A
disgruntled customer would have a somewhat limited audience when it came to
sharing news of their negative experience—they might tell their immediate group
of family and friends, but widespread dissemination of that verbal review would
be extremely unlikely. Not so in the age of the internet.
More than 8
in 10 consumers now trust online reviews as much as personal
recommendations—which means that as consumers, we’re all conditioned to seek
out online reviews before doing business with a new company.
They’re
everywhere
This trust
has led to new review sites popping up all the time, fueling the availability
of online reviews and giving consumers even more outlets for their opinions and
experiences. Reviews as a format have also grown in prominence, and you’ll now
see star ratings appearing alongside organic search results, in Google Local
results (the local pack) and even alongside AdWords paid search ads.
Online
reviews are also infiltrating social media and with Facebook now the second
most popular reviews and recommendations platform in the world, you don’t even
have to be proactive about soliciting reviews for consumers to share their
opinions of your company.
As a
business, you simply can’t hide from reviews—they will be displayed about your
business online and with so much consumer faith placed in the experiences of
both friends and strangers, the upshot is that online reviews can make or break
a small business’ bottom line.
They’re a
ranking factor
Research
carried out in 2017 confirmed that online reviews were an important ranking
factor and there was a clear correlation between volume of reviews, responses
and number of negative reviews with local search results.
Reviews can
improve click-throughs from GMB profiles
Consumers
put their faith in online reviews—87% of consumers look for 3-5 star reviews
before they will use a local business. If you aren’t regularly achieving an
average 3-5 star rating or aren’t actively soliciting reviews, chances are that
those potential customers will look elsewhere.
Reviews act
as social proof
Social media
is a crucial part of the consumer purchase process. With so many business pages
indexing highly in Google for the business name, it’s easy for a shopper to turn
to a business’ Facebook page to find out more information. Just as they do on
review platforms and search engines, Facebook reviews and recommendations act
as social proof of the quality of your business.
Social
commerce is also on the rise, meaning reviews on social platforms can impact on
purchase decisions in other ways, too. A 2017 research report by Open Influence
found that 47.7% of US social media users had made their most recent purchase
from Facebook.
You can use
reviews as trust signals on your site to increase conversions
Your
business’ reputation is your #1 asset. More than ever, potential customers go
online to look at reviews so they can make decisions about which local
businesses to patron, which products to purchase or which service to use.
With more
than 8 in 10 consumers trusting online reviews as much as a personal
recommendation, displaying carefully chosen 5-star reviews on your website
emits a strong trust signal and validates their decision to do business with
you.
Furthermore,
a growing number of consumers read more than 11 reviews before they feel they
can trust a business—so the easier the access to reviews you can provide on
your owned media channels, the higher the likelihood of conversions.
For more details on our products and
services, please feel free to visit us at Online Marketing Companies New Delhi, Social Media
Marketing New Delhi, Best Online
Marketing Company, Internet Marketing, Internet Marketing
India
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