Since Google+ Local was released last May, it’s safe to say that everyone in the local search community -- business owners and agencies alike -- has been waiting with bated breath for the launch of Google’s rumored “Business Builder” dashboard. For whatever reason, it still isn’t out yet, but while you’re waiting, there’s no reason you can’t take advantage of the most underrated feature of Google+: the ability to interact on Google+ as a business page. And in particular, to leave reviews of other businesses as your business page.
Why leave reviews as a page?
Business owners, if this concept doesn’t immediately make sense to you, think of it like this: you probably go to networking events with your local chamber of commerce, Rotary club, or your industry trade group all the time. When you go to these events, you’re likely wearing your “business owner” hat, rather than your "weekend warrior" or "soccer mom" hat.
That’s essentially what this feature allows you to do: network socially with your “business owner” hat on, rather than your personal hat. Just like you would refer business to other business owners you trust and admire in these networking environments, the idea behind page-to-page recommendations on social networking sites works the same way.
Facebook gave its page users this functionality years ago, and many of you are likely accustomed to leaving comments on other Facebook pages and generally interacting with their community as their page rather than an individual profile. You may not have known, though, that you can do the same thing on Google+.
Why "Barnacle" reviews?
As far as I know, Search Influence's Will Scott was the pioneer of this concept in local search, which he defined as:
"Attaching oneself to a large fixed object and waiting for the customers to float by in the current."
As most of you would probably admit, it's hard work to optimize a local business website/Plus page/etc. So why not leverage pages that are already visible in your markets for your own visibility? That's the idea behind Barnacle SEO.
Will's original concept applied to link building to prominent Internet Yellow Pages profiles like Yelp business pages or Yahoo Local listings to increase the rankings of those profiles. As Facebook became more popular, he also applied the idea to Facebook conversations on popular pages in a given community (such as the home of your local newspaper or major/minor league sports team).
The problem is that with's Facebook's Timeline interface, comments and conversations drop "below the fold" awfully quickly, especially on popular pages with lots of conversations.
The results on Google+ Local pages, when done well, can yield much "stickier" results.
Getting started: using Google+ as your page
This part is pretty easy. Simply go to https://plus.google.com and log in with the Google Account under which you claimed your page. At the top righthand side, you'll see a dropdown that shows the pages on which you're an admin. Simply select the name of your page. Google will then take you to that page, and when it does, you should see the icon of the page show up at the top righthand side (rather than your personal profile photo).
You're now using Google+ as your business!
Getting your feet wet: reviewing friendly businesses
Going back to the Rotary club analogy, you probably already have a network of existing businesses that you refer friends and clients to in the offline world -- pay it forward and put your speech about why you would refer people to them out there for the entire Internet to see.
Chances are, when they Google themselves, they'll see your business' review right at the top of the list and might even leave YOU a review once they notice it.
Here's an example of this in action with my friend Mike Ramsey's business. You'll see, because he doesn't have that many reviews for his newspaper site, my face-for-radio shows up publicly right at the top of his list.
Kicking it up a notch: finding popular businesses
OK, that was simple enough. But most of your friends aren't likely to run tremendously popular businesses that are getting a lot of traffic from search, let alone organic activity on Google+. You want to identify who the most popular businesses are in your market. You probably have some idea of what they are already, but here are some algorithmically-influenced ways to find them.
1) Perform a search for "things to do" in your market
Google is showing more and more of these carousel-style results for these searches every day. The businesses and points of interest shown in this carousel tend to be the ones that get the most visibility on Google+.
2) See what businesses Google recommends at maps.google.com
Visit https://maps.google.com and see who Google shows to the left of the map -- both in text and image format. Again, these are likely to be popular businesses with lots of visibility on Google's local products.
3) See where top reviewers are going
Hat tip to my previously-mentioned friend Mike Ramsey of Nifty Marketing whose team authored this excellent piece earlier this week about how to find top reviewers on Google+ Local. Just follow the instructions in that post, and you'll get a screen like this. Chances are, most of the places visited by top reviewers are pretty popular.
4) See what places are popular on Foursquare
Visit foursquare.com and see what businesses are mentioned when you search for "best nearby." These places are going to have a lot of visibility among techies--good for a variety of reasons that I won't go into in this post.
