GOOGLE REVIEWS 1st Update in 10 years – Game Changer for Your Business?

Google Reviews are crucial for local businesses who want to build a solid online reputation and to help with organic local rankings.

Unrevised for the best part of 10 years, google reviews have now been given a new lease of life with the addition of attributes.
Customers leaving you a review on your Google My Business Listing are now being prompted to select positive or negative attributes when submitting their feedback. Find out in this video what impact it will have on your online visibility and how you can take advantage of these Google Review attributes.

Transcript:

0:00
google reviews are critical to your
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business they can help your listing rank
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higher on google maps
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as well as build your reputation and
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credibility with prospective customers a
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few months ago google quietly launched a
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range of attributes
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that can be selected when leaving a
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review customers can now express a
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critical
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or positive sentiment about the services
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you provide using these attributes
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without even typing a word and with just
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a mouse click
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largely unnoticed by most business
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owners when launched
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due to the pandemic this is the biggest
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change google has made to reviews
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in almost 10 years and is likely to have
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a major impact on your google my
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business listing
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moving forward if you want to know how
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this feature is going to affect your
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business
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and how to make the most of it stay
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tuned hi my name is luke duran the
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founder of rankingacademy.com.uk if it’s
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your first time here today
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why don’t you subscribe and click on the
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bell button before the end of this video
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so you get notified next time i publish
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a new one so last spring google launched
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the ability for customers to add
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positive and negative attributes when
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writing a review
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about your business these attributes are
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currently available for more service
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related businesses
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but i feel they will be extended to all
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business types
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soon enough any customer wanting to
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leave you a positive four or five star
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review
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is now prompted with the following
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question what do you like about this
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business
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and presented with the option of
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selecting between three to five
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attributes depending on your business
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vertical these attributes may vary
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in this example the five attributes for
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these electricians
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are good quality good value professional
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responsive and on time
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but if i try to leave a review for a dog
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grooming business the on-time attribute
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has been switched to the
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reliable attribute if a customer chooses
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however to give you
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one or two star review it will be
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prompted with this question
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what do you not like about this business
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and to choose from another set of
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attributes
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looking at the electrician example again
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the attributes are as follows poor
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quality
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poor value not professional not
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responsive and not on time
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while for the document example the not
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on time attribute
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has now changed to not reliable
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customers choosing to give you a three
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star review will not be presented with
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the option to add
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attributes to it as it’s kind of neutral
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these attributes are displayed
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right under the star rating of a review
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in the review section
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of your listing in google search and
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google maps which makes them very
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visible
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if you want to find out which attributes
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are associated with your business
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just bring your listing up and try
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leaving a review choose the five star
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and one star option
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to bring up the different lists but why
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are these attributes
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so important i hear you saying according
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to a study conducted by the online
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review specialists at
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gatherup.com who analyzed just under 3
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million business reviews
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almost 35 percent of all reviews are
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just ratings only
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this means customers don’t bother
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providing any further information
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besides giving a number of stars they
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think is appropriate
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for that business we all know that one
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star is clearly not good and
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five stars is great but there is no
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further context to the review making it
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difficult for
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prospective customers and google to
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understand what is good or bad about
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this business
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based on ratings alone this is not very
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helpful to google who is
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always trying to provide the most
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relevant and accurate information to
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searches
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providing customers with the ability to
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add attributes to reviews
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helps google just do that and to
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evaluate every small business
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on a much more granular level and this
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is clearly paying off for google
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to measure the effectiveness of this new
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feature the study compared the number of
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rating only reviews for a group of
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insurance
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agents before and after the attributes
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were rolled out
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sure enough shortly after it was
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launched the number of rating only
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reviews with no attributes
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dropped by a staggering 63 so what does
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this mean for local businesses
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google has made it extremely easy for
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customers to add attributes to reviews
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just a couple of clicks and it’s done so
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expect to see
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more and more of these showing up on
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your listing it will help
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prospective customers make an informed
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decision based on the strength
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and weaknesses of your business but it
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also means that google is now
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able to access a much bigger set of rich
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data to evaluate the performance of
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millions of small businesses
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on an almost individual level unlike a
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written review
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where content varies from one customer
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to another attributes now provide
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structured context
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which is common to all businesses i’m
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not a clairvoyant but you don’t need to
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be a genius to understand
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how google is likely to use this new
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data as a ranking factor let’s imagine
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you’re a handyman and you have
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105 star reviews all of which include
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the following
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attributes good quality good value and
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professional
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let’s now look at one of your
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competitors who also has
