Solicit Questions
Description
Let me start off by saying fake reviews are bad.
While it may be tempting, do not purchase fake reviews.
It can land you in hot water with Google, so the risk is not worth the reward.
Even more – your customers have brains. They can sniff out a fake review easier than you think.
While soliciting reviews is not at all recommended, I would recommend soliciting questions on your listing.
Why?
During my research, I’ve found that the question and answers section is not used on the majority of listings.
But there was a direct correlation between those listings which had questions and answers – and the ones that had prime visibility.
Bottom line: Having questions and answers on your listing boosts your page’s engagement, which in turn boosts your visibility.
It also helps your customers get their frequently asked questions addressed right when they find you.
Where to Solicit Questions
Here are two main sources for soliciting these questions:
Ask friends and family: Provide them with the question and provide your listing URL for them to ask (you should have your listing URL on hand from the Reviews section).
Use a service: I’ve used a few services to post questions to listings. Some are horrible at following instructions while others have been great.
Important: If you’re going to use services to post to your listing, run a test by having them post to another listing (a random one) to ensure they follow your instructions correctly.
Some services will mindlessly post the question as a review, and we want to stay away from that.
Process
- Make a list of the top 5 frequently asked questions that your business gets from new customers.
- Use a third party to ask the question from their own account.
- Answer their question from your business account, providing the answers you would regularly provide your customers when they ask these questions.
Kick-Start Engagement (Engagement Overdrive)
Description
Google is constantly monitoring which Google Business Profiles are being favored over others.
If their algorithm suddenly sees a lot of people clicking on one listing over the others, they’ll boost the visibility of that listing.
This can happen for many reasons.
Here is one example:
A coffee shop in Cleveland is featured in a news segment about having the best bagels in the country.
This leads to a spike in the number of people searching for that coffee shop on Google.
Since Google Business Profiles are so prominent in search results, most of those people will be clicking on the listing for that coffee shop.
This sends a massive signal to Google that this business is trending.
In order to continue giving people what they want, Google will give this listing more visibility over competing listings.
With this process, we’ll be able to mimic that sort of spike in engagement – without needing to be featured on the news 🙂
Process
The full process is covered in the Engagement Overdrive bonus report.