New Direct Link for Local Business Reviews

I absolutely love this little hack for generating a direct link for customers to review your business on Google.

This is useful for businesses large and small – you should use it now.

Without stepping into the mire of review solicitation, you can encourage customers to click the link and go straight to giving a review. How fantastic is that?

If you’re not working to generate reviews right now, you should be.

Read more in this extract from TWIS SEO News & Updates 1st Dec 2017.

#SEO #SEONews #LocalSEO #GoogleMyBusiness #Reviews

Key Issues Summary:

• Well, it’s always been there, but someone has spotted this lovely little tip for creating a direct link to write a review for your business on Google Maps.
• Essentially, you need to back hack Google Maps a little to generate your PlaceID, and then use that to create the Write a Review URL with your PlaceID in it: https://search.google.com/local/writereview?placeid=
• Nifty, eh?

Key Actions To Take:

1. Go to the Google PlaceID Lookup Tool
2. Search for your business / location.
3. Click your business location and copy the PlaceID shown in the result.
4. Add that to the writereview URL to create your very own “Please Write a Review” URL.
5. Include the URL in emails, social, web, anywhere you want to generate a review from.
6. Obviously, stay inside the Google review solicitation guidelines (no incentives).
7. Click here to contact me to discuss how to generate reviews for your local business.

Insights & Discussion:

Sometimes, these little hacks are gold dust, a webmaster thinks sideways and publishes it for the benefit of the wider community.

And, sometimes they are little Easter Eggs left there by coders for discovery, and sometimes they are loopholes left open by mistake. In this instance you have to hope it’s an intelligent use of data, rather than an accidental loophole which will get closed.

Either way, while it’s open, make use of it. Reviews are gold dust and the most important thing in Local SEO, so get going and get some reviews while you can.

More Information:

• Reviews Most Important Local SEO Ranking Factor
• Yelp Cracks Down on Review Solicitation
• Google’s Direct Review Link for Local Businesses

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We recently released the super-exciting The State of SEO in mid-2017. Read it now.

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• Follow the instructions, visit the Google page, get your direct link and boom!
• Direct links you can give your customers to make it even easier for them to review your business.
• Love it, love it, love it.
• Read The State of SEO in mid-2017.
• Read about how Google’s Mobile First Index is not Mobile Friendly.
• Finally, get your content ranking well on Google by starting to understand Find Crawl Index.

Thanks for reading. If you would like to discuss what these changes mean for your web property, or would like to know how to implement them, please feel free to contact me.

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