Once you’re listed in Googles Local Search results you’ll need to start working on improving your position. Your position in local search will be determined in large part by your “feedback”.

Vermont Pub and Brewery Review

Feedback is a method that Google uses to “rank” local businesses. You’ve probably noticed, at some point, that many of the business listings on Google Maps have a ranking of 1-5 stars. You’ll also notice that most business are as yet unranked.

Feedback basically means user reviews. Local search is a “socially driven” tool. The more reviews and feedback users provide, the more likely Google will be to promote your listings.

In other words, the key to getting a good LOCAL listing, is to get people to provide feedback on your site.

Getting Reviews

Improving your position in Local Search is partially driven by reviews of your business. Just click on any local search result and one of the first links in the listing simply says “write a review”. Only registered users can offer feedback, so the user will need to login to a Gmail account. They then have the ability to rank your business and/or write a comment.

Start by asking your customers to review you. Of course, while asking helps – motivating and incentivizing can work better. Reward positive reviews with a coupon, savings or free promotion.

You may even want to write the review for them and email it to them so they can just copy and paste it into the form field. The easier you make it to do, and the more incentive you offer, the more people will participate. Even a slight effort will significantly accelerate the entire process.

“What’s stopping my competitors from trashing me in a review? or even a bunch of reviews?”

A poor review at an undisclosed location.

The answer is “absolutely nothing”. Welcome to the wonderful world of Social Marketing. Here is the up-side; negative feedback is still feedback and all feedback is beneficial to your position. You may lose a star or two to a competitors shenanigans, but you actually gain search position.

Have a story about your own experience with Google Local Search? Send a comment and we may use it in a future blog post.

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