Google Review Cards: Up To 40% More Reviews With This Simple Solution

At Bloomerang Solutions, we’ve always maintained that customer feedback, especially Google reviews, is the pulse of any successful business. Your Google Business Profile, studded with positive, authentic reviews, can significantly enhance your business's online visibility and credibility. But are you capturing these crucial reviews effectively?

Why Ask for Reviews In-the-Moment?

One question that often arises is - "When should we ask our customers for a review?" The answer is: while your service is fresh in their minds. The best time to ask for a review is immediately following a positive experience when the customer is most likely to share their glowing thoughts about your business.

You may think that customers will surely leave a review later if they were pleased with your service. However, as we all know, life gets in the way. Even the most satisfied customers may forget to leave a review amidst their busy schedules.

The Statistical Backing

Don't just take our word for it. A 2020 BrightLocal survey found that only around 20% of consumers proactively leave a review on their own. But, when asked, the percentage of consumers willing to share their positive experiences soars to a whopping 70%! That's a significant opportunity to increase the number of positive reviews that your business could be missing out on.

The 'Ask' in Action

Now that we've established the importance of asking for reviews in-the-moment, let's dive into how you can incorporate this practice into your customer interactions.

• Train your staff: Make sure all your employees understand the importance of reviews and are comfortable asking customers for feedback. Reinforce that it's not an imposition but a simple request that can help your business grow.

• Make it easy: Consider using QR codes, short URLs, or direct links to your Google review page. The easier it is for the customer, the more likely they are to leave a review.

• Don't shy away from reminders: If you have customer contact information and their consent, sending a gentle reminder about leaving a review can be helpful.

Leveraging NFC Technology with Google Review Cards

In the present era of digital commerce, establishing a strong online presence is not just a luxury—it's a necessity. One crucial aspect of this is generating positive online reviews, specifically on Google. To achieve this, innovative tools like Google review NFC (Near Field Communication) embedded business cards come into play.

What are Google Review NFC Business Cards?

Google Review NFC Business Cards are a blend of the traditional and digital, providing a convenient avenue for customers to leave reviews. These cards contain an NFC chip that, when tapped by a smartphone, leads directly to your business's Google review page.

This convenience, facilitated by the technology, removes any hurdles that might prevent customers from leaving a review. They don’t need to search for your business's review page or navigate the review posting process. Instead, they can simply tap their smartphone to the card and post their review in seconds.

Benefits of Google Review NFC Business Cards

In addition to the convenience and ease of use for both employees and customers, the advantages of these cards are multi-faceted:

• Boost in Google Reviews: Simplifying the process of leaving a review encourages customers to share their experiences, leading to an increase in your Google reviews.

• Enhanced Trust & Rankings: More positive reviews build trust with potential customers and enhance your rankings in Google search results, expanding your business's visibility.

• Professional Image: By using these cards, you project your business as tech-forward, customer-oriented, and open to feedback, leaving a lasting impression.

• Versatile Application: The cards can be handed out by any member of your team, be it service staff, managers, or even at self-serve stations, maximizing the chances of receiving instant feedback.

Real-World Examples

A popular local restaurant can have servers present a Google Review NFC Business Card along with the bill, inviting customers to share their dining experience. A boutique store could hand out a card with every purchase, or a home services company could leave a card upon job completion. These cards are suitable across industries, making them an indispensable tool for all small businesses.

Bloomerang Solutions Can Help

At Bloomerang Solutions, we specialize in helping businesses boost their online presence, and we can assist you in incorporating Google Review NFC Business Cards into your strategy. We understand the power of Google reviews and can guide you on utilizing this innovative tool for your unique needs.

Don't let the opportunity to effortlessly increase your Google reviews pass you by. Reach out to Bloomerang Solutions today to get started with your own Google Review NFC Business Cards. For more information, please call or email us here. Together, let's build an online reputation that mirrors your commitment to outstanding service and customer satisfaction!

How to Get Good Backlinks (6 Simple Strategies)

One of the key ingredients to good SEO is having high-quality backlinks to your website. Backlinks are also known as “inbound links” because they are links on someone else’s website that directs traffic to your site. Generally, the more sites that backlink to yours, the more traffic you will receive and that means a higher site ranking from Google.

However, it is very important to remember that Google rewards quality much higher than it does quality. This means where the links are coming from are much more important than the number of backlinks connecting to your site. Backlinks from websites with a higher score than yours will help improve your score. Conversely, backlinks from sites with a lower rank than yours can hurt your score.

