This week’s Ask An SEO has a question from a reader about how to encourage an underserved client base to post reviews. For Tony Wright’s advise, continue reading.

Kayle submitted the question for today’s Ask An SEO during a recent webinar.

What can we do to get senior customers who are less tech savvy to post reviews for us? Some people are unsure of how to submit a Google review.

Consistent processes lead to consistent reviews.

Companies that consistently receive positive feedback usually establish a procedure for asking happy clients for reviews. And those who don’t typically have an unfavorable online reputation.

To have a better online reputation and better local rankings, you must put a strategy in place whereby you communicate with happy customers and encourage them to submit reviews of your business.

You’ll note that I said “interact” with customers rather than “request a positive review.”

Be aware that it is against the terms of service for many websites where reviews are posted to ask for favorable reviews or to pay people for them, and that the consequences for doing so can be severe.

Although you cannot expressly request a positive review, you may always urge clients to do so. However, you have no control on the review’s tone.

Offering incentives in exchange for evaluations may seem appealing, but in the long run, the negative effects outweigh the positive ones.

Age-Based Demographic Outreach Advice

It can be difficult to reach an older audience.

Asking a member of an older generation to complete a certain task, like writing a review, can be rather frustrating.

Reviews do not adequately represent older consumers, even though there is no scarcity of senior citizens with sound perspectives.

So, if your consumer base is older, collecting reviews could be more difficult.

Here are a few strategies I’ve discovered that work well for soliciting feedback from an older audience.

Your friend is Bing.

Bing is the default search engine for most Microsoft products. Older users frequently leave this default in place.

Bing often converts better than Google, but it just doesn’t have the volume, according to our research.

Giving directions

On an orphan page (a website without navigation that is not indexed), we would typically construct a page with instructions on how to submit an online review.

We want our salespeople and other customer support staff to personally email customers with a link to the instructions page.

Think About A Car Dealership

When you last purchased a car, the salesperson probably underlined that receiving anything less than a perfect score meant you had failed.

You might not need to be so aggressive depending on your line of work, but outreach that is continuous is essential.

Whenever possible, automate

It might be difficult to stay on top of letters asking for evaluations when you have a large number of consumers.

You can automate numerous review management-related processes with the aid of automation solutions like GatherUp or Active Campaign.