Finishing things off: reviewing those businesses
So, the final step in the process is to leave a review of those top businesses. I don't have any earth-shattering tips for best practices when it comes to actually leaving a review, but I will point out that the more effort you put into leaving a killer review, the more likely it is that effort will be rewarded.
Why is that? Google+ sorts reviews by "Most Helpful" by default. This means that the better your review is, the more likely it is to have staying power over time -- which is the whole point of this exercise. You want people to gain real value from your review and have a positive experience when they see your brand for the first time.
Just like no one wants to talk to an incessant glad-hander or self-promoter at a networking event, no one wants to read reviews that talk about how great their own business is. Just imagine that you're talking to people face-to-face at one of these events, except instead of a 1:1 interaction, it's more like a 1:100 or a 1:1000 interaction.
Note that my business' review, though I left it over two weeks ago and haven't asked anyone to mark it as helpful, is still ranking second out of all reviews. Imagine the permanent "stickiness" of a review marked as helpful by even a handful of Google+ users.
Conclusion
Obviously, this technique works best for retail- or hospitality industry businesses, who are probably referring their guests to top attractions anyway, and are most likely to get traffic from out-of-town guests in the process of planning their trips.
But my guess is that (especially) in larger markets, even in-town residents are likely to do "recovery" searches on popular destinations -- where Google is increasingly pushing searchers towards Knowledge Graph results and popular reviews from prominent Google+ users. Make sure your business (or your clients' businesses) have a chance to gain this "barnacle" visibility.
In the comments, I'd love to hear if anyone has used this technique on their own, or on behalf of their clients, and what the results have been!
Please everyone, don't see this as the opportunity to spam. And just we're clear - leaving reviews with the intention of benefitting yourself = spam.
Thumbs up to that! If you can't add some value to a review or a unique perspective its most likely a worthless review.
dkoblintz,Agree 100%. If you approach this as a spam technique and don't add actual value for the Plus community with B2B reviews, it's not going to work anyway. They'll vote your review down as unhelpful and no one will see it anyway.
Great post, David. This is one of those head-smackingly obvious tactics you don't even think about until someone else brings your attention to it. It's very easy to start with suppliers you've used and go from there. I have about 20 people I've recommended on LinkedIn - I might just do the same on Google now, too. They sure aren't gonna complain!
I tell you what though... This could prove to be very powerful to Google, if lots of people partake. If more people are leaving reviews, which are tied to their Google+ accounts, then more people will inevitably be more likely to engage with G+ properly. Smart move, Google...
A totally smart move. I've long believed that the main rollout strategy behind Google+ was to get businesses on board first, and that the more businesses were onboard, the more their customers would get onboard. The delay of the "Business Builder" dashboard has put a dent in my confidence in that strategy though ;)
After you leave a review, call the business and tell them you did. Ask if they would like one to add to their site. Now your getting a double value. (You can email then as well)
That's an awesome strategy! Link building anyone?
This has been recently suggested to me. I have worked on a couple of reviews but not had any response yet, but it is way too new for me. Real Estate professionals that I know have had some positive results from this and the actual reviews have come up in a search. I think it is a great way to get exposure and will continue to put more out there. It makes perfect sense and super easy to do.
This is a perfect strategy for real estate agents! People new to the area want to know what's good in the town they're about to move to. You can even point people on your website to the page on Google Plus that lists all your B2B reviews (here's mine) and/or copy snippets from them to your site for some easy content wins.
Thanks for the example David. I am a visual learner and do so much better when I have examples of things to look at. Looks great.
I had already seen the "blackhat" side. The company reviewed all his clients, but also mentioned their role. Translated from dutch it said: "This is an excellent company, we do their gardning and maintenance for years now."
Jskooij, these are the kind of reviews that are going to get marked as unhelpful. If the blackhat version of this strategy is "working" now
a) Even if the reviews are staying visible, the business who left them just looks stupid.
b) Eventually the community is going to mark them as unhelpful and they'll disappear.
1. Even if community don't vote that review as unhelpful, nobody would trust review like that.
2. If you see company having 5 reviews, they probably got these reviews from friends and family. If you see company with 1000+ reviews, chances are much smaller that these reviews are artificial (and probably not everything would be voted as excellent)
Interesting read. There is a lot of room for levels of grey and black hats here though, if you dont have a legit review to leave for someone then it doesnt add value to the reader.
