Online reviews have changed the ways that taxpayers and small business owners choose whom to work with. A CPA, EA or tax accounting practice that has built a superb five-star rating will convert more visitors into clients and place more highly in search results.

More importantly, by adding review testimonials to your marketing strategy, you will see a significant and fairly quick boost. A CPA named Karen Drescher shared the following after adopting this strategy in 2015: “since publishing reviews on my CPA practice, my business has grown 35%.”

Google recently started including third-party reviews in its Google My Business listings. This is significant, as TaxBuzz reviews now show prominently at the top of Google’s search results.

We make it easy for our customers to attract five-star reviews, not just on TaxBuzz but on other review sites and on social sites such as Facebook. Reviews signal to the search engines that you are a legitimate business worthy of ranking highly in search results. We use a proven process that has generated five-star reviews for professionals across the country; some practices have attracted over 100 five-star reviews.

Let’s be real: Would you choose to work with a tax accounting professional with no feedback or one with 10+ five-star reviews?

How Consumers Use Online Reviews

According to Forrester, almost everyone reads reviews. Seventy-two percent of customers trust online opinions as much as they trust their own friends and family.

A recent Bright Local survey backs this up, finding that 92% of consumers now read online reviews. The star rating is the #1 factor that consumers use to judge a business. Even when a customer is referred to you by a current client, he or she will most likely Google your name before calling you. What these people find in the search results will have a significant effect on whether they contact you. Having no reviews—or worse yet, having one-star reviews - is a big red flag that will affect consumers’ buying behavior.

With TaxBuzz.com, we have created an easy way for your clients to share stories about their experiences. No amount of advertising or clever copy will tell your story better than real client reviews will. We verify that reviews are from real clients and provide consumers with a background screening badge to help build even more trust.

With Google My Business now displaying TaxBuzz reviews in search results, it is more important than ever to attract five-star reviews to put your brand in the best light possible. You could get more client conversions from referrals and online searches.

I imagine that you have perked up and have started either giving yourself accolades (if your practice has already built a program for attracting and managing your online reputation) or scratching your head (if you are realizing that you should start using this tool to build your practice).

No matter where you are now, you must realize that reviews play a major role in the success of your practice. The dominance of word of mouth has been disrupted, so it is time for your practice to catch on with this new method.

• The quantity and quality of reviews (both good and bad) play roles in your search-engine rankings.
• Reviews help determine which links consumers click on in search results.
• Reviews affect who consumers choose to work with.

Why TaxBuzz Reviews?

TaxBuzz allows you to have more control over your reputation than other third-party websites such as Yelp, which suppress positive reviews. On Yelp, many clients may only leave one review per year. Because they are not active members of the site, the reviews they leave for your practice are flagged as questionable by Yelp’s algorithms. The client may have spent time to acknowledge your service only to have the review be hidden. Because TaxBuzz can validate that a review came from a real client, we don’t have that problem. In addition, we encourage your clients to share their experiences with you.

Getting Started

If you are a current subscriber to ClientWhys or TaxBuzz and have not started a review campaign, simply call us at 1-800-442-2477 x4, and a Customer Success Representative will get your review program started.

If you are new to TaxBuzz, start by claiming your profile. You will want to update it with a quality photograph and biographical information. Be sure that the summary copy is unique to TaxBuzz, and include the services that you offer. You then have the option to add your client base to the system so that you can start your first review campaign. We are here to help, of course!