable lead.

There are also hidden benefits to consider. For example, sponsorships often include clickable links, with basic profiles it may not be allowed unless you pay. Another advantage is better search rankings for your business profile, which might not generate direct leads but can influence customers researching feedback before making a decision.

It is up to each business to decide if sponsoring a network and getting a featured profile is worthwhile. Assess all pros and cons, cost, and seek a second opinion before making a commitment.

Avoid Common Scams on Business Review Networks and Fake Yellow Pages

When claiming your business profiles, you signal that you are a legitimate business, attracting not only customers but also scammers who take notes. There are many fake business and review directories that list your company and then try to charge you fees for nothing. While the listings may be real, the directory itself often lacks value, because it is not promoted, has no web traffic, and offers no benefits. Some of these services don’t even try to sell, they simply bill you, hoping your accounting department will mistakenly make a payment.

While searching for review networks online to add your business, you might stumble upon these deceptive networks as well. Many people, in search of new links for SEO purposes, make this mistake. By adding your business and website to these fake directories, you invite annoying calls, spam emails, and fake invoices. Always research networks and directories before submitting your business information.

Be aware of the widespread Yellow Pages scams. The term “Yellow Pages” is not trademarked, and scammers exploit it. They create fake sites that resemble Yellow Pages, using domain names that are difficult to distinguish from the real one, such as “Online” Yellow Pages, “America” Yellow Pages, “The Real” Yellow Pages… dot com. These scam artists call, email, and send invoices, pretending to be the Yellow Pages you remember from childhood, in an attempt to collect money for fraudulent listings.

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Why Companies Fail To Manage and Respond to Their Online Reviews

Managing and responding to online reviews brings challenges for many companies, with a majority neglecting this critical aspect, data shows that over 64% businesses fail to engage at all, with an additional 24% do it not regularly. It’s common to see companies initially proactive in managing reviews, only to abruptly stop their efforts. Also, happened, delayed responses to negative reviews, often too late to salvage and improve customer relations. Moreover, reviews that clearly violate community guidelines can stay for years with no one reporting them to take down.

Don’t forget that many businesses with multiple locations fail to respond to each location individually. Often leaving review management to location employees, managers, or franchise operators who might not follow up properly due to a lack of knowledge and understanding of how reviews work. It happens a lot when one location has an outstanding 5 star rating across different platforms while another location has disastrous reviews and ratings. It is important for marketing departments and corporate headquarters to take this process “in-house” and centralize the review response, it is always better to give it to professionals.

Read Our Research on How Companies Manage and Respond to Online Reviews:

How Many Companies Respond to Online Reviews. Research by RetainTrust, Data and Statistics on How Companies Manage Reviews

To understand how businesses manage their online profiles and respond to customer reviews, RetainTrust conducted a study on 250 companies. The research determined how many businesses reply to reviews regularly, how many do so sporadically, and how many neglect to respond or even claim their online profiles. You can read full report here.

Example of How the Same Bank, with the Same Employees Serving the Same Customers, Had Ratings on Google Ranging from Less than 2 Stars for Some Branches to a Perfect 5 Stars for Others

For example, a bank we worked with, had multiple branches. Not only were some branches unclaimed on Google Maps, there was also a significant disparity in ratings between branches. Some branches had active managers and nearly perfect ratings close to 5 stars, while others had nothing but 1-2 star complaints, with the average ratings below 2 stars. This discrepancy occurred within the same local bank providing the same services, some branches were just mile from each other serving the same customers by the same employees who worked their shifts at different branches when needed.

When we asked the management about this, they understood the issue but mentioned that there was ongoing conflict about who should manage the reviews. The marketing leadership had changed three times in four years, and while some branches wanted to manage their own reviews, they lacked the resources, motivation, and proper training to do so. Also, the customer service department tried to take ownership several times but failed each time due to a lack of skills and simple understanding of how Google works.

This example highlights why some companies may need to hire a professional firm to manage their reviews. Proper review management requires consistent effort, training, and expertise that many internal teams may not have.

Example of Review That Contain Inappropriate Language But Was Never Reported:

Here’s an example of how poor review management can impact company’s online ratings, specifically on Glassdoor. A negative review that has obvious inappropriate language, remained live for nearly 9 years because it was never flagged or reported by the business.

Role of Online Reviews in Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engines like Google and Bing prioritize businesses and websites with high ratings and frequent reviews, as positive feedback and strong presence in review networks shows credibility. This can improve search engine rankings (SERP’s), making it easier for potential customers and clients to find your business. Additionally, review networks often link your site back from business page, and reviews contain keywords and content relevant to your business.

