The Difference Between Validated & Non-Validated Online Reviews
Updated: Oct 4, 2022
Online reviews are crucial to your SEO ranking online. The more reviews you have, the higher your name will appear in online search rankings. Reviews rule because “90% of customers read online reviews, and 88% of customers trust what they read.” – Forbes
Try Googling yourself in an Incognito window, and see where your name appears in the search results. Are you at the top? If not, you need to kick up your Digital Handshake!
Go 360:
Every service provider associated with a transaction can give you a review, and vice versa. Listing agent, buying agent, mortgage planner, escrow officer, pest company, contractor, home warranty company, insurance agent, etc.
Think about the people who you work with regularly, what can you say about them to represent their valuable services? Within your industry, you have an established network waiting to back you up. Everyone benefits from going 360!
Give before you receive. You should always take the opportunity to support your industry professionals, so start writing reviews for all your trusted professionals. Google and Facebook do not require reviews to come from clients. Write a review for your providers on Google and Facebook. Lastly, send a message with links to your sites and ask them to write a testimonial for you.
Validated Reviews:
A validated review is directly connected to a transaction, for example, Zillow, Realtor.com, and Yelp have clients fill out their review based on a deal they were on. These reviews have to come from past/current clients. Clients will need to create accounts and verify the details of their transactions. These reviews are authoritative when it comes to ranking and speak directly to your experience. They take a bit more work to get, but they will quickly transform your search rankings.
Non-Validated Reviews:
In contrast, a non-validated review does not have to be linked to a transaction, meaning that everyone can leave you a review. Friends, family, industry professionals, co-workers, and anyone else that can speak to your talent and skill. There are a few platforms that you can get these reviews on. The two most important are Google My Business and Facebook.
Try these three tips to increase your reviews:
Add your review links to your email signature
Send a text to your client asking for a review before your transaction closes
Email your database and ask them to review you
Furthermore, building your online credibility will start to build trust with your audience. Take a look at your profiles and see how many reviews you actually have. If you’re an experienced professional, you should have about 20+ reviews on each of your sites. These do not have to be the same reviews on each site, but you can ask your clients to copy and paste their review across sites. Reviews are the base for your platforms and will speak to your knowledge and expertise. They will be the difference between someone calling you or picking another professional.