Why Employee Reviews Matter

Employee reviews offer a transparent window into a company’s culture, work environment, and leadership. They are a powerful tool for prospective candidates who rely on authentic feedback to make informed decisions about where to work.

• Building Trust and Credibility: Positive reviews from current and former employees signal a supportive and engaging workplace. According to a 2023 Glassdoor study, 86% of job seekers read company reviews before applying. Authentic, positive feedback builds trust, while addressing negative reviews constructively shows a commitment to improvement.
• Attracting Top Talent: High-quality candidates are more likely to apply to companies with strong review ratings. A consistent stream of positive reviews can differentiate your organization from competitors, showcasing your commitment to employee satisfaction.
• SEO Benefits: Reviews contribute to search engine optimization (SEO). Platforms like Glassdoor and Indeed rank higher in search results when companies have active, up-to-date profiles with frequent reviews. This visibility ensures your company appears when candidates search for opportunities.
• AI Benefits: In the same way reviews and recruitment profiles contribute to SEO they also help you get found on AI.  Prospective employees ask AI about good places to work or they may ask about working at your company specifically.
• Feedback for Improvement: Reviews aren’t just for candidates—they provide valuable insights for employers. Constructive feedback highlights areas for growth, helping companies refine their culture, benefits, or management practices.
• Helping the Sales Process: Prospective customers will also look at your Employee reviews to determine what your employees think of you.  Bad employee reviews can be a red flag and an indication of a company not being run well.

The Power of a Strong Online Presence on Recruitment Platforms

A well-maintained presence on recruitment-focused websites like LinkedIn, Glassdoor, and Indeed is more than just a digital storefront—it’s a strategic tool for talent acquisition.

• Showcasing Company Culture: Recruitment platforms allow companies to highlight their mission, values, and workplace perks through detailed profiles, photos, and employee testimonials. A vibrant profile with regular updates creates a compelling narrative that resonates with job seekers.
• Wider Reach to Diverse Talent: Platforms like LinkedIn have global reach, connecting you with candidates from diverse backgrounds and skill sets. A strong profile ensures your job postings are seen by both active and passive candidates, expanding your talent pool.
• Engaging with Candidates: Many recruitment platforms enable direct interaction with candidates through messaging, job alerts, or Q&A sections. Engaging promptly and professionally demonstrates that your company values its applicants, fostering a positive candidate experience.
• Competitive Advantage: Companies with outdated or incomplete profiles risk being overlooked. A polished, active presence signals that your organization is forward-thinking and invested in its workforce, giving you an edge over competitors with lackluster profiles.

Best Practices for Leveraging Reviews and Online Presence

To maximize the benefits of employee reviews and recruitment platforms, consider these actionable steps:

1. Encourage Authentic Reviews: Motivate employees to share honest feedback by creating a culture of openness. Avoid pressuring staff for positive reviews, as authenticity is key to building trust.
2. Respond to Reviews Professionally: Acknowledge both positive and negative reviews with thoughtful responses. Thank employees for praise and address concerns constructively to show accountability.
3. Optimize Your Profiles: Regularly update your company profiles on recruitment platforms with current job openings, employee stories, and high-quality visuals. Ensure your branding is consistent across all platforms.
4. Monitor and Analyze Feedback: Use analytics tools to track review trends and sentiment. This data can guide improvements in employee experience and recruitment strategies.
5. Promote Your Presence: Share links to your profiles on your company website, social media, and job postings. Encourage candidates to explore reviews and learn about your culture before applying.

Types of Recruitment Platforms

Recruitment and job platforms are not just limited to Job sites like Indeed or Monster.  Some platforms have a focus on what its like to work for a company or focus on a particular niche such as IT Jobs. Some of these platform types include:

• Jobs.  LinkedIn, Indeed, Monster .
• Reviews.  Glassdoor, Blind.
• Company Culture.  Great Places to Work, FairyGodBoss, Comparably.
• Industry. VentureLoop.
• Australia. Seek.
• German.  Xing.