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105 star reviews all of which include
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the following attributes
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good quality good value professional but
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also responsive
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and on time which one do you think
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google is likely to rank
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above the oven here is another idea to
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consider how google may use these
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attributes let’s say you run a car
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repair shop and the vast majority
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of customers leaving your review use the
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attribute good value
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surely that makes your google my
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business listing a prime candidate when
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people are searching for
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cheap car repair shop near me or
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affordable auto repair near me
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these are basic examples but you can see
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how google is likely to utilize this
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data
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in the near future and will continue to
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dominate the online local search space
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because of it this means
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paying attention to your reviews is
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going to be more important than ever
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before
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and monitoring the attributes customers
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choose to leave for your business
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will provide you with key actionable
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insight there are a couple of tools that
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have started doing that such as
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gatherup.com and whitespark.ca but they
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are not free
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so if you are on a budget but still want
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to track your review attributes
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i suggest you download my excel review
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tracking sheet from the description
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below
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which is free and very simple to use
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this
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is how it works let’s say a client has
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left a four or five star review on my
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google my business listing
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in january in a positive role for
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january i’m going to increase the number
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by one
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if the review also includes attributes i
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will add them to the table
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right below that let’s say it includes
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the good quality
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and good value attribute therefore i
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will increase the number by one for each
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of those attributes
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if however i receive a one or two star
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review i will follow the same principle
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and add the data
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to the critical raw and critical
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attributes table
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the graph will update automatically
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giving you a visual representation
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of your overall customer satisfaction
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and as time goes on highlight
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where you may have some issues that need
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to be addressed
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in this example there is clearly an
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increase of dissatisfied customers
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starting in may and escalating in august
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to find out what they were mostly
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unhappy about
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around that period you would just need
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to look at the critical
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attribute graph in which you will see
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that at around the same time
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most clients who gave you a negative
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review were unhappy about
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your time keeping and also a lack of
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communication which would seem to go
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hand in hand
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how else would you find out these issues
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with search clarity
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you can now put something in place to
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solve these problems this spreadsheet
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will also work if you want to improve on
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qualities
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your business seem to be missing this is
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exactly what the positive attribute
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graph
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can be used for in this example this
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business does well for
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value and professionalism but there is
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plenty of room to improve on other
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areas you may think filling in this
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spreadsheet is a little bit cumbersome
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but
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if you’re already doing your due
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diligence and are responding to all your
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customer reviews consider including this
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as part of your process
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it should only take an extra 30 seconds
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but will provide you with an
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invaluable amount of information please
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note you can’t log into your google my
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business profile and collect the data
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directly
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from google my business panel sadly the
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attributes do not show in the review
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section
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but will hopefully be added at a later
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date the best way to collect the data is
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to bring up your business listing
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in google click on reviews and sort by
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the newest
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the other thing you can do with this new
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data is
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leverage it with content on your website
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earlier i mentioned google is likely to
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use these
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new attributes to help rank businesses
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in local search results therefore
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it would make sense to use this
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information to create
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additional content pages on your site
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which will be in line with the most
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popular attributes your listing gets
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tagged with
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let’s say you rent wedding venues in
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florida and your listing constantly
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receives reviews
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that are using the good value attribute
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this is such
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a clear sign you should create relevant
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content pages on your website for
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similar terms to drive more visibility
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and traffic
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think lower cost wedding venue in
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orlando affordable wedding venue in
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miami
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cheap wedding venue in fort lauderdale
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etc the sky is the limit the more review
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attribute data you will be able to
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generate and collect from your listing
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the more
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information you will be able to gather
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so whenever you’re asking clients if
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they are willing to leave you a review
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ask them to also include attributes
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obviously you can’t blatantly say to
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them please add the good value or the
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good communication
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attribute to your review they’ll
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probably think you’ve gone crazy
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as they won’t know what you’re talking
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about instead send them a review request
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email in which you can ask them to leave
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you a review and to point out where they
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think you did well
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using some of the preset attributes to
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make
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this easier for you i have created an
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email template
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you can use as your own and send your
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clients you can download it from the
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description below
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if you enjoyed watching this video don’t
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hesitate to give it a thumbs up
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post any questions or comments below and
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until next time
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happy marketing
9:37
[Music]9:52
you

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