G2 Crowd is a review platform for software and services in hundreds of categories — from full stack CRMs to cleaning services. It is one of the most popular software review websites, so if you work on software promotion this is a must, and if you work on promoting services this is a great additional source of relevant traffic. So keep reading to learn how to get the most out of it.
Why bother with ranking high on G2 Crowd?
1. Here’s the amount of traffic a front-row software gets per month on G2C:
Sorry about the screenshot quality, I took it while watching the live presentation of the paid subscription version.
Front-row means one of the top-4 results (used to be top-3 in 2016), like in Google’s organic search, top results get most of the traffic so you want to be in the top-4.
CRM front row
2. G2 Crowd generates high-quality leads.
62% of G2C users are managers (at least according to their LinkedIn job titles), which means there are a lot of decision-makers browsing the products and services.
3. In May 2017, G2C raised $30 M in funding from LinkedIn and Accel. So it’s going get better.
What affects the ranking?
- The number of reviews — this one is obvious.
- Score. In this case, it affects ranking way too much. It’s better to have one 5-star review than two 5-star and one 4-star review. So make sure to get just the positive reviews and you’ll be able to outrank those with more reviews.
Same star rating, but Savo has fewer negative reviews (and fewer in general) so it somehow ranks higher
- Diverse market presence — reviews should come from various countries, companies of all sizes, managers, executives, and employees.
- Individual ratings for various things such as ease of use, and individual ratings from employees of various levels (users, admins). Users have to answer questions related to these as they leave a review.Here’s a breakdown of what counts the most:
Six main points
What you’ll need to get reviews and rank higher?
All reviews on G2 Crowd are moderated manually. Which means that a G2C employee, reads the review, checks the user profile (to leave a review you must log in with Linked In) and looks for proof of use.
- A lot of active and aged Linked In profiles. If you don’t have those, and there is no reason why you should, you’ll have to ask real people to leave the reviews. Ask the people you trust, make sure they live in various countries, work for different companies and etc.
- Provide a screenshot of your service for review. A screenshot is the 2nd most important thing after the LinkedIn profile.
These icons will appear next to a valid review
The screenshot should serve as proof that reviewer is actually a user, the best screenshot is of the personal account page, where you can see that product is registered to the same name you see on the LinkedIn page. If this is not possible get screenshots where you can see the log out button, or dashboard, something that only a registered user can see.
- Correct answers in the review form. See Individual ratings part on the screenshot with breakdown of what counts. When you leave the review you’ll have to rate some things separately, make sure to put 9-10 star ratings where it counts the most.
That’s probably it. Just find a lot of people you trust, give them screenshots to use and ask them to leave positive reviews. Make sure to check the admin page on G2 Crowd, they have a lead generation feature (even in free version) and people will ask for quote or demo, so don’t miss those.
Want more Guerrilla Marketing tips? Check out my previous post: How to use Reddit comments for marketing