If you would look at PowerReviews.com, their research proves that majority of all online customers search for product reviews. To be exact, 97% of consumers read reviews posted online before they make their purchase decision. To be honest, this isn’t surprising at all. Personally, I do the same. Before I shop, I make sure to look at reviews.

There’s another article on ConversionXML.com that supports this idea. It states that a Google review can contribute to a 35% increase of a website’s click-through rate. Without a doubt, positive reviews are influential in persuading other people to buy.

In this blog post, I will share tips on how to get more reviews on Google. By apply these tips, you will surely earn more reviews.

Don’t Hesitate to Ask for Reviews.

First tip: always ask for reviews. Remind your team of customer representatives to get the customer’s feedback. Any staff, who would always interact with customers, should know the proper way to ask for a customer reviews.

Aside from that, leaving a review should NOT be too complicated. Instead of letting your customers read a lengthy instruction, make it very easy for your customers. Write your main points using bullets so that they can understand the process. If not, you can use images. For example, a smiling emoji is the option to pick if they are satisfied. Meanwhile, a frowning emoji means the opposite. Surely, this will guide the customer how to rate their shopping experience.

Lastly, when asking for a review, don’t be too demanding. Try to exude a positive and encouraging aura. Being nice won’t harm you so loosen up smile more. Follow these tips:

• Social interaction

Use every opportunity to request for a review. Whether you are interacting with a customer through chat, email, or social media, always ask for a review at the end of your conversation. Encourage everyone to leave a feedback about shopping experience.

• Email

After a purchase, not all customers will go online and mention you on social media. Make sure to reminder customers to leave a review. If you need a review, sending customized emails will help you.

To make it easier to submit reviews, there are services such as TrustPilot and ReviewTrackers that will shorten the process. By automating it, you aren’t wasting their time.

• Printed cards

Wait, printed materials? Are you sure? Yes, it still helps to have business cards to remind customer where your official social channels are. Additionally, you can indicate on your printed cards the following:

• Your QR code for chat services like Viber, WeChat, Kakao.
• Of course, there should also be the website link.
• Lastly, don’t forget the links to the Facebook, Twitter, Instagram accounts.

• Call-to-action buttons

Usually, customers will not post a review after they received their purchases. So, you have to remind to leave a review. When they are on your website, you can send a little reminder to do so. Usually, a pop-up with a CTA button will do the work.

By CTA buttons, they can easily redirect to the review page. Like the previous tips, I always reiterate to make it easy for customers. As much as possible, be specific on what your customers should do. You can ask them to:

• Leave their review and upload a picture of their items.
• Share it on social media and tag friends that may be interested.
• Redirect them to the latest deals in case they might find something to buy.

As SEO professionals, links strengthen our site’s backlink authority. It proves our expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. Not only that, backlinks is one of the ranking factors closely monitored by Google.

So, it’s stupid not to develop reliable and natural links. To be honest, link building harder than expected. That’s why I created a 3-part special allocated to discuss link building tips. If you need to catch up, here are the 3 Tips to Improve Link Building Efforts (Part 1) and 3 Tips to Improve Link Building Efforts (Part 2). Below are the last set of tips:

1. Give something away for FREE!

Everyone loves FREE stuffs. As long as it is free, people will sign up for it. Free things are a way to get backlinks. Whether you are giving away a free e-book about marketing or you are making your SEO tool available for download, these strategies will work to your advantage.

You can also list the top SEO tools that are available for free. Add your own creation to the list! Your FREE item does not need to be extravagant. It can be as simple as a random number generator, a timer, or a calculator. For sure, these things can help a certain audience and they will surely link your website.

2. Do your own research.

If you can’t find anything interesting, then, create something interesting. Do your own research by surveying your website followers. Nowadays, creating survey forms aren’t complicated. There are great websites such as TypeForm, FreeOnlineSurvey, Google Survey, Zoho Survey, and many more. With these tools, you can create your own form for free. Plus, you have the option to make your own questions and set your own parameters.

Other than that, you can post your survey forms on Reddit and post it anonymously. Wait for a few days and see if you get relevant responses from people. If not, you can get on popular social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and see if people will share their honest opinions.