See more about the best Online Recruitment Platforms.

Conclusion

In a world where candidates have access to a wealth of information, employee reviews and a strong online presence on recruitment platforms are non-negotiable for companies aiming to attract and retain top talent. By fostering authentic reviews and maintaining an engaging, professional presence, businesses can build trust, enhance their employer brand, and stand out in a crowded job market. Investing in these areas isn’t just about recruitment—it’s about creating a workplace that employees are proud to endorse and candidates are eager to join.

myPresences helps you manage your Online Presence and Reputation on 30 top recruitment focused websites and apps in addition to the hundreds of other review platforms we work with.

Try a 14 day free trial today and start building a strong employer brand online.

What is Local SEO?

Essentially, simply being found locally by people searching for you.

This could be Google Maps (the Google Business Profile), or organic Google Search (your website), or even in local Facebook Groups where locals ask about various services and businesses.

For example, if you are looking for an Electrician in Auckland NZ, then showing up on Google Maps is a strong play.  So would presence in a local Facebook Group, where people ask about Electrical services.

When we evaluate where leads come into these types of local businesses, it’s always amazing to us that often, the Google Maps listing (Google Business Profile), will send more customers to the business than what their website does!

What we’ve found in our work helping businesses rank better locally over the last few years, is that Reviews (Google, Facebook, other 3rd party options) are THE most important factor in improving your presence, and getting customers locally.

Yes, there are quite a few things to do to ensure you win locally on Google etc, but we’ve found if there is ONE thing that stands out, it’s getting good, regular reviews.

Obviously using a tool like myPresences will help you in this regard, so please consider using their help here.

Remember – regular reviews help you convert browsers into customers – almost everyone these days is looking at reviews online to establish if you are a good business.

We’ll list out some steps you can take to ensure you are getting good, regular reviews so that you can win locally online:

Always loop back to customers asking for feedback

This sounds obvious but it is truly amazing how many businesses do not do this.

For our clients, we work with them to design a feedback workflow that is mostly automated.

For example, every Monday, clients from the previous week get an email simply asking for any feedback on how their experience was.

If the reply comes into the marketing team inbox, and its +ve, a follow up goes out asking for a review.

Designing the emails and reach-out process is a once off job, following people up is manual, but well worth it.

Provide a 2nd Review option apart from Google

We’ve found that lots of people can’t or won’t leave Google Reviews.  There are various reasons for this.

We’ve also noticed though that the Google Business Profile picks up reviews from other places, like Facebook pages.

So, we get clients to provide a 2nd option as well, and oftentimes we’ve noted that a customer might not have a Google account, but they do have a Facebook account.

All reviews count, all reviews help you get noticed, all reviews help you rank higher in a variety of places.  Go get those reviews!

Go back to older customers

When a new client comes to us, we get them to design a strategy to reach out to customers from further back in time, e.g. last year, the year before that etc.

This is for 3 reasons – reviews, referrals, and reactivations.

Imagine you bought some shoes 2 years ago from your local sports shoe retailer.  You get an offer via email for 30% off any new pair of shoes that people are free to share with friends.

This can generate a referral to a friend, a reactivation of that customer, and then give you an opportunity to generate a review as well from that client.  It’s a very worthwhile tactic.

Recently we worked with our own Business Advisor, to discover ways to increase profit.

We were shocked at how much new clients were costing us in acquisition costs, so the idea of reaching out to existing clients certainly hit home for us.

Older customers can be such a great source of reviews, referrals, and reactivations!

To conclude – we can’t recommend ramping up your review acquisition enough.

Google Business Profile recently made this even easier by providing a built in QR code to their platform, so get busy and figure out the best method for your business.

More information:

Optimize your business for AI recommendations

Google Business Profile Management

SEO Checklist for local businesses

Chances are you will receive reviews online, and not all of them will be fair or even accurate.  However, you need to embrace them and have an online reviews strategy that turns reviews to your advantage and puts you in control.