When potential customers see your business listed with high ratings and positive reviews in search results, they are more likely to click on your link. Google for example, shows star ratings and review count in the snippets and previews in results. Higher click-through rates (CTR), driven by positive reviews, can improve your search engine rankings and increase traffic to your site, engagements, conversions, and sales.

Importance of Online Reviews on AI Platforms and Digital Assistants

Beyond review network’s impact on search engine visibility, online reviews now play an important role in AI assistants including services like ChatGPT, Google AI Overview, or Bing CoPilot. These AI platforms actively scan review networks, extracting information from pages, reviews, ratings, and other results to feature in their responses when people search for information and ask questions.

As a result, positive reviews and well managed business profiles on review sites, business directories, and local networks is crucial. A strong profile increases the likelihood of appearing in search engine results and AI-generated responses as well. AI platforms often highlight content such as business descriptions and customer reviews in their answers to specific queries. Additionally, some AI platforms provide direct links to business profiles, directing traffic to review networks instead of the business’s website. This shows the importance of having strong and appealing profiles across various online platforms to maximize visibility and attract potential customers through AI platforms.

Best Practices for Encouraging Positive Reviews and Improving Online Reputation

Getting positive reviews from customers and clients can significantly improve your business reputation and attract new loyal customers. By providing great exceptional customer service, making sure that your team is well prepared to deliver best experience, and making it simple for customers to leave the the review, you can effectively get more positive feedback. Personalizing follow up requests adds a personal touch that can increase chances getting good feedback online. You can also boost team’s morale internally when you share the feedback around.

1. Simplify the Review Process. Make it easy for customers to leave reviews by giving clear instructions and multiple platforms for feedback. Add links to review sites in follow-up emails, widgets from review sites on your pages, and in your social media profiles.
2. Personalize Follow-Up Requests. Personalizing follow up requests for reviews can make customers feel valued and appreciated.
3. Reward Your Loyal Customers. Give discounts, additional service, and other perks to those who admire and praise your business the most. Often you don’t need to ask them, they leave positive reviews on the networks they find.
4. Highlight Positive Reviews Internally. Share positive reviews with your employees and customers. Recognizing and celebrating positive feedback can motivate other customers to leave good reviews and boost employees morale to continue providing great service.
5. Encourage Reviews at the Right Time. Timing is crucial when requesting reviews. Reach out to happy customers right after their purchase or interaction with your business, while their positive experience is still on their minds. Similar to car dealerships or hotels when they ask you to leave a review right after transaction or check out process.
6. Provide Great Customer Service. When going above and beyond to meet customer needs, it can lead to glowing reviews and loyal customers.

Remember, according to research, unhappy customers are 7 times more likely to leave negative review than happy customers leaving positive feedback. That’s why it is important to facilitate good feedback from loyal satisfied customers.

Example of the “Negative” Review from the Loyal Customer:

Example how great service can lead to positivity and even reviews that written in a funny way.

Common Mistakes in Review Management

Here some tips how to avoid common mistakes in review management:

• Ignoring Reviews. But not responding, you ignore customer concerns and feedback. It shows future customers indifference from the management and inability to improve if something goes wrong.
• Inconsistent Response. When you don’t reply on a regular basis, it can show potential customers lack of customer support and willingness to improve.
• Defensive or Aggressive Responses. These can escalate the situation and backfire damaging your online reputation.

Effective review management is critical for maintaining a positive web reputation. By avoiding common mistakes such as ignoring reviews, responding inconsistently, and reacting defensively or even aggressively, businesses can demonstrate their commitment to customer satisfaction and continuous improvement. A proactive approach to handling reviews not only addresses customer concerns but also builds trust and loyalty among future customers and prospects.

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Why Hiring RetainTrust for Professional Review Management Makes Sense

We discussed how to claim and manage your business profiles and online reviews. However, for many businesses, maintaining consistency, following up on every review, and keeping up with all the networks can be challenging. That’s where we come to help.

Our professional reputation and review management services offer the tools and experience needed to take full ownership of your business profiles. We can advise you on whether to sponsor your profile, manage reviews effectively, and even leverage review networks to generate leads. In addition to managing your reviews and reputation, our goal is to turn these networks into valuable marketing channels for acquiring new business.

Just as you would hire professionals to build and manage your website, hiring RetainTrust to manage your online reviews and business profiles ensures your online presence remains up to date, reviews are responded to, and any negative or fake content is addressed appropriately. Plus, for simple review removals, you only pay when the removal is successfully confirmed. So, feel free to write us a message.