Your reputation is a valuable asset. What people say about your golf course matters and its especially true online. Reviews ratings add up and don’t go away. They are a reflection of your operations.
- 82% of consumers say the content of a review has to convince them to make a purchase
- 93% of consumers say online reviews have an impact on their purchase decisions
The way consumers find businesses is changing. Instead of asking family and friends for recommendations, they are turning to Google search results and Google reviews to make purchase decisions. Businesses that aren’t showing up at or near the top of Google’s map pack with quality online reviews will be left behind.
Getting more reviews will help you:
- Build a reputation on Google
- Improve local SEO to more easily get found
- Influence more golfers to play at your course
Here are 5 tips that you can implement at your club.
1. Start to ask your customers to leave you a review. You don’t need to try to reward them with offers or prizes just simply ask them to leave a review. Place your review links where they are interacting with your course:
- On your Blog
- In your Thank you Emails
- In your newsletters
- On your high traffic pages of your website
- Exit thank you pages after online store purchases
GMS Pro tip: Learn how to generate a link that leads them straight to this page for your course. Its quicker and less friction for the user.
2. Respond to your reviews. Remember there is a new way to quickly get to your Google my Business manager. While logged into the gmail account that controls the Business Page – google search “Your Golf Course Name”. The Management console for your business page is right there.
You can also go to https://business.google.com to log in.
When reviews are left you should see an email about the new review in your updates tab in Gmail. This is the trigger to go find your business console and respond. Click on Reviews see the new ones and click on “Reply” to respond. This is a nice way to also show Google and consumers that the business cares and is responsive.
3. To make sure you don’t miss anything, set up Google Alerts to get notified every time your business is mentioned online. This is a great way to manage your online reputation!
4. Report bad or abusive reviews. When monitoring your reviews, keep an eye out for any of these 6 review violations that will allow you to flag and remove negative reviews.
- Inappropriate content, profanity and racial terms
- Fake reviews
- The same person using multiple identities to leave multiple 1 Star Reviews
- Fraudulent reviews from competitors
- Oops! Wrong business
- Inappropriate Images
To flag an inappropriate review, under reviews click on the three dots on the top right hand corner of the review.
5. Use Google Small Thanks to create and print out your reviews to publish in your clubhouse. https://smallthanks.withgoogle.com/. There is nothing wrong with a little self promotion utilizing real reviews from your customers!
