Since the inception of local business listings, businesses have explored various methods to get more customer reviews. These reviews provide valuable insight into consumer sentiment, common pain points and areas for improvement.
While many companies use paid tools to analyze review data, there are cost-effective methods for extracting similar insights, especially for smaller companies with limited budgets.
This article:
Explore how to pull entities from your Google Business Profile (GBP) and competitor listings using the Pleper API service. Examines the impact of the entities mentioned in the reviews on local search visibility, specifically on Google’s local 3-pack results. Covers ethical techniques for promoting entities that generate revenue through review solicitation efforts while adhering to Google’s guidelines.
Analyze GBP reviews for business insights
Companies like Yext, Reputation, and Birdeye can analyze the top entities mentioned in reviews and provide insight into sentiment around each. However, they can also come at a pretty hefty price tag.
Investing in these tools is essential for businesses that manage numerous listings across multiple platforms. However, extracting information from competitor lists remains expensive. Monitoring competitor listings for review information is often considered an unjustifiable expense.
Smaller companies can manage listings cost-effectively by assigning an in-house marketing employee, but extracting valuable information from reviews without using tools is more difficult.
Dig Deeper: How to turn your Google Business Profile into an income generating channel
Fortunately, there is a much more cost-effective method of collecting entities from GBP revisions using the Pleper API service.
Collect site IDs for the list
For small batches, using Google Place ID demo works well for collecting site IDs for your business listings and for local competitor listings.
I’ve found the following formula works well for searching these listings: {company name}, {company address}.
For larger batches, I recommend using Google’s Place ID API. Using the above formula as a search query, site IDs can be gathered quickly and efficiently.
Use the Pleper API to collect information about each listing
After you’ve collected the site ID for each listing, use Pleper’s Scrape API to retrieve the listing information. Once the data is retrieved, use an analysis script to extract review topics and assign a value to each topic based on sentiment.
Here’s an example script that will do just that:
import pandas as pd def extract_review_topics(data): topics_list = []
sentiment_map = { ‘positive’: 1, ‘neutral’: 0, ‘negative’: -1 } for input[‘results’][‘google/by-profile/information’]: if ‘results’ in input and ‘review_topics’ in input[‘results’]: by the subject at the entrance[‘results’][‘review_topics’]: topic_details = { ‘Company Name’ : input[‘results’].get(‘name’, ‘N/A’), ‘Address’: input[‘results’].get(‘address’, ‘N/A’), ‘Site ID’: input[‘payload’][‘profile_url’]’Topic’: topic.get(‘topic’, ‘N/A’), ‘Count’: topic.get(‘count’, 0), ‘Sentiment’: sentiment_map.get(topic.get(‘sentiment’ , ‘neutral’), 0) } list_topics.append(details_topics) return list_topics_data_topics = extract_review_topics (result_by-batch) df = pd.DataFrame (data_topics) print (df)
Now that the data has been successfully retrieved from Pleper and parsed into a pandas dataframe, matplotlib can be used to create a word cloud like the following:
Word clouds can be created for individual listings or aggregated data across all listings for a brand. Comparing the word clouds of your business listings to those of the competition can yield some really valuable insights.
The impact of entities on local package 3 outcomes
Entities have been featured in reviews for some time; however, I haven’t seen many SEOs trying to promote revenue generating entities in the review request.
When possible, entities mentioned in a query are highlighted within the local 3-pack via list reviews. This usually happens for long-tail queries, where more context is provided to Google about what the searcher is looking for.
To better understand the impact of entities within reviews, we analyze the results of two queries:
Sports stores near me
Sports store with baseball near me
Here are some takeaways from comparing these two queries:
Google dynamically changed the displayed image from the DICK’S warehouse sale listing to show the baseball section. Google calls out baseball review mentions in bold. As a searcher, I find this made these listings more attractive, as would their “In Stock” feature. The SERP dropped Going, Going, Gone! of the local 3 pack even though I was next to it. In my opinion, this has merit as Going, Going, Gone! has a lower stock of equipment than the typical DICK’S store and leans primarily toward clothing. Pro Image Sports is a clothing store that offers a sporty appeal. It is also 2.5 miles further to the next closest sporting goods store, Play It Again Sports, which carries baseball gear.
When I compared these results, I couldn’t help but believe that the mention of baseball in the Pro Image Sports review increased its visibility within the 3-pack, so I investigated further.
Looking at the review topics provided by Google for Play it Again Sports, I noticed a large number of reviews about “golf clubs”, so I changed the query to “Golf club sports store near me”.
Targeting a theme most frequently mentioned in Play It Again Sports reviews, they appeared within the local 3-pack.
From this little experiment, it’s clear that review topics (entities) play a role in the local visibility of 3-packs, and a bigger role than I previously thought.
Deeper: How to Establish Your Brand Entity for SEO: A 5-Step Guide
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Google Guidelines state that the request for review must be honest, impartial and without incentives. Companies should also avoid review control.
You can ask for reviews on specific topics and remind customers about the products or services they used. Implementation will vary depending on each company’s approach to requesting reviews.
Add a statement like “Tell us about your experience buying baseball gear from us” above the review link in the application email.
It is important not to overdo this message to avoid biased feedback from customers. For example, avoid saying, “Tell us about your positive experience buying high-quality baseball gear from us.”
While this claim does not inherently create bias because it does not provide an incentive to leave a positive review, it can be considered manipulative, which does not fully align with Google’s guidelines for honest and unbiased reviews.
Dig Deeper: Unlocking the potential of Google reviews for local SEO
Application of review information for business results
After learning how to analyze listings (your own and competitors’), how review topics (entities) influence local 3-pack visibility, and how to increase the number of entities within reviews, it’s time to bring it all together to drive business results.
Sharing information from your company listing reviews with the appropriate internal stakeholders is key to helping inform strategic and operational changes. The knowledge of the competition can be a driver of these changes.
For example, if a competing barbershop uses hot towels on every haircut and your company does not, this data can help make the case that your company should do the same.
Then work internally to leverage business intelligence (i.e. customer purchase data) in review solicitation efforts to promote entities within reviews. Implementation of these efforts will vary based on the company’s technology stack and ability to integrate data.
A more simplistic approach may be necessary for companies that lack the ability to integrate data. In these situations, I recommend attaching a generic statement to the request communication to identify a specific entity.
An example might be a mechanic shop adding the following statement to increase mentions of “mechanics”.
“Tell us about your experience at our shop and the quality of our mechanics.”
Regardless of the internal approach, reviews are crucial to local SEO and shaping consumer perceptions. As an SEO, you can help your business understand its strengths and weaknesses as you work to improve local search visibility.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.
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