Erik, I disagree. If someone tried a gray- or black-hat version of this technique, it wouldn't work anyway. The Plus community would vote down their reviews or flag them as inappropriate.
I would hope so, but many pages are not actively looked at by users who care enough to flag or downvote. The main point of my statement was that a review should be legit and provide value to other users curious about what others think on the place. Thanks for the reply back as well :)
Great strategy. It's only a pity that a lot of businesses are not in the local category - so no reviews are possible...
>> Obviously, this technique works best for retail- or hospitality industry businesses
So true. Retail and Hospitality, and other types of businesses that have a broad customer demographic base, and/or a repetitive customer busing cycle, can use techniques like this more effectively than a niche business with occasional or one time sales point... think restaurant vs. Lamborghini dealer.
Exactly right, James.
I have actually been doing this for quite a few years. I didn't start with reviews though, I started posting on other local businesses FB pages when they posted events or new things on theirs I would comment and that would get me in front of eyes that didn't know about me before. As a small business I thought this might help me, it has worked well. I have been careful to not post on like businesses pages and I never expect them to post on mine.
In a tiny town it is not as easy to be anonymous so you need to learn to be tactful. This article gives me ideas I can run with....
Thank you.
That's if Google+ allows your reviews to show up. I've done reviews myself of friendly businesses, and have asked happy clients to review my own business, and more often than not, reviews do not show up. I think Google+ wants to prevent spam or something, but a great portion of reviews go into limbo never to be seen again. I've contacted Google regarding this to no avail.
Very useful but wanted to get your view on something. I've noticed something very, very odd, and not just in a few search results. It seems that if you have a google local or google+ page you may be being penalised in the organic search results so you don't appear twice for organic searches. I know it sounds odd, unlikely even, but having checked and checked again in a few categories many of the top results don't have map listings or google + accounts - and if they do they are lingering somewhere unnoticeable.
I think there is something going on where google is unable to reconcile organic search and map results that create duplicate results at least in some categories so oddly, those who have worked hardest to please google (without gaming) are being punished! Would be interested to hear your views.
Hi Brighter Media,Google does tend to merge place-based and organic results as part of its universal algorithm these days, where it can identify the same URL.
One thing you might try is submitting your homepage to Google Places / Google Plus rather than an individual location page (which will likely rank organically on a decent website) to see if you might be able to get two listings. I wouldn't recommend this strategy ordinarily, but if this situation is a priority for you, it might be worth the experiment.
Hi david, thanks for the reply, but what I am seeing is that those who have google+ are getting no benefits in the organic search results - perhaps even a negative effect. For example, if you do a search for "london photographer" 90% of the results on page 1 *don't* have a google+ page. Those that do even with higher pageranks are appearing lower even if they are more targeted. It may be a complete coincidence but I think google may be having problems reconciling the data somehow.
Great article. Makes perfect sense!
Hi David,
I think i've just fallen at the first hurdle here...I signed in to google + as myself (from where i manage my "local" page) but my "google + business page" didn't show up? I then realised that i removed mine a few months back after reading somewhere that it is not advisable to have both a "G+ Business page" and a "Google + Local page"
Here is my Google + local page where I have been collecting reviews: https://plus.google.com/104152073739177270099/about?gl=uk&hl=en
Should i now create a Google + business page so that i can do as you're suggesting here and review other businesses as my business?What is the real difference between the two? I heard a while ago that google were going to merge local and business pages?
Really useful article. Thanks
its much easier to use google+ when you are in SEO and what you said is true, they'll see your business' review right at the top of the list and might even leave YOU a review once they notice it. thanks for sharing us this information. its a great help. keep it up.
Only businesses with physical addresses are eligible for a Google+ Local page themselves. The same strategy should work there as well.
Businesses can take advantage of Google+ communities and get some reviews on their way.
More social mentions of your business as well as brand will surely give you an edge if you are doing local marketing. Small business owners can take advantage of this big time.
Great post, David. Totally makes sense to leave reviews with your Google+ local page. Quick question: any reason why you chose to create a Google+ local page as opposed to a Google+ Business (brand or company page)? From what we've researched, the lines in the sand are still really fuzzy with this one. Hopefully with the new dashboard upgrade this month it will all be sorted out.... fingers crossed!!
