The Power And Impact Of Google Hotel Reviews

What's in it for me?

Review management is an important aspect of overall reputation management and if your hotel is not getting enough reviews on Google, it surely is a matter of concern. From enhancing your visibility to strengthening your position further on the online platform, your hotel's Google reviews act as a vital trust indicator, thereby providing you with a myriad of benefits to stay ahead in the review game!

‍

‍

“If you don’t want your users to abandon your website then do all you can in your power to make sure they don’t leave!”

Google seems to have taken the resolution above seriously through its quite recent, extremely helpful, user-friendly, and aesthetically pleasing Google Hotel Reviews. 

‍

Good reviews mean a good reputation for hotels in today’s world!

‍

In the context of the hospitality industry, the majority of the hospitality institutions, aim to have a good online reputation. They have realized that in order to do so, a good backup of consistently flowing (positive) reviews as well as an effective online reputation management strategy to deal with these reviews is absolutely essential. This is usually the case since travelers, consumers, or people prior to accessing any service or product, usually prefer to seek opinions of fellow consumers or travelers- more than what the brand has to say or offer. From this viewpoint, hotel reviews on Google play a crucial role!

79% will read between six and 12 reviews before making a purchase decision and 81% of travelers frequently or always read reviews before booking a hotel.

What Are Google Reviews

‍

‍

Various travel websites, portals, and platforms have been gaining momentum and enjoying a steep rise in popularity over the past few years. Hotel review platforms such as Google, TripAdvisor, Booking.com among others have been the most popular destinations for guests to gain information about hotels and go through the personal experiences of previous travelers who have stayed there before. These platforms have been playing an increasingly significant role since their inception and are quintessential for every traveler. 

Google is certainly one of the largest platforms and a great hotel review site. It is the most popular channel people turn to for reviews, with approximately 59 percent of shoppers using it for their travel research (Bizrate Insights, 2021). This particular data is yet another indicator of Google’s rising dominance in the sphere of online travel. However, in the beginning, Google was initially ignored as a viable review option for hotels. They primarily emphasized collecting reviews from third-party sources. Everything changed once Google decided to expand its review platform followed by integrating it with map listings and search results. As of August 2021, Google reviews account for 57.5% of all reviews worldwide across the various review platforms.

Creating a strong review portfolio on Google usually provides a host of advantages to its clients. Perhaps the most important and significant advantage of using this particular domain is increased visibility and traffic. In addition, a consistent rise in rankings can also be witnessed from positive reviews which are primarily aimed at improving the performance of the hotel in search results. It has also initiated the process of grouping reviews so that people using the platform for the relevant search results can find them with ease. 

This is a significant aspect of the entire mechanism as this consists of one of the most important ranking factors such as Google reviews for hotels, on-page optimization, and Google My Business. 

‍

What Makes Google A Top Website For Guest Feedback

‍

‍

Over the last few years, Google hotels reviews have become an essential and integral part of every hospitality organization.

With a significant rise in the volume of review websites due to the millions of new users that keep getting added to the world of the web, Google reviews can be usually found in any business listing on Google My Business. It will be visible once when the business appears in the local search results in either Google Maps or Google. Positive reviews will improve the conversions and click-through rates. In addition, Google also provides the opportunity to the users with an aspect that is regarded as ‘Review Summaries’. This usually includes keywords that are highlighted, average star rating and show up in Google Map searches. By showing a kind of meta-review results in a carousel, Google differentiates its review presentation from other platforms. 

The most attractive aspect of Google hotel reviews is its very review-interface aiding people to make more informed decisions about the choice of accommodation. With third-party reviews embedded in the same matrix, the highly enriched review interface is both aesthetically pleasing and useful for travelers during their travel shopping experience.

‍

How Does The Google Reviews For Hotels Work

‍

‍

When you search for a particular hotel, Google selects the most suitable reviews on the accommodation of your choice from the search results and presents the keywords in bold in the review summaries on the accommodation’s Google listing under the “Reviews” tab. This depicts the usefulness and benefits of trying to get your customers/travelers to use phrases with which you would like to be associated (your SEO keywords ideally) in the Google hotels reviews.

For instance, if your customers are looking precisely for reviews related to the “location” of a particular property, using that keyword Google will display the reviews with content related to location in the reviews section. Also, hovering slightly over the tab location will show the total number of reviews that are talking about this aspect with a meter or bar depicting the number of positive, mixed, and negative reviews on location as given by the users.

‍

Role Of Google Reviews In Improving Online Reputation

‍

‍

Running a hotel can be considered a demanding and arduous endeavor with a never-ending and wide range of responsibilities ranging from providing top-notch customer service, cleaning, and maintenance, taking care of customers’ needs to managing online reputation. The aim of having a strong online presence on Google is to depict a positive online reputation which usually helps in attracting more customers or travelers to the hotel, increasing traffic in websites, collecting leads, and eventually increasing hotel bookings which, in turn, helps in generating more revenue. In order to do so, it is absolutely essential on the part of the hotel to have an effective review management strategy in place to deal with online reviews.

On a platform like Google, a positive online reputation is considered to be a key ingredient for the survival and prosperity of modern-day business organizations which becomes far more critical for customer-oriented industries such as the hospitality. Due to rapid advancements in technology, online reputation can be easily managed through an effective online reputation management software. Moreover, with the cut-throat competition prevalent in this market, any and every possible tool or feature that provides even the slightest advantage is usually adopted by hospitality organizations. 

