Repair Shop Advice

One of the things we are always encouraging our customers to do is to get local links. What are local links and why are they so important? Let’s dive in so you can start boosting your website’s performance through local relationships.

The three core pieces of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) are Architecture, Backlinks and Content. The acronym is easy to remember – ABC. Backlinks are links back to your website from other websites. Going forward for this blog I’m just going to refer to them as links.

The reason that links are so important is that Google uses them to assess the credibility of a website, as well as the focus of the website. The more inbound links your website gets from other websites that have proven to be credible, the more credible Google believes your website to be. Put another way, Google sees links as endorsements for your website.

The two most important types of links that you can get are quality industry links and local links. Industry links would include links to your website from:

• a program group you are a part of
• industry associations of which you are a member
• industry press like Motor Age, Ratchet & Wrench, AftermarketNews, etc.
• any other automotive industry entity

Local Links Drive Local Search

Local links are probably even more important than industry links. That’s because local links prove your credibility in your area. If you are doing business in Raleigh, North Carolina you aren’t trying to get consumers in Nevada to find your website. You want consumers in Raleigh, Cary, Apex, Wake Forest, Rolesville, Knightdale and other neighboring cities to find you.

Here are great sources of local links:

• Chamber of Commerce in your town or city
• Local organizations (community or nonprofit)
• Youth sports teams
• Community events
• Local media
• Other local businesses

If you partner with another business in town, you should each put a link on your website to the other business’s website. If you sponsor a youth sports team or dance team, ask them to put a link to your website on their website. Most community events automatically include a link to sponsors’ websites on their website.

If you are a member of a church and/or do charity work for a church, ask them to put a link on their website to your website. These types of links won’t help big national businesses. But for an auto repair shop they can be the key to your website being found when local people search for your services. And I’m sure I’ve left several good options for local links off the list – don’t let that limit you from asking.

Even if you are using a provider like Repair Shop Websites to manage and optimize your website, this is one of the action items that you should take to help ensure it searches well. You don’t need a hundred of these. If you can get a dozen, or a couple dozen, it can push you past your competitors.

If you want a website that rises to the top of the organic search results, call us at 855-294-6397 or schedule a meeting with us at a time that’s convenient for you!

How many consumers read reviews?

Are reviews especially important for the auto repair industry?

What are consumers looking for when reading reviews?

Thankfully BrightLocal recently released their Local Consumer Review Survey 2023 to help us find the answers to these questions and more when it comes to reviews. This thorough, in-depth and well-constructed survey includes viewpoints from 1,117 United States consumers in January 2023.

In the survey, 98% of people said that they read online reviews for local businesses. This was the same number as last year. However, where they look for reviews has changed. A giant 87% said that they look to Google for reviews. That is a jump up from 81% in 2022. Yelp was noted by 48% and Facebook was mentioned by 46%. One clear message here – reviews are really important and the vast majority of consumers look to Google for reviews.

Now let’s take a look at some of the other really interesting findings from the survey.

How important a part do online reviews play in your auto repair decisions?

“Automotive Services” tied with “Service businesses and tradespersons” and “Healthcare” at the top of the chart. 84% of survey respondents say reviews were important or very important. The other two got a slight advantage in the tie breaker because they had a higher percentage that chose very important.

We’ve seen plenty of data about consumers saying reviews are important, but to see that 84% of these survey respondents specifically said automotive service reviews were important or very important takes it to a whole new level for auto repair shop owners. We’ve been beating the drum for reviews for many years now but if you had any piece of doubt on their importance to auto repair shops that stat should eliminate it.

How much do consumers trust reviews?

Considering that many shops say that they get most of their business from word of mouth, they might be shocked to see that 46% of consumers said they trust reviews as much as personal recommendations from friends and family.

To drive the point home further, 35% of consumers say they trust reviews as much as recommendations from social media personalities they follow. Comparing those two numbers tells you that consumers trust recommendations from social media personalities more than the recommendations they get from friends and family. Wow – what a world we live in.

What review factors make consumers feel positive about using a business?

We’ve seen this question asked in similar surveys and this is a good data point for determining what consumers specifically like to see in reviews. Breaking down the top four most important factors in order:
• 69% said the review describes a positive experience
• 58% said the review has a high star rating
• 54% said the business owner has responded to the review
• 46% said the review had been posted within the past month

The takeaways here for auto repair shops:
• Encourage your customers to describe their experience in their reviews
• Respond to reviews, both good and bad, professionally of course
• Ask for reviews frequently and consistently because nearly half of consumers want to see recent reviews

Is it important to respond to reviews?

Yes – 88% of consumers said they would be likely to use a business that responds to all reviews. Interestingly, 60% said they would be likely to use a business that responds only to negative reviews versus 55% of people saying they would be likely to use a business that responds only to positive reviews. On the other side of it, 59% said they would not likely use a business that doesn’t respond to reviews.

Another key point here – consider your response to a negative review as your opportunity to win future customers. Potential customers are watching to see how you respond to that negative review and an unprofessional response can significantly hurt your business.

Which other platforms do consumers use when deciding whether to use a local business?

The three big ones here are YouTube, Local News and Instagram. It is important to note that Yelp and Facebook were included in the review platforms question so they would not be included here.

If you can do it, building a presence on YouTube and/or Instagram can be very beneficial for your business especially if your audience includes younger adults. And, getting featured on the local news doesn’t hurt either (especially if your audience is older)!

Reviews continue to be a critical part of an auto repair shop’s web presence. This survey further shows that consumers absolutely do use reviews to make decisions on what auto repair shops to call. The best time to start asking for reviews was 10 years ago, but if you haven’t started, the second best time is today!

Our Integrated Reviews platform helps our customers get more online reviews. To learn how we can help do that for your auto repair shop, call us at 855-294-6397 or schedule a meeting with us!

A big thank you goes out to BrightLocal for conducting this survey and creating such great visuals for it. The charts above come from them. If you’d like to see the whole survey, go to https://www.brightlocal.com/research/local-consumer-review-survey/.