Nigel Wilkinson
Managing Director of Daneswood. Nigel has been in sales and marketing since the 1980's and run digital marketing agencies since 2000.
There was once a time, before Google and Facebook and all the others when word of mouth was one of the most important ways in which people could generate business.
Customers would tell their friends and family about the excellent service they received and they would then, in turn, visit the business and so on.
It may seem that in the days of SEO, digital ads and social media that this way of working has become arcane, but in fact, nothing is further from the truth.
Digital reviews work on exactly the same principle and are vitally important for the success of your online business.
Online Business Review Success
To benefit from online reviews, it is important to understand how they work.
Below are five reasons why reviews are so vital for your business.
Reviews Boost SEO
Companies with a good number of reviews benefit from being displayed higher in search results. This makes it easier for customers to find you and it helps to improve your click-through rate.
Combined, you have a much better chance of increasing your number of conversions.
Relationship Building
Online reviews, as we have said, work in the same principle as word of mouth. If someone has taken the time to write a review online for your business, this shows that they have a relationship strong enough to take the time to do this.
Anyone seeing these reviews will recognise this and it reinforces the positive message, encouraging potential customers to then click through and visit your website.
Additionally, you need to consider the people that will be leaving a review. Most likely these will be loyal customers, so you already have a community of people that you can engage with to help drive sales.
It’s Free!
It might not be the first thing you consider but perhaps it should be.
An online review costs nothing and yet can produce major gains. Remember – never look a gift horse in the mouth.
Ask for reviews as much as possible and point people to the ones that are already there. You will likely find that reviews build reviews – so the more you have, the more you’ll get.
Evidential
People like evidential information. They are much more likely to trust, and therefore act on, peer reviews for an online business than an ad alone.
This is because a review is more organic and creditable. If they know the reviewer or they are similar to them in gender, ages, location etc this will also make the review more valuable in their eyes.
You can take advantage of this view by using your online reviews as evidence in ads, emails or directly on your website.
Show customers your product and then back it up with evidence of real-life people who have benefited from it.
Negative Reviews
The thought of a negative review is one that nobody likes to consider. But actually, when it comes to online business reviews a negative review can be turned into a positive with the right steps.
By reading, addressing and responding to a negative review you are able to show potential customers that you will listen and address any issues that may arise. This helps build positive relationships and you may even turn that negative review into a positive one!
Are you looking to receive more reviews than you might have at current? Contact the team at Daneswood and we’d be more than happy to help with this or any other website queries you may have.