Love them or hate them, you need to take online reviews seriously as they can make a major difference to your bottom line.  You have the power to make that a positive effect and to put a strategy in place to ensure your business has the best online review profile possible. If you don’t you are just building your competitors businesses.

Why are online reviews critical to your business?

1. People expect to see reviews

People want to read reviews of your business before they choose you.  They expect a good business to have them. If they cannot find reviews for your business they will move on to your competitors. If you have no reviews people may assume your business is not good and will avoid it.  This only pushes your prospective customers to your competitors, growing their business at your expense.

Don’t underestimate the importance of social proof when choosing a business.

2. Google My Business

Google My Business is the most important presence online for most local businesses. For you to rank well and appear in the Google Local Pack you will need to have reviews in greater numbers than your competitors (and with better ratings).  With only 3 places on the Google Local Pack appearing in this top 3 can be difficult but may make or break your business.

Reviews account for 15.44% of how Google ranks a local business. Businesses appearing in Google’s top 3 local positions have an average of 47 google reviews.

You should be generating reviews on Google My Business as a matter of priority as well as on Facebook and other major profiles.

3. You need good ratings to appear on page 1

In addition to Google My Business there are lots of other places potential customers will look for you.  Services like Yelp, Tripadvisor, Zomato, Facebook and many others. These services have websites and mobile apps where consumers are looking for local businesses. The great thing about these apps is that people using them are very likely to be close to making a purchase.

If any of these services are important to your business you should aim for the highest rating possible so that you appear as high as possible in search on these apps and websites.  Most people don’t look past the first page of results and it is usually your ratings that determine where you rank.

4. Insurance

You don’t want to be the business with no reviews or 1 review and then comes a 1 star review.  If you haven’t already built a corpus of good reviews, these bad reviews that come out of the blue can destroy your ability to be found and chosen online.  You then have to scramble to get more good reviews quickly which might send a bad signal to companies like Google potentially getting your profile penalised.

Having a large number of good reviews  (4.0 star and up) also gives consumers a counter point to the bad review, they can see that you have many happy customers.

Ensure you are generating reviews on all your major presences online in a natural way over time.  This way, when a bad reviews occur they won’t majorly affect your reputation.

5. Feedback

Feedback is critical to any business.  Do you have access to critical feedback on your business now? Sure there will be some that are just plain unfair and wrong, but the real critical feedback will be invaluable.

Ask your customers for reviews and feedback and take what they say with a critical eye to your business. Maybe they will identify a problem you can address or an employee that needs further training.  Getting this feedback can make or break your business.

6. Increased presence

Being listed on review services increases your businesses online presence.  You should not feel negative if your business appears on one of these services.  These presences give you the opportunity to be found online more often and may include  backlinks to help your business rank better online.

There are probably many review services in your niche and if you are not listed there already you should get listed, claim your profile and start encouraging your customers to review you there.

7. Social Proof

All of the reviews and feedback generated online can also have another benefit, you can publish your best reviews on your website as social proof to potential customers visiting your website.  If you get a great review on Google My Business, Facebook or Yelp show the people who are your best prospects, the ones on your website already.  Some amazing social proof may be all they need to tip the balance and make them a customer of your business.

91% of 18-34-year-olds trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.

Where is your business at right now? Do you have reviews? Are the reviews on the right services where customers look for you? Is your average rating high enough to get noticed?

Looking to kickstart your business’s online reviews strategy?

myPresences helps your business manage your online reviews across 100’s of online review sites, and request new reviews from your happy clients.  You can then showcase these reviews on your website automatically.

Try a 14 day free trial of myPresences today.  See where you have reviews and start showcasing your best reviews on your website within minutes.

Don’t overlook the value of your business’s Online Presence and Online Reputation and the potential for improvement as a way to increase sales.

