It’s not often that people make a purchase or visit a new business without first reading through several reviews, agreed? In fact, over 90% of consumers read at least one online review before deciding to visit a business. Now we can discuss facts and numbers all day, but today we are going to be discussing five. Yes, five! The Top 5 Reasons Why Online Reviews Are Essential to Your Business. Ready?

Social Proof Encourages Purchases | As consumers, we are more likely to make a decision on a purchase if others around us are in agreement that it is a good decision. Online reviews are the biggest source of social proof, and they have a crystal clear impact on your sales.

They Help Your Visibility | Consumers rely on search engines when it comes to making decisions. Search sites like Google, Bing, and even Facebook put a high value on original, fresh content and your customer’s reviews help provide a consistent source of content. This all helps your company be favored by the ol’ search engine algorithms.

Search engines value a steady flow of content and when you rank higher, the algorithms and people see you as an authority within your field which leads to yet again, more exposure. In simple terms, your SEO increases, and you bump yourself up the “list” as new reviews come in.

Online Reviews Help You Look Trustworthy | It’s hard for many, if not a majority, of consumers to trust a business…pause…that has a rating below four stars. That’s an extremely tight window at the top of the proverbial SEO food chain. But companies with better average ratings and a higher number of reviews are far more likely to see those reviews convert to traffic and sales.

Online Reviews Help You Better Understand Your Customer Base & Improve Customer Experience | Surprise! Not really, but providing your customers with the level of service they expect and often deserve is not rocket science. But how you go about doing this can lead you down a rabbit hole of options. Analyzing reviews can help you understand overall customer satisfaction and what your customers truly want when visiting your business. Armed with that data, you will know exactly how to provide them with the service they expect. Taking this information and creating a customer service program around it will help you improve customer service, which will lead to a better experience, then leading to more reviews and the cycle continues.

Reviews Generate More Reviews | Yes, reviews lead to more reviews. Therefore having more reviews does encourage others to want to leave a review of their own and so on. Like a chain reaction, exactly! Just the simple appearance of more reviews seems to be enough to motivate new customers to want to leave a review of their own. FOMO? Maybe.

So what now? There is a process for online reviews management. You have to ask for them, that is the absolute best way to get the reviews you need. Now I’m not saying to go asking for 5-star reviews, you want true honest feedback, so simply asking them to leave feedback online is enough. You need to respond to all of your reviews. Positive or negative reviews both need equal amounts of attention and both need a response in a professional manner. And I will leave you with one last bit, think of it as a marathon, be patient.

In the end, your company’s reputation affects your business directly. Trying to have some sort of control over what people say about you online is a very important task. But increasing your review velocity and rating can have a great impact on business and help you build trust. The way you market your business is important, but having people talk about your business, with trust, and in a positive way goes a long long way

If you would like to learn more about online reputation management and how I can help, please contact me. I would love to help. Contact Me