Before I get into any type of marketing strategy or lead generation topics for roofing companies, there is one thing that I need to address. That is google reviews. You can do all the marketing that you want. At the end of the day if you have a 2-star google rating or worse no reviews (yes this is worse believe it our not.), then your marketing dollars are being wasted.

Why Google Reviews Are Important For You Roofing Business

So how do you get these google reviews and why is google review marketing so important for your business? Google reviews are important for roofing companies because they show that you are not a fly by not roofing company. We all know when big storms come through a town roofing companies pop out of nowhere and take advantage of people.

How do you separate your business from these companies? Google reviews! Yes, you may have been around for 20-30 years, and yes word of mouth marketing for your roofing company helps you stand out. At the end of the day though people are going to go to their phones and Google you. When they do that what are they going to see? Will they see reviews that will make them want to call you from your Google map listing? Or are they going to be looking for another business? Google reviews are really simple, and they are the best word of mouth advertising your roofing company can get.

How do you get Google reviews for a roofing business?

Well, there are many different ways to get Google reviews. There are plenty of companies that sell review generating platforms like Review Buzz, or you can just as for your reviews and save yourself some money.

Now you are saying, Adam, I ask my customers to give my roofing business reviews all the time! They say they will, and they never do! Well, roofing business owner people are lazy, and they forget things. That is why if you want Google reviews you are going to have to put in the work!

One of the ways that I recommend people get Google reviews is by going through their customer lists and finding all of the Gmail accounts that they have. If a past customer has a Gmail account, it means they can quickly leave a review because they have an account with Google. You then send that customer a personalized email, thanking them for choosing your business. If you are a locally owned and operated business you can thank the customer for supporting your local roofing business and in turn supporting their community. I have also had owners put in pictures of their families or of their team to give more of a personal touch to the email. In the email, you will have a link to your Google review page asking them to leave your roofing company a review as it’s a great way to support a local business. So how do you find this link to your Google review page?

Finding the URL to your Google review listing

To see the URL for your Google review listing, you need to Google your roofing business. Search for your specific business and look for your roofing business listing. On desktop it should be on the right-hand side with your businesses name, operating hours, service area and your Google reviews! Scroll down the page until you find a tab that says write a review. Click on the tab, and it will open up a link for you to write a review if you are logged into your Google account. Once you see this screen, copy the URL, and you will send that to your email list.

Creating a Google My Business Listing For Roofing Company

If you Google your roofing company and you do not see a business listing on the right-hand side of your screen that means that you most likely do not have a Google my business listing and you need to create one. All you need to do is Google GMB listing and Google will take you to its GMB page and help you create a free business listing (I will write more about this later as GMB pages are super relevant as well).

Responding to Negative Roofing Google Reviews

So odds are you are going to get a bad review at some point. I have worked with many companies before, and this has always been an end of the world all hands on deck situation. I have heard it all when it comes to handling lousy roofing Google reviews. Just an FYI we cannot call Google and pay them to take it down, Google is not running a racket like Yelp is. Unless it has profanities or is just an all out inappropriate review, odds are it’s not going anywhere. The best way to handle this? Write a well thought out response.

Why take the time to write a response? Because you can turn a bad situation into an opportunity to promote your roofing business. You think the fly by night roofing companies cares enough to respond to negative reviews? No way! Just go in and first acknowledge that the customer had a bad experience. Ask them to contact you right away so you can work with them to improve their experience with your company. Odds are with Roofing CPA you spent $200 to get that customers business and you want to protect the investment that you made, so they come back to you again when they move to their new house. So taking the time to do this is well worth it if your business is playing the long game.

All you need to do to respond is going to the GMB login page and login to your business listing. From there go to the reviews section, and you should be able to see each review and respond to the review from there.

Google Reviews and How they help your Roofing Marketing Strategy

First, the more Google reviews you have, the better chance that you’re Google my business roofing listing in maps will be higher. As google reviews do play a significant role in the local search ranking process. Great Google reviews will also help convince people to call you directly from the map listing or at the very least click your map listing to go to your site. The beautiful part of all of that is that its free!

Google reviews also help with Google Local Services search ads, as reviews are now tied into these ads. Google Local Search ads are what Google Home services ads use to be. Though these ads have not affected the roofing industry yet they will and the more reviews you have, the better prepared you will be.

Google paid search also benefits from this because people will not convert on your ad if they can see that you have terrible reviews. You could be spending tons of money, but without good google reviews, you are going to be looking at a higher roofing cost per lead on AdWords.

Traditional marketing will also benefit because as you raise brand awareness, people will look your company up. As long as you have good reviews, they will continue to research you and your business. Thus they continue down the marketing funnel on their way to becoming a roofing lead for your business.

Google Roofing Review Conclusion

Having good Google reviews is very important for your roofing business. Google reviews in one way or another support your marketing efforts. If you have terrible reviews, the marketing dollars that you are spending to send people to your site may end up being wasted. With great reviews, you can maximize your marketing spend and bring down your cost per lead significantly.

Please comment below with any questions that you may have or go to my contact page to email me directly if you have any questions about Google reviews!