Understanding why you need online reviews will help you optimize your customer experience and help create a positive online presence. There’s no denying that online reviews are very significant today, and not just that, they are part of any marketing campaign. Maybe you are already on board, collecting customer reviews about the level of the service you provide and responding to the valuable feedback of your customers, but let’s take a step back to enumerate some reasons that highlight the importance of getting customer reviews for your business.
5 reasons why online reviews are important for your business
Make your business more visible and trustworthy. Most shoppers will look on search engines, or even on social media platforms or eCommerce before deciding what to buy. These websites all have their own unique ways of indexing and surfacing content, but they all have a special value, which means original and fresh content, customer reviews can definitely help feed and keep your brand favored by search engine algorithms. Your brand can build significant trust and credibility from a steady stream of positive reviews. One of the more interesting findings of recent research is just how powerful reviews are at building your company’s online identity.
Help your business to improve online rankings. Customer reviews play a crucial role today for organic search rankings in search engines. In fact, enabling customer reviews will add credibility to your company while new reviews are also going to add more unique content to your site. Reviews appear to be the most prominent ranking factor in local search, with local SEO tools. It helps businesses rank well, even if they have low-quality link profiles.
Have a clear impact on sales. Online reviews can demonstrably impact your bottom line. Brands that are viewed positively have better sales. Reviews drive an average of 18% sales uplift with benefits including increased conversion rates, order sizes, and repeat order rates.
Expand the conversation about you. Almost two-thirds of shoppers think that online reviews are an essential part of the decision-making process. When they want to know the best places to go, they’re more likely to turn to Google. Social media is a great tool, but the ability for customers to talk about you on other channels is a crucial component of your presence.
Give you an open line to consumers. More than simply posting reviews, consumers today expect companies to respond to their comments. These reviews also give you an opportunity, to be frank with consumers and reinforce positive reviews with thanks, or promotions. More importantly, they also give you a way to quickly rectify a poor review and show that you care.
How to generate reviews for your business?!
No one wants to waste money. Considering the number of brands that offer the same benefits, it is almost impossible to choose one and make sure that your money is being spent right. Access to reviews makes it much easier to judge the quality and authenticity of the product/service on offer. These days there is so much clutter in the market that deciding on buying anything can take a considerable amount of time and effort. The way to reduce this time and effort is through knowing what other consumers are buying, which products/services are trending, which products or brands are genuine, and whether they will provide everything they have promised.
Now, let’s talk about how to generate some awesome online reviews:
Get social. Facebook, Linked In, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat are the social media powerhouses that have the ability to make your business incredibly visible on the web. Review generation should be a foremost part of any marketing strategy, no matter how big or small the company. Keep in mind that review generation should be looked at as creating a system, not doing a bunch of one-off attempts to get a positive review. It is something you ultimately want to be automated.
Make it easy to review. Getting someone to write a review may take a bit of strategic planning. However, simply having review sites listed on the back of your business card can be an easy way to remind your customers to rate and review their experience. Also, make sure that any/all of your social media accounts are noted on your business card, as well.
Do great work. If you want positive customer ratings and reviews, then you need to make sure your business provides quality work anytime, and all the time. The fundamental building block of a great review is a great experience.
Be responsive. Quite possibly one of the more important aspects of securing future online reviews is the responsiveness to the review. When a prospective customer reads through reviews, seeing how an owner responds to those that have used their products or services. If there are no owner responses, it looks as though reviews are not appreciated. Owner responses build trust rapport, show appreciation, and demonstrate quality communication after services have been provided.
Maximize those online reviews. Getting customers to recognize your business and services online is not an incredibly difficult task. Make sure that your company’s values and missions are sound, make sure your employees understand that you are focused on being a customer-centric business. Without keeping these goals at the center of your marketing strategies, you won’t be able to generate quality online reviews.
Final Thoughts
Online customer reviews are here to stay, and the longer you wait to start encouraging them, the more you stand to lose. Online customer reviews appear to be a great avenue for grabbing consumer’s attention and increasing sales. The importance of customer reviews is an important aspect as they are very helpful to a vast majority of consumers and they are also responsible for securing your online visibility in search rankings. Furthermore, as they increase in importance and more competitors are encouraging customer reviews, your involvement is only going to become even more necessary.
