Why Online Reviews Matter
By Malia K.
Digital Marketing Guide
Magnified Media
Consumers use reviews as part of their online research efforts to find their desired products and/or services. Business owners often question if online reviews play any vital role - here are the top reasons why they are essential in growing your business.
Social Proof
Consumers rely more and more on online reviews when buying products and services. A 2014 study found that 88% of consumers now trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. For businesses, and small businesses especially, online reviews bring the benefit of social proof to the table helping to increase (or decrease) the degree of trust.
Boost Rankings
Search is a powerful tool used for anything and everything. The presence of reviews, or lack thereof, directly impacts the way your business appears in the search results. Online reviews are thought to make up 10% of how Google and other search engines decide to rank results. The mental gap between reading a review and making a decision is very small and customers typically decide yes or no almost immediately. The likelihood of a potential customer buying from you is higher if your online reviews are favorable. 80% have changed their minds about a purchase based solely on the negative reviews they read.The more positive reviews, the higher the ranking and the better your business will look.
Indicators to Your Business
Reviews highlight the good and bad of your business and this difference can greatly impact your revenue. It is important to make a point of telling your customers that their opinion is a huge contribution to the way you do business. Ask for feedback at multiple points of contact and encourage customers to share their experience online. If you get any negative reviews, look at it from an objective point of view. If the problem or issue was pointed out, you can now work on it to better your business and improve its quality. Engage early and often.
Strengthen Your Brand Identity
If you incite reviews for your business, natural traffic may come and lead customers to use other products or services you can provide. Online reviews and customer feedback are some of the biggest factors affecting your reputation - leveraging these can help you establish credibility and trust more effectively.
Marketing Content
Reviews make for easy and effective contents to share on your website or across social channels. Sharing your reviews on social media are beneficial when consumers are actively looking online for recommendations not only on search engines but also through social media outlets. Crafting the right messaging in your marketing content can drive campaign success.
Build Trust
Watch the reviews and respond appropriately - consumers have an endless platform for airing grievances and a steady stream of people will draw their own conclusions. A healthy mix of positive and negative reviews will earn you the trust of your audience but be careful not to have too many negative reviews. It’s likely that every business will get a few negative reviews. Learn how to respond to negative Google reviews in a way that leaves the review and future customers satisfied. Take in and resolve these complaints because after all, the customer is always right.
Holistic Viewpoint
Ask customers to review you online and request some straightforward feedback so others can learn about your business. Customers offer insight not only into your specific product or service, but also into what the overall experience of engaging with your business is like.
Need an Agency You Can Trust?
Magnified Media specializes in online marketing for businesses and small companies throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. We are their trusted outsourced marketing solution, focused on doing three things: getting them more online reviews, clarifying their marketing message and creating content for their social media platforms. Focusing on these key areas for our clients means they can run their business without worrying about when or where the next customer is coming. We help build their business through reputation. Interested in seeing what we can do? Schedule your Free Online Presence Audit now. (Here is a map to our location.)
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