Review sites

[guggi2000]

We changed our business model from ads to subscription-based and want to start to get reviews for our online education service. We would like to start with i.e. TrustPilot and send review invites to our preferred members.

Any issues we need to be aware of?

Possible pitfalls:
- too many reviews at ones -> suspicious
- no new review -> tells Google site is not active
- score too high (because we are good) -> suspicion that reviews are paid

[keyplyr]

• too many reviews at ones -> suspicious
Yes, I can attest that getting reviews to close together might trigger a filter. I wouldn't get a review any faster than one every two weeks.

• no new review -> tells Google site is not active
I haven't had any new reviews in a couple years and I don't see any direct effect.

• score too high (because we are good) -> suspicion that reviews are paid
I've seen no negative effect from getting high grades. All my reviews are 5 out of 5.

Also, reviewers can't all have new accounts. It helps for your reviewers to have reviewed other sites prior to reviewing you.

I send out emails to my clients (customers) asking for reviews and give them a direct link to submit the review. I also found it best to give my reviewers a template, suggesting what to say. You may want to get a couple keywords into that review.

[tangor]

Reviews can be helpful, but if one goes south can take down a business in a flash. Any attempt to guide the process might come back on you as well. One of those "do I or do I not" kind of things. Social media and word of mouth generally work to better advantage.

[guggi2000]

@tangor That's what I am afraid of. You can't pull back, can you? I.e. when a competitor writes bad reviews or when a customer gives you 1 star because he failed a course and blames you.

Plus, a competitor has around 3000 reviews on Trustpilot... how would it look when we have 20 after 6 months?

Our goal is that when someone writes "<OUR-BUSINESS-NAME> review" in Google there would be a few sites where we would be mentioned. So how about just using 3-4 smaller review sites and sending our premium members there?

[keyplyr]

I've successfully had 2 false reviews removed from Goolge and 1 false review removed from Yelp. Both were removed in just a couple days.

[guggi2000]

@keyplyr I am not sure we can have Google reviews because we are not a physical business, only online service. To my knowledge websites (online services) cannot be reviewed in Google, Yelp or Amazon.

[guggi2000]

Is anyone familiar with Facebook reviews:

1. Is it for the Facebook page only or is there a review mechanism outside of the context of the Facebook page?

2. If it goes south, can one reverse it?

Thanks

[keyplyr]

1. Yes, only for you FB page.

2. No, you're stuck with the rating people give you.

[guggi2000]

@keyplyr just saw that it works only for Facebook Pages under the category "Local Business" or "App" ... It looks like a mess anyway...

How about Twitter? Maybe asking people to Tweet something nice and then retweet it?

[tangor]

Ask away. Twitter, however, has a mind of its own, and rather unpredictable at best.

[Leosghost]

Not about review sites as such..But..Connected..
[bbc.com...]