Can a NON-brick and mortar use Google Reviews? And how?

[Heather S.]

I work for a company called Outshinery. We do work for wineries, breweries & distilleries all over the world.
The company was started by a woman in Canada so that’s our mailing address however, our team is 100% remote and we are spread out across 5-6 countries at any given time.
We don’t have a physical location but we are not an online store either. I would say we are a service provider. We do work with and speak to our clients via email and phone and we deliver to them digital assets.

We rely mostly on partners in the industry and word of mouth but our google reviews are very important as you can imagine.

It used to be that when you searched for “Outshinery” we would come up. Suddenly this fall it no longer worked. We finally figured out that we now have to search for “Outshinery Vancouver” to find us. That's not good since most people have no idea where we are located, nor do they care.

What should a business like ours do?

Thank you!

 

[Phil Rozek]

@Heather S. , if you have a Google My Business page for your business, you can have Google reviews. Technically, that's all you need for customers to review you on Google..

Now, the question is whether your business is eligible to have a Google My Business page in the first place. Based on your description, I would say it isn't eligible. Now, just between you, me, and the lamppost, you could probably set up and verify a GMB page, and probably wouldn't run into any problems. I imagine you don't want anything to happen to your Google reviews if your page ever got pulled, so I can't suggest that.

You say "[your] Google reviews are very important." Do you already have a GMB page with Google reviews?

 

[Heather S.]

Hello Phil,
thank you for your reply.
yes, we do already have a page. And for 21/2 years if you searched for "Outshinery" it would show up just fine. We noticed about August I think that it was no longer coming up and we finally figured out that it was probably because we weren't in Vancouver as it showed up fine for our boss but none of the rest of us.

outshinery vancouver - Google Search

I understand what you're saying.

So... if I am a winery, and I google wine bottle photographer and Outshinery comes up how would/could we show reviews? I mean, google is THE place to search for anything. And so logically, a person will also want to see reviews for that business no matter if they have a physical location or not. Right? So, how do we do that if Google is only showing local?
We don't want to just list the reviews on our website as then it's not unbiased.

 

[Garrett Sussman]

Hey Heather,

We noticed that as well and it's something that Google needs to continue to improve upon for non-brick and mortar/non service area business, businesses!

This is the case for most software companies as well. A Brand Knowledge Panel would be a solution, but you can't display your Google Reviews on it:

Currently, your best bet is to do what you're doing. If you're doing any advertising, those reviews still matter for potential sellers ratings to have it show up as stars in your ads.

Alternatively, you can link to that search result on your about page, or focus on obtaining reviews on other sites like FB or industry specific sites. It's not ideal, but for some reason, Google hasn't come up with a solution yet.

 

[Phil Rozek]

@Heather S. , what @Garrett Sussman said.

Google doesn't have a non-Maps kind of review customers can write for "non-local" businesses. Perhaps Google should, and maybe Google one day will.

 

[Heather S.]

Thanks @Garrett Sussman and @Phil Rozek for your thoughts. It's much appreciated. Yeah, it's kind of unfortunate that Google limited it to just local. At least software companies have Capterra and such for reviews. We will try out a couple of your suggestions. Cheers!

 

[Garrett Sussman]

Hey Heather,

When it comes to review sites, you can still focus on Facebook recommendations, Yelp, and industry specific sites. With a brief search I found a few different sites that potentially are worth contacting for either advertising opportunities or partnership/affiliate opps:

wine reviews - Google Search

Some that looked interesting for your industry (though you would know better than me) would be:

Vivino.com - Find and buy wine in seconds

Wine Ratings | Wine Spectator

https://www.winemag.com/ratings/

CellarTracker - Wine Reviews & Cellar Management Tools

Not huge sites by any means, but there are a few other directions you could potentially go. Hope that's helpful!

 

[Heather S.]

Thanks @Garrett Sussman! Yes, we are defn. looking into those and some we actually have partnerships with. Our biggest and best so far is WinDirect. The ones you mentioned are mostly targeted to the consumer more than B2B but that's ok. If you're in the industry, you read/view them at some point. Traditionally, the wine industry has been slow to adopt tech.
These will be good for advertising possibilities but not as great for reviewing a business. They are more for the consumer to review or look at reviews of individual wines.

Here's what we're battling... when you want to find a review on something where do you go? Amazon or Google most likely.

We are finding that our target market isn't on Facebook as much. And defn. not for reviews. Yelp maybe, but I'm not convinced. I personally never use yelp. I find most of the reviews whiny & annoying. I know that just because I don't use it though that doesn't make it not worthwhile.

Our target is primarily either the owner, winemaker or marketing dept. of wineries, breweries, distilleries. They tend to be 35+ at the moment.

I am sure we will just continue to do it the way we are. Sometimes I am able to link directly to that page but sometimes it's too many characters and it won't let me. (At least that's what I think the issue is.) We just figured we can't be the only business having this issue and wondered how others were dealing with it.

 

[JohnS]

Heather,

I do business all over the USA, nothing locally. My team is also Internet based. I used my physical address for my GMB listing even though no one visits me here. I then get Google Reviews through GatherUp that show up on my GMB page and in my website.