Why are Online Reviews Important for all Business?
Online reviews have proven to be crucial in growing traffic and sales in today’s evolving times. Since the majority of people have access to the internet, the way people shop for almost everything has radically changed.
Whether you are buying expensive things such as electronics or just visiting the doctor near you, it’s rare to blindly make a purchase or visit the business without reading through online reviews. In 2020, the statistics show that 87% of consumers read online reviews about local businesses before making a buying decision. Also, 60% of customers check Google My Business reviews when searching for a local business.
More importantly, 90% of the customers or online shoppers reported that a negative review has convinced them to avoid visiting a business and in 35% of the cases only one negative review has affected the entire buying decision of the customer. These all statistics and facts about online reviews mean that no matter whatever industry your business is in, online reviews boost your presence on the internet and help you drive conversions.
Having looked upon the statistics on online reviews, let’s review the importance of online reviews for a business and why your business should encourage online reviews.
Make You More Visible
It is quite simple, being a successful brand means you’re a visible one. Today, the majority of the customers rely on search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. while making a purchase decision. These websites have their unique way of indexing and surfacing content, but all these search engines value original and fresh content.
Online reviews can be rewarding in such scenarios as it provides SEO and ranking benefits, especially in terms of local search. Customer reviews help you keep the content fresh, and your brand favoured by the algorithms. Additionally, having online customer reviews adds more strength to your listing as it gives you a balanced pipeline of progressive content which is further highly valued by the search engines. Google itself states that your business reviews and score are factored into local search ranking which proves that having more and more positive reviews can increase your Google ranking.
Build Trust and Credibility
Have you ever wondered what happens when your existing client or customer recommends your services/products to somebody else? It’s quite evident they won’t just visit your store or website and instantly make the buying decision. But what they will do for sure is, search for you online and compare your business reviews with your competitors to evaluate who’s the best.
Online reviews can provide a business with a strong base when building significant trust and credibility. If you have low or no reviews on online platforms, it means you might lose a potential customer even before you start pitching your service/product. The case is exactly the opposite when the business has several positive customer reviews then the potential buyer or customer would trust the majority and engage with your business, therefore, having a positive presence on the internet will eventually assist you in driving more conversions.
Provide Pivotal Feedback
Also, now customers are extremely smarter and knowledgeable about what goes on the internet if the feedback is entirely positive, 95% of the customers feel that those reviews are fake.
It is not necessary that every customer would drop a positive review about your business. But these types of reviews provide your business with pivotal feedback to improve on what went wrong for that customer and what changes are necessary for the future. Moreover, it also allows your business to communicate with troubled customers and provide them with a possible solution to the issue they are having. These type of interactions with customers and personalised responses make them feel valued and part of your company which further leaves a good impression about your brand/business.
A Clear Impact on Sales
There is sufficient data on the internet to prove that customer reviews have a positive impact on increased revenue. Today, brands that are viewed positively and have a star rating, have a positive effect on your sales. Even a small improvement in your customer reviews can have a massive impact on the business.
Studies have found that online reviews uplift the sales by an average of 18% along with several other benefits tagged to it like increased conversion rates, repeat order rates, and order sizes. It is quite logical and simple, if the customers or readers like what they see, they’ll engage with your business and will surely make a purchase.
Conclusion
Remember you are always under review. The way you utilise your marketing skills is good but having people and your target audience talk about you is the best way to boost your presence and ideas.
Also, Google is not the only platform where customers can find you, there are hundreds of other platforms where customers can drop a review or evaluate the reviews. Therefore, constantly encourage your customers to write reviews for your business when possible and you can ask them to do so through emails, SMS, phone calls, surveys, polls, or face-to-face instantly after the purchase.
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