Stop! Before you buy Google advertising...

We are sometimes surprised that a service business - and here we are mainly talking about the professions: law, finance, medical and education - will spend valuable resources on a Google Ads campaign whilst ignoring the customer journey. Let's take just one example...

We had to use a 'real' business to illustrate this article. We didn't select this one - it was simply returned in a Google local search. It should also be noted that the business in question is representative of its sector: independent schools have increased spend on Google Ads considerably since the recent government action

The customer journey goes - in over 70 per cent of cases - as follows...

• research potential businesses - in this case independent schools - in person and online (even 'in person' research - personal recommendation - almost always results in a web search, even if only to find contact details or precise location)

• See Google score - and react (one of two ways: be impressed and continue that specific search or be dismayed and search elsewhere)

• Read Google reviews - why would they not? 

Let us be quite clear: the business above is paying Google to display it, plus a scrape of the information held on its Google Knowledge Panel ('Sponsored' above a Google listing means 'this business is paying to appear in this search')...

Now, we know, for certain, the following...

• Any Google score under 4.8 deflects enquiries, calls and click-throughs

• Negative reviews, such as this...

...especially if not responded to by the business (as is the case here) will deflect considerable numbers of enquiries

• For each 'thumbs up' (18 here) the review will have been read by +-100 people, maybe far more

What should this, and any other business in this position, do?

Put its review management on a professional footing. Take professional advice* and develop a simple strategy to...

1. Invite stakeholders to write reviews - to its own website and then to Google
2. Have those reviews moderated by an independent entity - HelpHound is one such - to ensure they are fair, factually correct and unlikely to mislead the reader (the potential customer/client/patient/parent)
3. Aim for a Google score of 4.8+
4. Aim, initially, for 100+ Google reviews, and then a thousand
5. Respond to its reviews

And finally: set as short as possible a time frame for achieving all of the above (months, not years).

Results

Reviews on a business's website enable a) potential customers to see moderated reviews written by genuine customers of the business and b) the business to comply with the CMA regulations (a.k.a the law)

This business began its relationship with HelpHound with two reviews on Google and none on its own website...

And it now leads in all relevant Google searches. Imagine the impact this has had on their business (for a start, it has helped them to expand and take over another agency)? No potential customer is going to be put off contacting a business, of whatever kind, that looks like this. Many will be positively encouraged to do just that, even if it was not originally on their short-list.

Further reading

• Moderation: the key safety mechanism that protects both businesses and their potential customers from inaccurate, misleading or plain unfair reviews

• *Taking professional advice: here are our fees - we hope you will be pleasantly surprised to see that they fall when your objectives have been achieved