StoragePug is a modern marketing company for self storage. We create intelligent marketing websites that allow you to rent units & take payments through your facility’s website.
Online reviews are an essential part of doing business today. The 2017 BrightLocal survey on local consumer reviews uncovered these findings:
85% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.
Online reviews play an important role in how consumers evaluate and choose businesses.
So where are the most important places to get online reviews for your self storage facility?
The most important place is Google, followed closely by Yelp and Facebook.
Experts also recommend focusing on one or two industry sites as well.
StoragePug does not recommend asking customers to leave a review directly on your website and not in a more public arena. This is because only visitors to your website will see those reviews, whereas many more people will see reviews posted on the “Big Three” (Google, Yelp and Facebook).
If you’re going to put reviews on your website, your best option is to pull them from Google, Yelp, and Facebook. The good news is that StoragePug can work with you to incorporate online reviews onto your self storage website.
For an example of what we can do for you, check out the review page for StoragePug client Boardwalk Storage or Storage Masters.
As you’ll see, the page incorporates reviews from Google and Yelp and displays them in a style that matches the rest of the website. We also included links where customers can leave a review on Google.
So why are Google, Facebook, and Yelp so important? A brief look at their usage statistics will demonstrate why your business needs to harness the reach and power of the reviews on these sites.
Google has a commanding lead in search engine usage throughout the world, with a market share of 63.4% in the U.S. Worldwide, Google serves up 3 billion search results a day and has 5 billion active users.
For mobile searches, Google dominates with 93% of the market share.
Because Google puts Google My Business data on Search, Maps, and Google+, Google customer reviews show up in searches and can potentially increase your SEO—making them essential for the credibility of your business.
Google prioritizes searches that display local intent, ie. "Self Storage near me". They show the Google 3 Pack which shows 3 local businesses that get placed above the top organic results. When you have reviews on Google, they show up in the 3 pack.
Garnering more online reviews is a critical component to include in your self storage marketing strategy.
At StoragePug we take the reviews that you received on Google, Yelp and Facebook and not only put them on your website, but we make them show up on Google searches.
This increases the click through rate by gaining trust with the customer before they come to your website.
Established in 2004, Yelp is a crowd-sourced review site that is almost synonymous with online business reviews.
It is currently the largest outlet for online customer reviews for all types of businesses, which means it can’t be ignored. Since its inception, Yelpers have posted 163 million reviews.
In the second quarter of 2018, a monthly average of 32 million unique visitors visited Yelp via the Yelp app, and 72 million unique visitors visited Yelp via mobile web.
Almost a quarter of the world’s population uses Facebook, and it accounts for 42% of monthly social media visits in the U.S. Because any Facebook user can post a review for a business, businesses can’t afford to ignore Facebook reviews.
It is important to realize that there are two different ways a business can be reviewed on Facebook—on their business page and as a place.
As a business, you can “claim” your place listing and then actively manage it on your page.
If you don’t do this, your facility will still be listed and reviewed as a place. So even if your facility doesn’t have a Facebook page, it might still be reviewed as a place. See this article for more information.
Experts in reputation management recommend that businesses focus on reviews published on the Big Three and any niche industry sites.
For travel-related companies, this means sites such as TripAdvisor. For the self-storage industry, Sparefoot.com and Selfstorage.com are two to consider. Although not review sites per se, both allow consumers to search for self storage facilities, and reviews are part of the listings.
You’ll want to make sure your facility shows up in both places because if you’re not listed, your competitors might be.
To learn more about Sparefoot, click here. To learn more about Selfstorage.com, click here.
To start harnessing the power of online reviews on your self storage website, contact StoragePug to learn what we can do for you.
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