Review Badges-Experience?

[RobinOctane]

Anyone have experience with Review Badges, was going to try one on our one of our sites, (the Bright Local white labelled one).

Curious as to thoughts on these etc.

 

[Phil Rozek]

It's a good tool. I have a little experience with it, but not a ton. One guy I know as incorporated it into his reviews process:

http://www.themandisteam.com

He uses other means to get reviews, too (he's a beast), but the buttons are in the mix.

The big question with "review buttons" in general is: how many current/returning customers actually return to your site? If the only people who can/should review you have no occasion to return to your site post-transaction, then review buttons will only help you so much.

 

[Ashwin]

The badges are nice. But, like Phil said, not sure how many users really come to your website and leave a review because of the badges. Moreover, how is the badge any different from just linking out to your Yelp, Google+ or doing an image hotlink?

 

[Greg Schueler]

I don't use the BrightLocal Review badge except on one client that has limited access to their corporate site to make edits, so it was easy to have them embed it.

What I typically do is create a "Review" or "Testimonial" page on a client's website. I then put 2-5 semi-custom icons (badges) of G+, Yelp and whatever other directory I want to list with a note to encourage people to go leave a review for us at their favorite site/directory. Or to read previous reviews from our clients on those sites.

The page also captures and shows reviews obtained directly on the site (with a WP plugin). You can also use screenshots of reviews or place video testimonials if you have them on the page.

This page serves 2 purposes, one to show testimonials and help a potential client make a decision to do business with you, and two to help gather new reviews.

True, not a lot of traffic will go there to leave reviews if you don't direct people there, but that is where us marketers come in. Use you skills to direct people to that page, it is easier than trying to send people directly to a long G+ url or Yelp url, and this one page has all the needed links.

Even the lazy business owners (not that they exist ;-) ) can tell customers to "Go to our site and leave us a review, just click the "Review" tab at the top".

 

[Ashwin]

If anyone is curious to know how many "lazy business owners" use the BrightLocal review badge on their website, it is somewhere close to 3,110

 

[Jon Hall]

I'm late to the party, but just wanted to offer $0.02 more:

I had been doing something like Greg describes for years with medical practices as part of their website build-outs--it's a great approach and can be very effective.

In the course of trying to create a "review funnel" product, I've become kind of obsessed with conversions, i.e. converting customers into reviewers. And I've come to believe that the best approach for maximizing review conversions is to create a standalone landing page with no other calls to action besides reviewing the business or, alternatively, a similarly focused instrument like Phil's review handouts.

Why? A customer's motivation to write a review can be so fragile and fleeting that even sending them back to the business website can distract them with whatever special offers, new blog post or feature is being promoted there.

Of course, on-site badges don't hurt and provide another--probably small--net by which to catch reviews, which is why we offer our review funnel product as an embeddable widget, too. But I always encourage our clients not to rely on their website to drive review conversions. Review-getting is a process that should be as hyper-focused as you can make it.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Why? A customer's motivation to write a review can be so fragile and fleeting that even sending them back to the business website can distract them with whatever special offers, new blog post or feature is being promoted there.

Review-getting is a process that should be as hyper-focused as you can make it.

Just had to highlight that part. Truer words were never spoken!
"motivation to write a review can be so fragile and fleeting"

I may steal that line from time to time! In fact I'm off to tweet it now!

 

[Jon Hall]

Thanks, Linda! Steal and tweet away

I may steal that line from time to time! In fact I'm off to tweet it now!