Backlinks play an extremely important role in boosting your search engine rankings because they are among the highest-ranking factors according to Google. This means that acquiring high quality backlinks to your site will strengthen your chances for a higher ranking. Here are a few simple strategies you can use to get high-quality websites to backlink to your site.

1. Find Backlink Opportunities on Your Own Website

The first step to improving your backlinks is take a look at your own website. Do you feature products from any vendors that may be willing to link back to your site? As long as you’re a good customer (and they have a strong website) then it never hurts to ask. Reciprocal linking is important to anyone paying attention to their SEO, so it isn’t an unusual or inappropriate request.

2. Check Your Analytics to Analyze Your Referral Sources

Next you can take a more in-depth look by checking your numbers on Bloometrix. The “top referral sources” will show you who is linking to your content and offering a backlink. Discovering the type of websites linking back to your site and the kind of content they desire may help you identify new opportunities to create similar content for more backlinks.

3. See What Your Competitors Are Up To

The best way to stay up to date on what is happening in the industry is to know what the others are doing. What type of content are they publishing and what are they doing to draw visitors to their site? Consider it “ethically spying” on your competitors in order to find their sources for backlinks and top-performing content, along with organic keywords and even what they’re doing on social media.

4. Pay Attention and Discover Opportunities

Your competitors’ backlink sources may provide you with some clever opportunities to earn a backlink for your site as well. For example, if they have a backlink from a forum or message board, you can create your own profile to earn a backlink. Signing up for their email newsletters and setting up Google Alerts will immediately notify you whenever they publish content or appear on another site.

5. Create High-Quality Content

One of the best ways to get backlinks is by creating unique, high-quality content that other bloggers, social media influencers, and industry experts find interesting or relevant enough to use and link back to your website. There are many different types of content you can produce including blogs, images for social media posts, and YouTube videos. In most cases you can do all that with your phone.

6. Get Involved and Participate Online

Writing testimonials on other websites and participating in online forums are also excellent ways to earn backlink to your site. Find websites relevant to your industry what have a high domain authority (DA) and submit a testimonial in exchange for a backlink. Actively participating in different forums will help you become an industry expert and will help drive traffic to your website.

These are just a few different things that everyone can do to improve search engine rankings by earning high-quality backlinks and increase the number of inbound links. If you would like to learn more about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or how to view your analytics through the Bloometrix dashboard, Bloomerang Solutions is here to help. Drop us a line here or call us anytime at (913) 806-1911. Subscribe to our YouTube channel and like us on Facebook for marketing ideas, customer service tips, employee training videos and more!

How to Use Google My Business to Engage your Customers

Keep your customers up-to-date on what’s happening at your shop

As florists we know it’s almost impossible to keep up with all of the marketing opportunities available. Constant changes and new ways of using digital marketing channels that have been around for a while is enough to wear anyone out.

We wanted to take an opportunity to highlight an important feature Google has available that does not get enough visibility. The feature is called Google My Business (GMB). Even though it has been around for awhile, its power of is often overlooked.

Google My Business (GMB)

This is one of the Google features that gets very little recognition as a powerful tool to gain visibility for your shop’s “3 Pack” on Google’s search engine results (SERP) page. Think of GMB as the “account” that you can control and through that account you can manage information that will show up in the Google 3 pack.

Do you target local consumers?

Based on what people are searching today, if your business does business locally, appearing in Google’s 3 pack and keeping your company’s information current is crucial.

The 3 pack is a widget on Google’s SERP that highlights businesses that offer products and/or services that match up with the search phrase that someone typed into Google’s search box. It’s called a 3 pack because the widget displays what Google considers to be the top 3 most relevant websites. Users can click a link to show more businesses, but most users won’t click the link to see the rest of the businesses listed.

Page 1 on Google search results

The other very big benefit to the 3-Pack is that it is displayed on the first page of the SERP. The first page of the SERP is critical for visibility. Google’s 3-pack is on the first page of Google’s SERP. So by showing up in the 3-pack you are on the first page of Google for the search phrase that the user is using to find what you do or what you sell.

Why Local Search Matters

Google reports that around 46% of all US searches are “local” which means people are using the phrases “near me” or “where to buy.” So, what are the features of GMB in today’s context?

Are you open?

