Effective search engine optimisation doesn’t have to be expensive
The amount of money you spend on optimising your website for the search engines can seriously add up over time, however effective search engine optimisation doesn’t always have to be expensive.
One of the least used and most effective strategies to increase rankings in the search engine results pages (SERPs) are online reviews and testimonials. Who knew? So all of those reviews and testimonials that are just sitting around collecting dust in your office drawer can actually help you to rank better in the SERPs!
Something for nothing is my idea of effective search engine optimisation, but why are testimonials so great for your business and why should you focus on online reviews, as well as offline reviews?
Customers value other people’s opinions and reviews
When buyers are in the market to buy something new, they pay great attention to other customer’s opinions. If customers have found problems with a particular product, then this can effect their own buying decision.
You have most probably heard of Amazon and even bought some products from there yourself. Well, Amazon makes a big deal about including customer reviews for every single item sold on their website. They even verify that a reviewer has bought the item and make sure that you know whether they are a verified purchaser or not.
Amazon knows that buyers put a lot of emphasis on what other people think of their products and they know that good reviews help sell products. This is why you need to ask your customers for testimonials, as well as honest reviews of your products or services.
Even if you have a negative review, they are still effective search engine optimisation tools – for two reasons. One is that you will undoubtedly respond to a negative review and the way in which you do that gives buyers more information about you. For example, if you offer to refund their money, replace the item for free or offer a very workable solution to their problem, your reputation increases and customers begin to have more faith in your business.
Second, the customer may have already found a solution to the problem and is letting other buyers know how to get around the issue. Building up a loyal customer base is a lot easier when you have customer reviews and testimonials on your website. However, for effective search engine optimisation, you need both online reviews and written testimonials.
Why are online reviews a more effective search engine optimisation option?
Reviews and testimonials written online by the customer’s themselves are a very effective search engine optimisation technique. These are even better than the testimonials your customers have written and emailed to you, which you have added to your webpages yourself.
This is because customers usually write reviews from their social media accounts and Google LOVES social media interactions. Not only that, but every review written online is essentially a backlink and if that person is active on social media, then their comments can become a strong backlink to your website.
Hard copy testimonials are also great for helping you to rank, so don’t put them in bin them just yet. You can use them in the sidebar, in the footer and in banners to make these testimonials stand out to visitors. Better yet, ask customers to make video testimonials, upload them to your YouTube channel and link to them from your website for awesome search engine optimisation.
If you provide a good service to your customers, it isn’t difficult to start the ball rolling with online and offline testimonials, giving you lots of options to increase your rankings in the SERPS. So if you are looking for cheap and effective search engine optimisation techniques, you can’t beat customer reviews and testimonials, whether these are online or offline.