‍

Google Hotel Reviews Have An Impact On Your Hotel Revenue

‍

‍

Google reviews play a significant role in regulating the hotel’s ROI. Claiming around 5.5 billion searches per day or over 63,000 search queries per second, Google boasts of a highly enriched and interactive review interface that lets travelers make an informed decision about their travel shopping. With 81% of people frequently reading reviews before booking a hotel, Google search results sometimes act as the final word for a majority of travelers looking to pick the right accommodation for their needs based on online reviews. 

It is mentionworthy that Google helps the hotels indicate the quality of their business in a detailed manner on its platform, including the keyword richness that comes from the guest reviews already provided. Smacking highly of value and brand richness, the existing reviews provide a scope for the new guests or hotel visitors to write about their own experiences. With mobile GPS and Google Maps, it becomes easier to track a users’ whereabouts and send them a subtle reminder on rating and reviewing their experience at your hotel. 

In addition to this, with its advanced algorithm, Google verifies, analyses, and distills opinions from verified reviews and structures the content well in the form of highly comprehensible reviews summaries which is what is referred to as the “Meta-Reviews.”

Google hotel reviews on your property, especially the positive ones can lead to good placement of your business on the site in SERPs. Reviews have been a crucial tool for conversion and increasing the business ROI. A platform like Google facilitating the same by attracting users to see your business in a more positive light allows enhancing the overall brand value and visibility.

‍

Search Engines Aren’t Just Listening to You,

They Are Also Listening To What Your Customers Have to Say About You!

‍

Benefits At A Glance

‍

70% of people trust online reviews more than advertisements.

Google has made it simple with Google Customer Reviews (GCR). 

GCR can be termed as a service that allows business organizations to collect reviews on their website. Google usually sends an email to your customers regarding their willingness to provide feedback on their experience with a product or service offered by your brand. Customers who are willing to participate receive a short survey form to be filled out. The feedback and ratings provided by the consumers/guests can be displayed by you on various marketing platforms and on your website. It also helps in the process of determining the seller ratings that are provided by Google to the merchants, which also includes the number of ratings and average star rating. The higher the volume of rating and higher the quality of rating, the more trusted the business is usually considered to be. 

‍

‍

Google hotel reviews have the potential to improve your holistic performance and address issues that might be one of the catalysts behind your brand’s inability to secure more bookings through your Google hotel star ratings. Some of the reasons outlining the importance of Google reviews for your property have been provided below:

• Strong Social Proof - One of the most essential ingredients for successfully running a business is to gain the trust of your customers. This is precisely what Google reviews help you to do. The customer feedback gathered by your organization can be leveraged for attracting new customers/travelers by gaining their trust through the creation of social proof. This results in a cascading effect such as a bunch of positive feedback that makes other potential guests trust you and feel comfortable while choosing your hotel as their ideal destination. In turn, this improves the rate of conversion. 

• Boosted Local SEO - If you are willing to boost your local SEO, then leveraging Google reviews to obtain maximum benefit is an ideal move for you. Search engines provide you the opportunity to serve up relevant establishments or businesses in local search queries. In order to do so, they usually consider the type of services or products offered by your business. In this regard, the opinions of the people/travelers are valued by them the most who have a first-hand experience of obtaining your services, such as, booking a room in your hotel. This is where GCR comes in handy. Their data analytics, reviews, and other features assist search engines to be aware of the businesses to be recommended to the respective users. Better reviews are branded by Google rewards by providing them a higher ranking in the results of the search engines. This could be done by asking your guests to write a hotel review on Google.

‍

Google Hotel Reviews: Important Benefits

• Higher brand value and higher quality of service - Optimal utilization of the aforementioned resources and tools has the potential to create a better brand value while simultaneously improving your service quality. This is usually done by leveraging the GCR by getting feedback from your customers/travelers. This feedback is the key to improving your brand value and creating an experience for your guests that they will cherish for the rest of their lives. 

• Greater improvement in your online reputation - Securing online reviews through GCR helps you to understand the issues plaguing your organization and provides you the opportunity to address them as soon as possible. Having a proper and effective strategy to deal with reviews, especially the negative ones, can be a game-changer for your business and drastically improve your online reputation. However, you can always opt for effective online reputation management providers for handling your organization’s online reputation and review management.

‍

How To Manage Reviews On Google

‍

‍

The significance of having a proper plan to handle Google hotel reviews is certainly one of the most important factors behind the success of any modern hospitality organization. Some of the ways in which Google reviews and responses can be managed to maximize the potential of your business are as follows:

• Reviews provide us with the perfect opportunity to accept the problem, understand them, and implement changes accordingly. If your guests are unhappy regarding something such as the lack of proper communication, lack of cleaning, malfunctioning amenities among others, you can quickly take the necessary steps to address them. 
• If the reviews are few, it is recommended to alter the strategy of responding to reviews and reply to all the reviews.
• While responding to Google reviews, it is important to remember that the most relevant reviews are being shown to the users by default. Relevance for Google is usually based on the frequency with which the name of any establishment is mentioned along with the pictures and word count,.
• Being time-sensitive is yet another crucial factor. Responding quickly to the reviews on Google can be beneficial and critical for both the parties i.e., you and the guest. Ideally, responses to reviews should be within 24 - 48 hours. 
• Using a Review Management Solution is a must in today’s highly competitive world.

‍

Conclusion

Reviews are the bedrock of the modern hospitality industry and an integral part of the consumer’s decision-making process. The volume of reviews along with the nature of the reviews i.e., whether it is positive or negative help in determining the quality of the accommodation for the consumers and travelers. Google is one of the largest organizations in the world and association with Google hotel reviews promises a variety of benefits for hotel businesses. It also helps to optimally utilize your resources and consistently become better than before.