Today, it’s impossible to purchase anything online without going through customer reviews. Some reviews are not as thorough or comprehensive as you may want them to be, but this doesn’t give you the right to undervalue them. The customer reviews provides a better outlook on the products that you are looking before paying for it. The most helpful piece of information you need – its usage, flaws, and specifications are there by genuine users or consumers.
An online marketer knows the importance of the reviews and read through them religiously. After all, good reviews are like inserting good content in your website without you asking for it!
So, what can customer reviews do?
Influence buying decisions
Eight out of every ten people trust online reviews more than personal recommendations from friend and family. This is quite astonishing, bearing in mind that online reviews are by complete strangers. Personal recommendations, on the other hand, are from people that you know. Therefore, this shows that online reviews by customers can influence buying decisions. Poor reviews discourage customers from buying. Good reviews encourage customers to buy.
On-site Ranking
A company that encourages customers to share their honest and sincere opinions about its products is likely to enjoy favorable ranking on search engines. Customer reviews are crucial for organic search rankings as it helps in increasing the time spent viewing the website and it adds in value and content for the business website. Similarly, this is also called on page seo. Every time a customer posts fresh reviews about the product, search engines rank the website for its unique content. This way, your website will enjoy higher ranking because customers believe it speaks authority and is more relevant for their needs.
Off-Site Ranking
On-site reviews are just as effective as off-site reviews in helping your site to improve in ranking, or also called as off page seo. With every shares, engagements, comments and reviews over at social media profiles also helps in increasing the number of visits to your business’ website and adding in back link opportunities too! Therefore, don’t discourage customers from reviewing your product or brand on external websites. Google relies on data from external directories to rank websites. This is why Yelp and Trip Advisor have become such major references for customers and brands alike. Google is cognizant of this fact as well.
Higher conversions
The more good reviews your product have, the higher the conversion rate it will enjoy. Where conversion rates are concerned, the nature of the reviews doesn’t matter. Conversion rates will remain high whether the reviews are positive or negative. Bad reviews can affect your conversion rates positively. Blending the good with bad reviews often indicates that your product or brand is not hiding anything from its existing and prospective customers.
Therefore in conclusion, ignoring customer reviews is bad for any online marketing strategy that you want to adopt.
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