Waukesha SEO gets impact from Google Reviews

We provide SEO and inbound marketing services to clients across the country, but we call Waukesha, WI our home. As such, I like to pay attention to local Waukesha SEO, I like to see who’s topping Google in the local industries and try to understand why they’re there. It provides me with insight and understanding which I can then discuss with my other Waukesha SEO clients in related industries in our constant effort to steer them to best practices and ultimately, top ranking.

I decided to look into the search results on coffee shops in my area. I did a search for “Waukesha coffee shops” (as you can see in the image). While there are many interesting points to be made, I think one of the more interesting results lies at the top of the page and makes a great case for review marketing.

Review marketing or management is important for most local small business – but it’s essential to those who rely on walk-in traffic or on consumers making instant, on-the-spot buying decisions.
It’s not only the Waukesha SEO scene where this matters – anyone who relies on Google to provide them customers who are hungry for a bite to eat, need a haircut, or want to buy ice cream will benefit.

Good Google reviews can mean good SEO

Let’s get to my example to show how important this is. In this screen shot you’ll see a well known coffee shop in Waukesha called “The Steaming Cup”. Most locals have heard of it, and many have probably had their coffee. They’re well known in the Waukesha area and have been around for while.

Now go ahead and take a look at their website http://www.thesteamingcup.com. See anything interesting? Sure there’s some basic information on who they are, a few graphics, their location and hours, phone number and some additional pages visible inside a frame which amounts to poor navigation… anything else? Probably not much else. This website is in general, a good example of a local, small business website.

So why are they number one in Google? They are above Yellow Pages and Yelp.com reviews page, not to mention first spot in the Google Local Carousel on the top of the page. They are active on social media but so is their competition (actually, they don’t even have social share or follow links on their website). Reviewing the source inside the frames on their website reveals nothing special from on-page SEO.

The secret here is their review status, specifically, their Google reviews. As of the time of writing (9/18/2014) The Steaming Cup has at least 6 more reviews than their closest competition (ratios are better as you’re below 50 reviews). Google’s current system recognizes and favors business with reviews over businesses without reviews since these reviews tend to help other consumers make a quicker, more informed buying decision. Businesses which get higher numbers of reviews and more importantly, higher quality reviews, tend to get higher Google rankings. If you’re curious how Google determines what a “quality review” is, they can answer that for you in their “great reviews tips page“.

So what does this mean to you?

What does this mean to you, we’ll it’s obvious – optimize your content and create as many click-throughs to Google Reviews as you can to encourage quality, true customer reviews of your company. You’ll see your local ranks begin to rise and more than likely – your business.

While these Waukesha SEO specifics might not match perfectly with your situation, it does provide a good example for many small businesses across the country and does a great job revealing just how important Google reviews, and reviews in general, are.

How do you do make it work for your business?

Not sure how to direct users to Google Reviews? Here’s a quick ebook we’ve written that provides 5 great methods which successfully move your customers to a Google review and to leave you great feedback.