Customer Reviews

[BobGW]

Is it OK to only get reviews on Google and not on other citation directories?

Should I focus on Google+ or Google Places?

[TakeshiYoung]

Google Places is now Google+ Local, so the two are identical.

I don't know why you would only focus on reviews for G+, you should try to get good reviews on whatever prominent directories your site is featured on, such as Yelp.

[Chris.Menke]

Bob,

Real reviews will happen as a  result of people's interaction your company and they will inevitably put them where they think best. Note that, in order to write a review on a company's Google+ page, the reviewing customer must also have a G+ account - just having a gmail account isn't enough anymore.  Those without a G+ account will have to writer their reviews elsewhere.

Reviews aren't the same as citations. Citations typically refer to your name, address, and phone number and those you really need to get from a wide variety of sources to strengthen your G+ Local business page visibility.  You can started finding out about and populating those sources  at getlisted.org.

Here's a good article by Mike Blumenthal on encouraging customer reviews and for good measure, here's what Google says about making sure your reviews on G+ are useful, honest, and written by real people.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Bob,

I like Chris' answer, and will add to this. The naturalness of an overall review profile is important to think about. Additionally, a big reason I would not recommend getting only Google Places/+ reviews is that this product has been plagued time and again with massive review loss for years. The Google And Your Business Forum is swimming in reports of business owners having lost many or all of their reviews. If this happens and they don't happen to have any reviews any place else, then they are suddenly in a review-less state with absolutely no record of their good service.

So, while Google Places/+ Local is likely to be one of the most important sites to earn reviews on, it is definitely not the only site and a diverse review profile is good insurance against massive review loss. I recommend that businesses let their customers pick their own favorite review sites. You can steer some clients, if you like, but in the end, if a customer only likes to use Angie's List, by all means, thank her for reviewing the company there. Don't ever insist that she only use Google Places/+.