If you talk to three different local SEO professionals about how to succeed in local search as a multi-location business, you’re probably going to walk away with three slightly different opinions about what exactly a winning local SEO strategy looks like. However, there’s one thing that they would probably all emphatically agree on: the importance of Google review reputation management.
In local SEO, implementing reputation management practices for your business’s Google reviews — those left by customers on your Google Business Profiles — is one of the most impactful ways to increase your rankings in local search results, foster positive perceptions of your business, and mitigate risks associated with negative reviews.
Why Does Google Review Reputation Management Matter for Multi-Location Brands?
Multi-location brands face more challenges than any other type of business when it comes to succeeding in local search.
From tracking local rankings and performing competitor analysis in numerous local markets, to consistently optimizing Google Business Profile and other online assets in order to maintain and improve performance for all locations, multi-location brands certainly have their work cut out for them when it comes to local SEO.
Plus, when you’re operating in so many unique geographic markets, there are far more variables that go into determining overall local search performance for your brand, making it all the more challenging to maintain consistent rankings across business locations.
One of the most important factors that affects local rankings for every one of your business locations is that location’s Google reviews, which is why Google review reputation management is such an important part of any successful multi-location local SEO strategy.
While you can’t control what every customer says about each of your business’s locations, you can manage your Google reviews in such a way as to build a stronger online reputation for every location, which directly influences both your rankings and potential customers’ purchase decisions.
Effectively Managing Google Review Reputation for Multi-Location Businesses
So, how exactly do you manage your online reputation through your Google reviews? The process can be broken down into a few essential parts:
- Collecting Google Reviews
- Monitoring and Analyzing Google Reviews
- Responding To Google Reviews
- Optimizing Your Business Based on Feedback
If You’re Not Doing Review Analysis for Local SEO, You’re Doing It Wrong
Collecting Google Reviews
To build a strong reputation on Google, multi-location businesses must start by implementing consistent strategies across all their locations to encourage customers to leave positive reviews.
Establishing clear review gathering policies from the top down is key — train local employees to request reviews from satisfied customers during their interactions, either in person, through follow-up emails, or by providing in-store QR codes that direct customers to the location’s Google review page.
By actively seeking reviews from happy customers at every location, multi-location businesses can improve their average ratings, increase their volume of reviews, and create a more positive first impression for potential customers who check out their Google Business Profiles.
Monitoring Google Reviews
Constantly monitoring your Google reviews ensures that no opportunities to improve reputation slip through the cracks, particularly for multi-location businesses that must keep track of numerous profiles across various geographic areas.
It’s important to routinely check for feedback, especially negative reviews, to address issues promptly. Negative reviews have the potential to significantly harm your local reputation and rankings, so they shouldn’t be ignored.
Monitoring reviews closely allows you to identify trends, spot problems early, and ensure that issues are resolved before they escalate and cause further damage to your reputation and rankings.
Responding To Google Reviews
Responding to Google reviews, whether positive or negative, is a key component of reputation management.
Acknowledging positive reviews reinforces your brand’s appreciation for customers, while addressing negative feedback provides an opportunity to demonstrate your commitment to improving customer satisfaction.
Responding promptly and professionally to negative reviews can sometimes even turn the situation around — customers may be willing to remove or update a negative review after seeing that you care about their experience and are actively working to resolve their issues.
Optimizing Locations Based on Sentiment Analysis
Sentiment analysis, or analyzing how your customers feel about different business locations based on all their Google reviews, can provide invaluable insights into how your business is perceived by customers in specific areas.
By analyzing Google Reviews and examining patterns in feedback, you can identify areas for improvement and learn what any strengths are that may be driving positive sentiment at specific locations. Then, you can optimize performance at underperforming locations to improve overall consistency in reputation and rankings.
For instance, if many reviews praise the customer service at a specific location, you might want to take a look at what that location is doing so well and use insights to optimize the service at a location that is trailing behind in its Google reviews.
Alternatively, if a recurring issue appears throughout multiple reviews, it’s a signal to address that weakness.
Either way, using data from reviews helps you optimize all your business locations, ultimately leading to more positive reviews, which translate directly into better local search performance in each market your business serves.
Conclusion
Google review reputation management is a must-have practice for multi-location businesses striving for consistent local SEO success.
When you effectively manage Google reviews by collecting and monitoring reviews, responding appropriately, and using sentiment analysis to optimize underperforming locations, you can strengthen your brand’s overall reputation, improve local search rankings, and drive more business across markets.
