Can You Delete A Review Left on Google & Should You?
Unfortunately, as we all know, not all Google reviews are positive. But, what should we do if we receive a poor one? When should you delete bad reviews and how do you go about it?
For most people looking for a product or service online, customer reviews are likely to direct them to somewhere where patrons have had a positive experience. And, if that’s what you do, you’re in good company. For local businesses, 98% of consumers read online reviews.
Additionally, 81% of consumers turn to Google as their business review platform of choice to solidify their purchasing decisions. While customers can control the content they post in their reviews, businesses, unfortunately, cannot.
Good reviews are not a guarantee, and even if your business provides superior customer service, one unhappy customer may lead to a negative review. However, businesses must monitor their Google reviews consistently and ensure spammy reviews get deleted as soon as possible.
Can You Delete A Google Review On Your Own?
Unfortunately, Google doesn’t enable businesses to delete reviews on their Google Business Profile. The reason for this is fairly obvious as it helps to prevent businesses from deleting poor reviews due to bad experiences.
However, this does not mean that there are not a couple of options available. To have a review removed, the person who wrote the review can delete the review, or a business can ask Google to remove an inappropriate review.
Businesses can report a review for removal through Google Maps or Google Search.
Here are the steps to take for both.
How To Flag A Review On Google Maps
- Open Google Maps on your computer.
- Find your Google Business Profile.
- Find the review you’d like to flag.
- Click more, flag as inappropriate.
How To Flag A Review In Google Search
- On your computer, go to Google.
- Find your Google Business Profile.
- Click Google Reviews.
- Find the review you’d like to flag.
- Click more, report review. Then select the type of violation you want to report.
Further Information
If you’d like to speak to us regarding our ability to design you a quality website or perhaps how to maximise the potential of your existing website, please give us a call on 01883 372488 or contact us via Facebook and we’ll be happy to talk you through your options.
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Is It Important To Display My Business Address?
Citations (online directory listings) play a hugely important role in any online marketing campaign. Not only do they help to provide respected areas of confirmation for your business details, but they also offer new pathways for potential customers to find your business details.
A key part of these citations relates to the NAP (Name, Address & Phone Number) of a business but what happens if your company doesn’t tick the traditional boxes of having a physical location where customers can visit you? If this is the case, publishing your address to would-be customers could be an issue.
Why Would You Want To Hide Your Address?
For many businesses with a physical location such as an office or shop, the ability for customers to find them can be crucial. However for other businesses, a driving school for example, that provide their services at other locations, this is not the case.
Our experience tells us that there are typically 5 reasons why a business owner may not want their address published. These are as follows:
- Because they do not serve customers at their location, they don’t want people visiting their business address.
- Their office address is a virtual office. This would mean customers would be unable to drop in.
- Certain businesses (therapists and counsellors) may be considered to be a little sensitive and unsolicited visitors could be an issue
- They work from home and are concerned that this may not create the impression that they are looking for
- Although they are based in a particular location, they may wish to target a completely different area.
Does Hiding Your Business Address Limit Local Ranking Potential?
It’s impossible to get away from the fact it can impact your ranking potential. Web users want the ability to access genuine local results and Google wants you to be happy so that you will keep using your services.
Google strives to serve up businesses that it thinks are high quality and that are local. If you hide your address you make it much harder for Google to determine if you are a genuine local business.
We Can Help
Should you find yourself in this particular position, give the Footprint team a call today on Tel. No. 01883 372488 today to see how we can help you.
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Citations – 4 Key Questions
We’re often asked about the relevance of citations and their importance but there can be no doubt that they are a key component of any SEO campaign.
Whilst citations alone won’t guarantee a number one ranking, it is absolutely essential that you have an accurate and consistent citation campaign if you would like to compete effectively in the local SEO stakes.
Additionally, research undertaken by Bright Local, highlights that citations still provide significant value to both SEO providers and local businesses alike. As such, citation creation remains one of the most common services offered by agencies.
With this being the case, we have identified 3 of the most important questions relating to citations.
Will Citation Building Impact My SEO Rankings?
As with all aspects of SEO, it’s only a combination of SEO factors that will pull together to help improve SEO rankings but without doubt, anyone without a solid base of citations will be at a competitive disadvantage, if you want to try to rank for local searches.
How Many Citations Do I Need To Rank Well?
There are some companies that would recommend the creation of 1000s of citations and whilst we wouldn’t go that far, a large number of high quality, consistent citations will certainly benefit your business.
You don’t need hundreds of citations to rank well but we will choose the most important ones for you to help create the type of profile that will benefit you. Just as important as building new citations, is the need to ensure that all listings contain the correct information, including opening hours, location, contact details).
Duplicate listings are not helpful either. Whilst they should not negatively impact your listings, they may confuse potential customers which is not helpful.
Are Some Directories More Important Than Others?
Yes, it is true that “big” directories such as Yell, Yelp, FreeIndex and others are important but relevance is just as important. Any listing can benefit your business but the more relevant directories you appear on, the better it will be for your business. Not only in Google’s eyes but also in the eyes of your customers.
Is Consistent Information Important?
Submitting different details to different directories is unlikely to have the negative impact that it once had but it is very likely to confuse potential customers again. This should be avoided at all cost wherever possible.
Further Information
If you’d like to speak to us regarding how we can help you to use web design to grow your company, give us a call on 01883 372488 or contact us via Facebook and we’ll be happy to talk you through your options.