Related: Using Social Media to Boost Advocacy

3. Help create video transcripts

On my post regarding YouTube SEO tips, I mentioned to create video transcripts. As you know by now, Google can’t comprehend video content well if there aren’t transcripts available. How is this related to link building?

Well, check the websites of any expert or influencer, and then, look at their videos. If there are no transcripts available, then viola! You can create a transcript and spread the news on Twitter. Don’t forget to tag or mention the people involved.

Send a tweet like, “I enjoyed watching @name’s video. I created a transcript so anyone watching it can easily follow.” By doing this, you can get a retweet or a share from influential people. After the shares, of course, the backlinks will follow.

Conclusion

There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Link building won’t come easy and free. You will have to work hard at it. Today, I have to admit that link building is harder than it was year back. Everyone is so used to asking for backlinks. Instead, we should all learn to earn the hard way. Yes, a natural backlink can be achieved. Just think of ways to be creative and generate the best content to lure a swarm of organic links.

For some, link building is easier to do because there’s no need for basic SEO knowledge. It can be anyone’s game. You just need to be presentable and take advantage of the world outside your website.Below are the 3 link building tips that don’t require you tremendous effort:

1. Self-Promotion

For you to build awareness about your website, you have to advertise it. Of course, you have to spread the word about your website. After promotion, you will reap the ranking benefits that follow.

In a Google Hangout discussion, John Mueller gave a practical advice on link building. He reiterated that you should have an advertisement of some sort. There should an effort to promote a website.

Moreover, Mueller added that it would involve some kind of self-promotion from on your end. You have to give the people a reason to visit your website. In turn, your web visitors will realize that this is actually a useful website. If you want to watch the entire Google Webmasters’ hangout, you can click this link.

What Type of Advertisement?

To start off, paid advertising is a sure way to expose your website to the world. Whether it’s on Facebook, Instagram, or any social media account, they are welcoming on the idea of promotion. For sure, advertising in these sites won’t be difficult.

Just remember to promote something relevant and helpful to the audience. In short, don’t just promote just for the sake for promoting something.

Fair warning though, some advertising posts are more susceptible to bots. You would not want for bots to spam your posts with unnecessary comments.

2. Social Media

In today’s world, social media plays a major role in promotion. Surely, it is an efficient way to increase page views, gain more traffic, and boost sales.

The best method to promote is to tap the famous digital influencers in the field.  This does not necessarily mean that you will have to pay their services. You are just letting them share the exciting news to their audience. No monetary compensation is necessary for an honest review. If the influencers agree, then, you are in luck because it can lead to more natural links for your website.

3. Conferences, Events, and Other Industry Functions

For the first 2 tips, you can hire someone to do the promotion for you. However, this is different. You will be the ONE to represent your brand and website. No one else can do it for you!

As the website owner, you need to added corporate functions and events. Attending conferences are needed to expose your brand. You may not get immediate results right away, but you will earn newfound friendships. That’s for sure!

You will know the other leading brands the industry. This is a great opportunity to rub elbows with them and get to know their journey to success.

Their popularity can influence your website. An indirect endorsement will go a long, which means more web traffic coming your way.

Conclusion

Never underestimate a person you just met. Who knows the person sitting next to you in a conference can be monumental to your future success? Every single day is an opportunity to increase sales and even gain more friends. The relationships you form along the way: that’s priceless! Next, you have the 3 Tips to Improve Link Building Efforts (Part 2)

We all know SEO is such a broad topic. In fact, SEO is divided into 3 main parts:

1. On-page SEO
2. Off-page SEO
3. Technical SEO

For this blog post, I will only discuss the technical aspect. If you want to learn about on-page SEO, I posted a blog about Understanding On-Page SEO. I am particularly concerned with technical SEO because it helps enhance the searchability of an online website.

So, if you are into online selling, you should not pass up the 4 technical SEO tips listed below.

