Google Reviews V Trust Pilot

[Redd]

Hello Guys. So I am having a debate with our new Sales & Marketing Guy.

We have always directed our clients in the service industry (Landscaping) to Google to leave reviews and it’s always served us well.

The new guy reckons we should be pushing clients to Trust Pilot and has started pushing clients there and ignoring Google My Business. (normally we would send them several links to leave a review with google at the top)

I am happy to be corrected here but surely Google should be the No.1 review platform we send clients to?

We don’t use ads much and our Seo has been built up over ten years and does us pretty well and therefore our webpage often sits top of google under ads and our GMB page directly next to it with over lots of reviews (although none in past 3 months which is what has irked me)

Based on the Industry what option/platform would you say is the best to be pushing 1st.

 

[estwig]

I'm in a similar line, loft conversions and house extensions, Google is king, always!

I make a good living from having a first class GMB setup, with loads of reviews, lots of trust and a good website that ranks well.

Your marketing guy needs a much better understanding of what you do, stop him now, before he f*cks up your GMB listing!

 

[Graham Tyers]

GMB for reviews is easiest by a mile but to compete with the functionality of Trustpilot you need to do a few extra bits and pieces yourself - like follow-ups and prompts to leave reviews if you're going to maximise the numbers. For a local-trade business I'd still say Google is the best bet.

Trustpilot costs a small fortune ( but still miles less than others ) We use reviews.io and that works well for us. Spoke to Trustpilot and just didn't get along at all.

 

[fisicx]

Google all the way. Don't trust TrustPilot as they will let premium members edit/delete reviews.

Tell the new guy he is wrong.

 

[Paul Carmen]

Both, but Google is often the most important; especially if you have decent organic brand search. However, some people will look on Trustpilot, some will see neither and just visit your website, maybe social etc. It really depends on where and how your customers interact with the brand.

If you want to grow and show reviews on all channels and customer touch points, then your marketing guy should be running an aggregated review programme that can be shown on websites, Google, organic results, PPC etc.

 

[tony84]

I send out an email to customers (or try to, I have not had chance for 6 months) that gives people al link to Google, Trustpilot and facebook to leave a review. Sometimes you get people who will leave a review no 2-3 of them.

 

[Graham Tyers]

I send out an email to customers (or try to, I have not had chance for 6 months) that gives people al link to Google, Trustpilot and facebook to leave a review. Sometimes you get people who will leave a review no 2-3 of them.

I think embracing them all is probably the best option. It's a bit of an old faff managing them, but people do like to use their favourite platform and asking them to learn a new skill can be a bit hard. We have reviews scattered around Google,Facebook,Trustpilot,and two or three others that I didn't even realised existed until they turned up.

 

[makeusvisible]

Hello Guys. So I am having a debate with our new Sales & Marketing Guy.

We have always directed our clients in the service industry (Landscaping) to Google to leave reviews and it’s always served us well.

The new guy reckons we should be pushing clients to Trust Pilot and has started pushing clients there and ignoring Google My Business. (normally we would send them several links to leave a review with google at the top)

I am happy to be corrected here but surely Google should be the No.1 review platform we send clients to?

We don’t use ads much and our Seo has been built up over ten years and does us pretty well and therefore our webpage often sits top of google under ads and our GMB page directly next to it with over lots of reviews (although none in past 3 months which is what has irked me)

Based on the Industry what option/platform would you say is the best to be pushing 1st.

As a side note. Google My Business, no longer exists and has been replaced with Google Business Profile.

If you gain reviews on Google Business Profile, those reviews will not be syndicated onto Google Ads.

So, if your sales and marketing guy is planning for you to go down the paid ads route via Google Ads, then he is making a good call. Having reviews syndicated across to Google Ads will improve the click thru rate of your Ads, as well as the obvious trust benefits, and likely improve your return on ad spend. You're not going to be able to achieve that using Google Business Profile, which is for local pack/maps reviews. That said, Google Business Profile reviews are a ranking factor.

The other factor is functionality if you are talking about a paid TrustPilot account. TP is vastly overpriced in my opinion. The functionality provided by Reviews.io is comparable, but often at a fraction of the cost, and will enable you to send extremely slick review invitations to customers, and reply to any reviews which are left.... and will give you access to a suite of reviews widget to dynamically showcase the best reviews on your website.

 

[Redd]

Thanks, yeah I get that, we have always ranked highly and never had to pay for ads and all our business is within 25 mile radius of our office.

 

[fisicx]

Thanks, yeah I get that, we have always ranked highly and never had to pay for ads and all our business is within 25 mile radius of our office.

In which case google reviews should be a preference. It means when people search for you they will see the profile and the reviews. If your profile is working correctly you should also appear in the map results - again with those reviews.

 

[JamieSaunders]

One thing I noticed is that no one seems to really care that Google reviews aren't vetted.

I think depending on the sort of customer your business has makes a change. For my company, we get a lot more eyes via Google, because usually they're Googling our name.

We are trying to do both, mix between them. I do like the idea of having certified reviews on TrustPilot, but I like the immediate, in your face acknowledgement of our reviews (and the ease) of Google.

 

[Peak District SEO]

We recommend a range of reviews. Obviously, Google reviews are the most prominent. who is google going to pay more attention to? their own review system or a 3rd party?

Trust Pilot, Facebook and any other reviews you can get can aid your visibility and reduce your reliance on one of the other.

 

[technicaloriga]

Hello Guys. So I am having a debate with our new Sales & Marketing Guy.

We have always directed our clients in the service industry (Landscaping) to Google to leave reviews and it’s always served us well.

The new guy reckons we should be pushing clients to Trust Pilot and has started pushing clients there and ignoring Google My Business. (normally we would send them several links to leave a review with google at the top)

I am happy to be corrected here but surely Google should be the No.1 review platform we send clients to?

We don’t use ads much and our Seo has been built up over ten years and does us pretty well and therefore our webpage often sits top of google under ads and our GMB page directly next to it with over lots of reviews (although none in past 3 months which is what has irked me)

Based on the Industry what option/platform would you say is the best to be pushing 1st.

You are exactly right! redd that google reviews always should be our first priority in terms of review and more-over Trustpilot is a subset of google and almost in your audience prefer google reviews over Trustpilot.

 

[aweuk]

So it is not worth using services such as TrustPilot for customer reviews to boost web search results ranking ?

 

[fisicx]

So it is not worth using services such as TrustPilot for customer reviews to boost web search results ranking ?

They won’t directly boost your ranking. The review may help your EAT but only if the review links back to the appropriate page.

 

[Paul Carmen]

They won’t directly boost your ranking. The review may help your EAT but only if the review links back to the appropriate page.

They will if you set them up correctly for product/service type reviews, and as fisicx says, ensure they are for the relevant product/service page. This means you get a review rating in the organic results.

If you're on Google page 1 for relevant searches, this normally drives a big uplift in CTR, as most sites don't have them. If your CTR is very strong, Google's algorithm tends to keep moving your page up the results, so although the review hasn't done anything for SEO itself, the result of displaying them well has...

This is time consuming to setup and optimise, plus requires a bit of maintenance and thought to make it work properly. It also needs the full fat, fairly expensive, paid package from Trustpilot to enable it. There are other options to do this, but the process is the same.