What’s Review Spam and How Does it Affect Your Business?
Have you ever seen local guide icons next to people’s names when they’re referenced on google? Well, there’s a reason why, and that’s because Google has decided to give rewards to people for leaving reviews. This helps encourage people to leave reviews for businesses.
Cool, right? People get fast and easy rewards for making fast and easy reviews on their platform. Some of those local guides will go through a list of businesses and rate them. From 5 stars and below. It’s great when you get a random 5-star review, but there comes a problem though…..what happens when your business is hit with a bad review from a review spammer that has never visited your business or has never contracted your services?
The outcome is lowered ratings, and a bad reputation online. Oh no!! How do we fix it? There are multiple ways to address it, but if you don’t manage your business online reputation at all, those spam reviews can damage your reputation online and potentially offline when people you’re networking with see bad reviews about you.
So what do you do?
A. You can leave it alone since you don’t want to rock the google boat (spoiler–not the correct answer)
B. You can address it and report the review
C. If images are allowed, report those as well.
D. Create a system for addressing review spam and requesting new reviews from actual customers.
The correct answer: D
If you don’t know where to start, iFreshly Digital can help you push the bad reviews down, and get new raving reviews from your customers. We can help you address the review spam as well so that Google is more likely to take it down. What are you waiting for?