Your Online Presence refers to your business’s overall footprint online and includes things like social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), directory sites (Yelp, Tripadvisor, Yellow Pages) and even apps plus a lot more. These are places where consumers can engage with your business online and hopefully make a connection that will lead to a sale, either now or in the future.

Your Online Reputation refers to online reviews and ratings for your business but also includes the mentions, comments and even photos and videos from your business, they all contribute to your reputation online.

Here are a few ways improving your presence and reputation online can help you get more sales.

Being listed in more places gets you found more

Its common sense! If your business is not listed where your customers look for you then you have no chance of them choosing your business.  Even worse, you will be passing them straight to your competitors that are listed.

This does not mean you need to be listed in all the 100’s of places online relevant to your business, but you should aim to be listed on the services that are important to your client base (at the very least).  You should also be listed on any niche services for your industry as people looking there are more likely to be interested in using a service like yours.  Hyper-local services are also very important, these are services that only list business local to a region and are very important for local SEO.

While you are getting your business listed make each of your listings as compelling as possible.  Include things like photos, offers, your logo and anything else that will stop consumers from looking further.

 A better online presence helps you rank better

As a local business you need to be aware of the importance of local search.  You are doing a Local Search if you search for a type of business in a certain area and when you do this you receive a special set of results that includes a map and 3 local listings.  These local listings are often at the top of the page and are the most prominent results.

This is one of the last places you can get free access to the google homepage as a local business and it is very important that you optimize your business’s online presence so that you can rank in the top 3 that appear on the first page of results.

You can do this by creating more listings online where your business Name, Address and Phone Number appear and by ensuring that these are as consistent and accurate as possible across all your profiles.

Improving your information means interested customers can find you

It is hard enough attracting interested consumers to your profile, but when they arrive and the information is incorrect or incomplete you are creating a bigger problem.  If a client tries to call or drives to your business location and finds it is incorrect then they are likely to move on and go to your competitors.

Reviews help your business stand out

Reviews are very important to all businesses, they play an important part in the decision process of deciding whether to patronise your business or your competitors.

When consumers see you have reviews they are more likely to choose your business to see more and it is often the extra information they find in your reviews (or your replies to reviews) that makes the difference.

Having reviews on your profiles will often mean your business will rank higher on these services, this is increasingly a big factor in getting to page 1 of search results on many services.

Bad ratings might mean people never see your business

If your ratings on a service are below the average ratings of your competitors then chances are your business will either be pushed off page 1 or may never be shown at all.  If your ratings are letting you down on major sites like Yelp, Google and Tripadvisor then this can have a significant effect on your revenue.

Many of these sites allow you to filter by rating,  so ensuring your business is as high as possible should be a priority.

Below is a ratings filter for google that allows you to focus on restaurants with a rating of 4 or better.

The ratings filter allows you to filter businesses based on rating.

Your business will appear in places you never expected

Listing your business on some services will mean your business will not only be listed on that service but potentially hundreds (or even thousands) of other services.  This is particularly true of services like Foursquare, Factual, Infogroup, Axciom and Localeze but many services will share their listing information with other services.

It is not only other websites where your business will be visible, one of the most important places where you want your business is in apps on phones or tablets.  Ensuring your business is listed on services like Foursquare, Google Local, Yelp, Facebook and more will make your busiess available to anyone building an online service using their API.  This is incredibly important and something most business owners are not aware of but having at least a presence on these services is highly recommended.  As an example, Uber uses Foursquare for their place database and if your business is not in Foursquare then when people are using the Uber App they will not be able to select your business as a pickup location or (more importantly) destination.

Your business’s Presence and Reputation online is something that is only going to become more important every year as more and more consumers rely on online to connect with local business. You should aim to create a presence for your business that maximises your ability to get in front of consumers when they are looking for businesses like yours and then ensure when they find you they are impressed with what they find.

Once you have established a strong presence and enviable reputation for your business you will not only see an increase in revenue but will will be well positioned to benefit from the continued