Today, when a local customer requires a painting company they are going to turn to Google. Whether that need is a small residential job or a large commercial painting project, Google is the most-used resource for locating local service businesses.
Your painting company must be found at the top of the local Google Maps results. You also need to make sure that potential customers have plenty of recent Google reviews to read, left by highly satisfied customers.
When we design and execute a painter marketing campaign, accumulating a consistent flow of fresh painting company Google reviews is a significant focus of the effort. Systems and processes are put into place that streamlines the initial ask and followup. The result is converting a large percentage of your painting customers into reviews when the work is completed.
During the onboarding process, we will walk you through the process of gathering the reviews, but we feel it’s important that you fully understand why Google reviews are so important and a crucial component of the overall painter marketing effort.
Provides Valuable Feedback to Grow Your Business
Some businesses will focus on collecting reviews for the wrong reason. Yes, they have a positive impact on your organic traffic and converting that traffic into leads and painting customers, but they also provide you with priceless information that you can use to improve your business.
Not all of the painter reviews that your past customers are going to leave will be 5-star glowing reviews that praise your business up and down. While that would be nice, it’s just not a realistic expectation.
Number one, you cannot please everyone, no matter how great of a job you do. There are going to be some customers that simply are never satisfied and it will have nothing to do with your business or the quality of work. Some consumers are just impossible to please.
Number two, sometimes mistakes are going to happen. There isn’t a single business that has operated mistake-free. Mistakes happen, and that is unfortunate, but it’s how you respond to those mistakes that will shape and define your business moving forward.
If a review leaves constructive criticism, rather than making excuses or trying to deflect the blame on the customer, thank them for the feedback while addressing their issue or problem, and chalk it up to a learning experience.
This approach not only gives you access to first-hand feedback that you can then use to make your business better but potential customers that see how your response to reviews – even the not-so-favorable ones – will help you win them over.
Intelligent and reasonable consumers understand that not every customer is going to be happy and that not all reviews will tell both sides, but if they see a business address issues rather than just ignore them it can contribute to an increase in the number of leads your painting company generates.
Improved CTRs and Lower Customer Acquisition Costs
Your Google reviews show up in the search results, both the organic Google Maps and PPC, if you are running a painter AdWords campaign. When a consumer sees a large number of reviews it automatically commands their attention.
This can help you in several ways. First, it can draw attention to your listing, even if you aren’t in the top position. For example, a painting company in the fourth position with thirty-three reviews is going to see more action than a listing on top with three reviews.
This leads to an improved click-through rate, which drives more traffic to your website and generates more lead-form submits and phone calls. Overall, it plays a significant role in reducing your customer acquisition costs across your paid and organic Google traffic sources.
You might have the best prices and offer the best painting services, but if nobody visits your website or engages with your company online, they will never get a chance to discover that. A large amount of Google reviews gets consumers interested in learning more.
This is why a painter local marketing effort that put a lot of effort into converting all of your past customers into reviews is so important. Letting satisfied customers walk away at the end of the relationship or transaction is a wasted opportunity.
Long-term and at scale, your Google reviews will play a huge role in above-average click-through rates and below-average customer acquisition costs; these both directly contribute to exponential business growth.
Generate More Leads and Customers (Consumers Trust 3rd Party Reviews)
Did you know that a prospective painting customer will trust painter Google reviews left by strangers the same way they would trust a personal recommendation from a friend or family member? It’s true.
Next time you are shopping on Amazon look at the “Best Seller” recommendations in whatever category you are searching in. It’s no coincidence that those also have the most reviews. Some category killers will have 10,000 reviews and the next closest competitor might have 10 percent of that.
Why? Because consumers are naturally attracted to listings with more reviews. They automatically presume that it’s the better option. You aren’t going to change that perception, so to command that attention, you need to have a lot of reviews and be constantly adding to that number.
Many painting companies assume that they are going to win over customers with a nice painter web design, and while that’s important, you aren’t going to push prospects and potential leads to your website without the reviews to generate that initial interest.
You have mere seconds to get that click-through – if not they are going to click on a competitor’s listing. So, you either ‘wow’ the potential customer with a high number of Google reviews or you lose their interest – it’s that simple.
Improves Painting Company Local SEO and Organic Google Traffic
Your Google reviews also have a direct impact on your painter SEO. The algorithm for Google Maps listings, which is the most coveted organic search real estate, takes reviews into account. Not only sheer volume, either.
Now, nobody knows the specifics of Google’s algorithm, but SEOs that are constantly working on client campaigns can notice trends, and one thing many agree upon is that consistently accumulating reviews play a big part in the results.
What if a business has 100 reviews but they are all from three years ago? That speaks nothing to the current level of service the business currently provides. Google’s algorithm is constantly advancing and with the help of Artificial Intelligence, it’s able to consider other common-sense factors.
A local business that is attracting good reviews consistently over a long period is likely to be providing exceptional service, so it’s a good option to display high in the results to those searching for the products or services it sells in proximity to the individual performing the search query.
Painter SEO has evolved over the years and now all of the online marketing efforts have an impact on search visibility. From a website that’s optimized for speed and usability, to page titles and descriptions that convert at high click-through rates – this is all taken into consideration by Google’s search algorithm.
Final Thoughts
Hopefully, you now have an understanding of why Google reviews are so important for your painting company. They play a large role in so many different aspects of our online marketing effort.
We also know that you don’t have the time to chase down every past customer, trying to convince them to take a few minutes to leave your painting company a review on Google. This is why it’s part of our full-service local marketing service.
We are the go-to source for painting companies from all over the United States that want to be positioned on top of Google’s search results, leading to increased website traffic, more phone calls, a greater number of leads, and more customers month-after-month.
If you would like to speak to one of our painter SEO experts, contact us today for a free consultation and online visibility audit. Together we can map out a strategy to take advantage of the endless amount of traffic available to your business on Google.
