Lately my clients have been asking about increasing their online reviews and presence. It’s important for prospective clients and customers to be able to find you online and get reviews from other past clients who have experienced your work. And sometimes that’s hard to do than others.

I had a doctor appointment last week and the next day I had an email asking me to review my experience online for them. My mother in law had a handout in her “goody bag” at the dentist asking for a Google+ review if she was happy with her dental experience (and said nothing about if it was an awful experience). Sometimes your business lends itself to easily ask for reviews, and other times it’s a bigger challenge. So, here’s 3 way you can increase your online reviews.

1. Ask. We all know what I think about asking, you should do it. When you finish working with a client, or at the end of a big project (or when they’ve just emailed you a really nice note about how great you are), respond and ask if you can use that, or if they wouldn’t mind posting something on your Google+, Facebook, AngiesList, Yelp, etc page. Just ask for ONE, not all of them!
2. Be Active! If you want folks to review and comment on your accounts, YOU need to be active on them. An ignored Google+ page is not somewhere I want to leave a review. An active page where you’ve posted something in the last week and seem to be paying attention to it, that’s where I’ll be responding.
3. Be Honest. Occasionally I’ll email all my clients with an update. It’s usually something a bit more HR-ish. My vacation schedule, a sick day, rate change, etc. So why not include something like this? Just be honest “I’m trying to increase my online presence and adding reviews is a part of that. If you’re comfortable would you mind writing a couple of lines on Google+, LinkedIn or Yelp about me and our work together? If you need help with what to write I’m happy to help or review. And if you don’t have time or don’t want to, that’s OK too!”

Being straight forward and asking is always the easiest way to do this, but make it easy for clients and customers to review and talk about how great you are. Make sure your social media buttons are on your website, on your follow up materials, and when someone says something nice, and it makes sense, ask them to publish it. It can’t hurt to ask!