SEO 2019: reviews, their presence across multiple platforms is a winning strategy!

What are the “best practices” when it comes to SEO? If the ultimate goal is to appear in pole position in Google’s results, it’s important to understand what the search engine rewards. We all know by now that Google’s algorithm, especially for searches that don’t specify a brand name but instead refer to a category of products or services, gives great priority to the user’s location, showing them stores among the results that are as close as possible to them.

On this geographic aspect, unfortunately or fortunately, there isn’t much you can do. What you can work on a great deal, however, are the ratings and reviews your brand receives online. These not only shape consumer perception, but also send positive signals to Google, which factors a brand’s online reputation into how it ranks its results.

Let’s admit, though, that the importance of having lots of reviews, and of them being as positive as possible – aiming for 4/5 stars – has already been discussed to death.

The more interesting aspect, instead, has to do with the presence of reviews across multiple platforms. You need to diversify, going beyond Google My Business. This is because every consumer’s browsing journey is different, and doesn’t necessarily go through Google. The goal is to intercept a user’s online journey as many times as possible, thereby increasing the chances of being found.

This means it’s important to keep an eye on reviews on your Facebook page, for example, because a consumer might look you up directly within the social network, without ever going through the search engine. The same goes for Yelp, Foursquare, Amazon, Yahoo!… and the list could go on for pages. What’s more, having valid, recent reviews across all these platforms doesn’t just increase online traffic and visibility – it’s also a form of diversity that Google itself rewards. One of the metrics the search engine uses to determine its rankings is precisely the diversity of where reviews come from: more platforms means more traffic, more visibility, and a privileged position among Google’s results. Could it get any better?

RetailTune lets you manage reviews posted across all the main platforms directly from a single page, helping you keep them under control and manage them effectively. It also gives you the ability to share reviews and comments posted on one platform directly on your website, helping generate valuable content for your visitors and thereby increase traffic. So even for SEO strategies, RetailTune is ready to lend a hand!

Claudio Agazzi, Founder & MD at RetailTune.ai