Does Local Reviews for Catering Business Affect Website SEO?

The short answer to “Do Google Reviews Affect Your Website?” is “Yes,”  but as long the reviews are positive, they can help your SEO strategy to be more effective.

Although there a myriad of factors combined contribute to search rankings for any website, Google reviews and ratings indicate that your site is relevant, authoritative, and trustworthy.

Besides, every local business such as catering services company loves to have positive reviews on your Google My Business Profile.

How Do We Know Google Reviews Have an Impact on Search Rankings?

When the algorithm of Google analyses a site, it looks into the EAT factor— Expertise, Authority & Trust. The alphabet “T” stands for Trust plays an integral role in your overall rankings. Positive reviews from your customers signal Google’s algorithm that you are a trustworthy service provider.

A couple of years back, Google decided to ban online reviews from anonymous profiles. This ban meant a lot of businesses lost their customer reviews overnight. Later a study on how losing customer reviews hampered rankings revealed that most affected sites dropped by one or two spots in the SEPR results.

● Local Customer Reviews Build Trust

A positive review from a happy customer for your catering business would certainly boost your reputation, and drive more customers to your business.

People tend to trust what others say. The free online opinions of your previous customers count in the eyes of Google, and as a reward, you get a slight improvement in your rankings and greater visibility.

● Drives More Traffic

For some Internet-savvy people, Google reviews mean everything. As per BrightLocal, 57% of the consumers will land on your site, if your business has over four stars rating on Google My Business.

If your business has a solid Google rating base, with a lot of details — it doesn’t have to be one or two words review like “Best Caterer in NYC”. Instead each review must throw light on your company’s USP. Only then, people planning to hire a caterer for their daily functions or social gatherings will trust your business, and click on your site.

The increase in organic traffic will let Google know your site is authoritative and worthy of ranking higher. You can also hire a local SEO marketing agency to help you with managing your online reputation.

● Tell Google What Your Site is About

When building a catering business site, you put in a lot of details to each webpage as a part of good SEO practice. The content is crawled by Google search algorithms and higher chances that Google will present your website based on your relevancy.

The online reviews on Google do exactly that. They let Google robots know what your site is.

How Can I Obtain More Google Reviews?

As a matter of fact, there is no for-sure pill for a five-stars rating for your catering business. However, there are several things you can do to encourage your customers to leave a review.

Don’t be afraid, reach out to them via email. And ask directly from the most satisfied customers.

One thing you must keep in mind that you must not pay for leaving a Google review. Doing so you breach Google’s guidelines, and the algorithms of Google are designed to sniff out all the unethical reviews. If Google discovers that you are publishing fake reviews, they may push your rankings down like a stiff penalty.

How to Deal With Negative Google Reviews?

If you receive a negative review, take this as a big opportunity to reach out to your customer, and try to fix it. However, most businesses respond to a negative review with anger and a non-professional approach.

Don’t get personal, directly connect with the reviewer, and make genuine efforts to make up for the bad experience they had with your catering business.

How Can We Help?

We at Alshan Marketing offer full-suite online marketing services for caterers. Even, if you don’t have a website, our team will build your site, and rank it higher on Google’s SERP results in just 30 days.

Please book a consultation at (949) 424-7824 with our one of Internet marketers today to discuss your project.