1. Upgrade user experience to be mobile-first index.

• In other words, prioritize mobile users. Your website developer should make the mobile variant the main website for indexing. In 2018, 52.2% of the web traffic came from mobile phones.
• See, you can’t just shrug off the 52.2% of the worldwide traffic. More than half of the worldwide population of internet users are mobile users!
• Aside from that, you need to make sure that your mobile users can easily find the different products easily. The buying process should be smooth and it should be able doable in just a few clicks.
• Of course, it does not mean that a mobile website is bare. There should be images and animations to inform the visitors of the different promos and deals on your site. When necessary, add a call-to-action button to guide the customers to the products that they want.

2. Add alt texts to images.

• You would NOT be able to sell any product without the use of images. An ecommerce website should have the appropriate image. Also, it should have a designated alt text that serves as a description.
• For example, a front cover of a CD should have an alt text like “official soundtrack CD of the Korean Drama: The Secret Garden.”
• This is your chance to describe well your product. Remember, alt texts are helpful to both customers and bots. With the right alt text, they can identify what the image pertaining to in case it will fail to load properly.
• Moreover, alt texts are helpful to people who are using screen readers. People with visual impairments won’t find it a hassle to shop on your online store.

3. Redirect customers to the right place.

• When websites have an out-of-stock product, the web pages won’t usually go astray because there is NO such product available. This would lead to a 404 page not found error, which can really irritate customers.
• If you would encounter an error while doing your online shopping, how would you feel? Of course, you will be feel bad. Why would the page display an error when you are finally buying it, right?
• So, to avoid any negative reactions from your customer, help them resolve the issue. Redirect them back to the product page. Perhaps, you could suggest related products. Guide your customers to a place where they can continue shopping.
• Don’t be your own enemy. If the product goes out-of-stock, apologize and redirect them to other pages that may interest your customers.

4. Simplify the content of the product page.

• The product page is there for your customers to understand well what you are selling.
• Don’t try to overwhelm them with confusing product descriptions. Instead, try to conversational. Talk to them as if you are talking to a friend.
• By using plain language, you are trying to help them understand your products. Keep it simple and concise. So, don’t try to impress them with long and winding paragraphs.

To recap, I discussed on the previous post the following:

• Demonstrated how to do a video keyword search,
• Suggested keyword search tools,
• Presented tips on what keywords to choose, and
• Gave other tips on what to do with your videos.

So, if you want catch up on part 1, here’s YouTube SEO Tips That You Need to Know. Now, let’s go to the content optimization portion.

How to make your YouTube videos more visible to your audience?

Content optimization

Here are 5 important tips in optimizing your YouTube videos:

1. Video Description

Remember,  the description should support the video. Of course, their will be details that are better written than mentioning it on YouTube.

A good video description should also affirms the relevancy of your video. It should be able to give an additional information about the video. Your description can be your “mini introduction” and discuss what you will be tackling on your video. Like with the usual blog posts, you will also need an introduction or an overview before you start with your main points. So, start adding meaningful description to help your viewers know the gist of your videos. If your video did present a useful information, your viewers will surely check your description for website links, social media links, and other contact details.

2. Timestamp

If you have a lot to talk about on your videos, it’s better to add a timestamps. Video creators add timestamps to help their viewers jump to a specific portion of the video.

Aside from your introduction, it is recommended to add timestamps in the video description. This really helps enhance the user experience and engagement. Because you are making it easy for people to find what they want, they will surely keep coming back to your channel for more videos.

3. Video Titles

Your title should coincide with the keywords that people are searching. For example, the word “mukbang”; it is such a popular term in video content. This type of video broadcast entails the video host to eat an abundant supply of food.

So, if you are producing more food content, capitalize on the mukbang fad. Whether you will be presenting mukbang recipes or upload your own mukbang feast, make sure to produce videos that are timely and relevant.

At the end of the day, you will gain more views if you strive to create video content that your viewers want. So, know what’s in and what’s not in order to make the best video titles.

4. Location

If you wish to delve into local SEO, then, don’t forget to add the location of your videos. If you want to get more local viewers, it is the way to go!

5. Video transcripts

Lastly, video transcripts helps your videos to become accessible to more people. Through the transcripts you provide, you are making it easy for search engines to comprehend your video content. Look at  it this way… for websites, you need an XML sitemap for Google bots to understand your content better. Same is true with YouTube!

When you provide a video transcripts, search engines find it easier to crawl your video content faster and easier. To transcribe your video better, Google published some tips right here.