The first feature that you must keep current in your GMB account is your company’s current availability. What days of the week are you open? What time of the day are you open. These are the first things that your customers are checking before they leave the house. With all of the upheaval they want to know if you’re going to be open of if you’ve altered your hours of operation.

Is the information listed current?

Another feature of Google My Business is the ability to post to your account. You may be doing a very good job of keeping your information up-to-date, but your customers doesn’t know if you’ve updated it recently. In fact, because so many businesses don’t keep their listing information current, it would be helpful if you posted to your GMB the last time that you updated your hours of operation. This will build confidence in your customers that the information that they are looking for is current.

Start asking questions

With Google My Business, your customers can ask a question right from your 3-pack listing. How much more simpler can it be! You can setup your GMB to allow for questions and when it’s setup properly you can get an alert on your smartphone as soon as someone submits their question. At that point you can promptly reply with an answer to their question, making you a customer service superstar!

Set up appointments

Many businesses are moving to an appointment system. If an appointment system is right for your business, you can setup your GMB to give your customers the ability to schedule an appointment with your company.

Let them know you are safe

Many people want to know what you are doing at your place of business to keep them safe. Use the posting feature of GMB to keep them up-to-date on your policies and activities that will give them the peace-of-mind to do business with you.

Do you need help with your online marketing campaigns? Bloomerang Solutions can help! From Google My Business to websites and social media, we're here to make you look you best. Give us a call today at (941) 806-1911 or drop us a line here to find out what we can do to make your business bloom!

Bloomerang's Guide to Geotagging

Climbing to the top of the first page on a search engine such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing, is a tough task for any business. But there are some things you can do to improve your rank and give you and advantage over your competitors.

One simple thing you can do right now will dramatically improve your chances of ranking better in local search results is making sure all the images on your website are geotagged and have all their important metadata information included.

Above is the metadata field for the image on the left. Geotags and other image metadata can be found by right clicking on an image and selecting Properties from the list. The Details tab (as shown above) allows you to view the metadata and edit it manually in the Value column.

What are Geotags?

Geotags are important metadata that show the exact coordinates where the image or video was taken. The visitors to your website will not see this information, but search engines do when they’re crawling the web and analyzing your site. Search engines all use their own proprietary algorithms to assign rankings to websites based on a number of different criteria. Their goal is to give their users the best and most accurate results for each search, so they all place a heavy emphasis on accuracy and repetition.

How do I Geotag images and videos?

If you took a picture with a GPS-enabled device like a smartphone or digital camera, the image will be geotagged by default and will automatically embed GPS coordinates along with the name of the location if available. If you turned that setting off or have an older image, the information may still be stored among the Exchangeable Image File Format (EFIX) data. You can also add data manually or edit data that may be inaccurate or need updating.

Why are Geotags so important?

Geotags are not new, they have been around for more than a decade and most people never noticed. The importance of geotags, however, has evolved from a novelty into a necessity as more and more consumers search for local results on mobile devices. The location information of a photo that matches the physical location of your shop will help increase confidence from the search engines that your site will enhance the results it produces.

Metadata is the core of what search engines use in their algorithms to determine ranking and results. Since most people do not pay very close attention to the metadata of the images on their site, a little bit of work will go a long way towards giving you a substantial advantage over the competitors in local search results.

Another big advantage you gain by making sure your images are properly geotagged is improving the likelihood of them ranking higher when people search by image. This is especially true for local searches. If someone is searching for flower delivery, geotagged images in closer proximity will generally rank higher since they provide more relevant results to the consumer.

What else can I do to improve my ranking?

Geotagging the images and videos on your website is one important aspect of search engine optimization, but there are a few other things you can customize that will help improve your ranking.

• Change the Image Title (file name) – Since repetition and consistency are important to search engines, it is important to make sure all your image titles also include the name and location of your business because each instance, or citation, improves your ranking.

• Use the Image Alt-Text field to briefly describe the image – This field is often overlooked but provides a valuable source of information to search engines. It also serves a purpose on your website by providing descriptive text when you hover over the image.

• Add a Caption to provide even more detail – Captions are small block of text located under, or next to the image that describe the image to the visitor of your site. Search engines also use this field to learn more about the relevance of the image regardless of whether the caption is visible on your site or not.

To learn more about Geotagging and other aspects of SEO that will give you a substantial advantage in your search engine ranking, give Bloomerang Solutions a call today at (941) 806-1911. Our team of SEO specialists is ready to help you identify deficiencies that may be preventing you from ranking higher and make them work to your advantage instead.