We now live in a world where prospects are seeing Peer Reviews of Your Community BEFORE you even get to present them your message, BEFORE they see your website, and BEFORE they come in for a tour.
Have you ever purchased something from Amazon before…?
Now has your purchase decision been by reading reviews beforehand…?
Reviews are extremely powerful. Like testimonials, they let your prospects peer into what life is actually like at your community or your agency. And this is before even seeing your sales messages.
Having a proactive review generation program online can drive new leads and ultimately residents, build credibility, and stand out on the search engines.
They will also increase your rank in the search engines.
88% of consumers ‘sometimes or always’ consult reviews before making a purchase. -Reevoo,2012
Imagine having 20 or more reviews show up on Google search results when you nearest competitor has just one or 2.
Once you get up to 5 reviews on the search results, you get a golden 5 star rating instead of a blue text link.
That’s powerful stuff!
Who do you think searchers are going to click on?
Where do reviews show up?
Like I just mentioned, reviews will show up in the search results. There’s reviews on the paid ads. Referral sites like a place for mom or caring.com are able to show these reviews. These companies represent many communities and can leverage reviews on paid ads.
You can’t necessarily do this on an individual community basis, but if you’re part of a corporation that has multiple communities, and you’re advertising one corporate URL for all of them, this is something to definitely check into.
Reviews also show up when you click into the local listings on search engines. This is important, and I want to stress again that after 5 reviews you will get a 5 star rating on your listing which stands out prominently.
Other places where reviews get displayed.
Other local listings on other major search engines, and also senior specific sites like SeniorAdvisor.com.
These site are showing up in the search results, and also get traffic on their own. It’s a good idea to diversify your efforts, In another post, I’ll explain a great and easy way to find places to get reviews.
About Kevin Williams
The reviews systems that exist all present issues, both for operators of communities and prospective residents. With so many sites on the internet that allow users to leave reviews of businesses, how do we know which reviews are real and which are fake? How do consumers know that a negative review isn't simply one senior living community writing negative things about one of their competitors? We plan on introducing a review system at http://www.TotalSenior.com in the next few months, but our review will only consist of verified sources, individuals and families of individuals we place into a community and can verify they have lived there for enough time to provide genuine feedback. We hope that for the sake of maintaing integrity, others verify their reviews as well.