Good post David, I like Google plus more than Facebook. It is nice, very helpful in returning the full fledged social signal. Really useful post.
Thanks a lot...
hi david,i think it's an awesome business idea for google+ and also beneficial for the idea oera of SEO.i think also "barnacle"reviews will bring an new era in ranking system of social media site business.
'"barnacle" reviews' - what a great way to describe them, and so important since Google ranks Google+ much higher than other social media. I will be trying this method and I will hopefully get back with some results.
I really like this 'barnacle' concept. When you're a small fish in a big pond, you should be doing all you can to gain an advantage (sounds obvious but so many companies don't!) and the barnacle SEO concept works for this. Taking away the SEO perspective, I believe that B2B reviews would carry more authority from a users point of view anyway, giving you the best of both worlds.
Awesome. Always nice to get new angles on SEO, link-building, and networking. Don't use my business Google+ page much, but this makes it a bit more appealing.
Excellent strategy. It's only a pity that a lot of businesses are not in the local category - so no reviews are possible.
First, great article. This can be a big help to many people.
Just a quick warning; there is a large population that equates SEO with spam so posting a review for a business as an SEO company like ours might actually hurt yourself and the business you are reviewing as some might see it as fake. This is a very powerful technique and can lend a lot of credibility to your company, improve relationships with fellow business owners, and result in new customers. Just wanted to warn of some dangers though.
Agreed, this technique is not appropriate for SEO or marketing companies -- what's the value for them in showing up out of context? Minimal at best.
Great Post David.
Bonus tip you can post in G+ communities as a business as well : )
Question:If the business address is hidden such as a SAB they are not allowed to have a G+ business page correct?
I believe that is correct that you need a physical address in order to have a business page.
That's correct. Only businesses with physical addresses are eligible for a Google+ Local page themselves. You can still create a "Brand" page on Google+, though, and I think the same strategy will still work.
I have an SAB with both Google + Local page and a Google plus business page and the old Google places page is still active.
Interest article. I wonder what the people at Google have to say about it... Great Read!
@alex_miklin
I live in Romania and I'm actually among the first users who leaves reviews on Google+ Pages. Compared to the US web, local SEO here seems pretty underdeveloped, and optimizing a Google+ Local listing is pretty easy (there's practically no competition). Given these circumstances, the technique you described doesn't have a lot of impact here, as you can achieve most of what is achievable through basic Local SEO techniques.
I heard this since 2 weeks, yes it’s great, hope it will help to find out real time B2B information and arriving quality customer.
So we work with B2B sites and a Google rep told us to remove our "Local" page, and only keep a Google+ business page. They said only brick and mortar businesses, or places with a storefront should technically keep their Google Local pages. Unfortunately the Google+ business pages don't allow for reviews at this time though so Google said to focus on getting +1s. What is your response to this?
I've heard this from Google too and have seen them remove "Local" listings that was a residential address or PO box. I can't see how it would be in your best interest to remove it now, most of the niches I see, the local page has too high of visibility.
Posting reviews on listings that have an offer or two:I love the ideas above. One really neat idea is to look for retailers that not only have a large presence and are popular but I think it's valuable to cross reference or add to the list those with businesses that have a Google Offer. Here's why. If I a business submits an offer that means at some point someone engaged on that page. This doesn't necessarily mean they will continue to but it gives way better odds. The second thing is there are a group of people(I'm in this category) who love to get good deals and they scour the businesses that have offers. When they find an offer they like what do they do next? Go to the business page to see the reviews. If they reviews are good, they buy the offer. If not, continue searching. If you're posting a positive review and they like the reviews as a whole they'll stay on the listing for longer possibly giving you more exposure.
Thoughts?
Interesting strategy! I think some comments here are a bit on the paranoid side, but executed "authentically", I can see how this could be an awesome strategy to network.
Wow, David, thanks for the tips. I keep telling myself I need to do more reviews - at least 1/month and ideally 1/wk. I love this idea of using my biz page. I never would have thought about that. Brilliant. Thank you.
i have tried using curl call but didn't get success for all reviews. also seen the content of document :https://developers.google.com/+/api/latest/people/get can You just give me the idea about google api to grab review data.
this is the profile link i want to fetch all the reviews inside More buttons too. https://plus.google.com/116018016837619707952/about
@David Mihm ,@Melo_Air