It’s undisputed that positive reviews help you sell your brand to new prospects and boost repeat business from existing customers. But waiting for your target audience to chance upon your customer reviews is ineffective – you need to be proactive and showcase customer reviews on multiple channels for more people to see them.
Online reviews build brand trust and convince consumers your products and services are worth consideration. Your online reviews can act as an engagement tool that creates conversations and improves online visibility. Having a positive brand reputation across top review sites, such as Google and Yelp, places you in a great position to boost your sales.
It’s not enough to simply get a few online reviews for your business if you want positive reviews to work in your favor. You need a plan to increase your positive reviews, make them more visible and place them strategically. Only then can your business fully benefit from them.
Successful online review management means consistently getting more online reviews, responding to the majority of reviews and making sure your reviews show up on the search engine results pages (SERPs).
Read on to learn how to use Google reviews and other types of reviews to your business’s advantage. We discuss what makes online reviews effective, why you should display Google reviews on website pages and how working with an online reputation management company can boost your results.
Understanding Online Reviews
An online review is a piece of written feedback from a customer for a particular product or service they’ve used in the past. Reviews represent genuine and unbiased opinions, and this is mainly because brands can’t interfere with third-party review sites such as Google and Yelp. Reviews primarily help customers, but many underestimate its big-picture benefits for business growth.
For businesses, online reviews are invaluable in influencing purchase decisions and improving sales performance. They speak to the quality of your products or services through the eyes of your existing customers. Review management is all about ensuring your business reviews contribute to increased sales. An online reputation management company uses reputation management software and other tools to help keep your brand perception positive.
3 Ways Online Reviews Grow Your Business
Online reviews and professional online review management services can boost your business’s bottom line tremendously and help you reach your growth goals.
Here’s what you can expect when you pay close attention to your online reviews:
1. Social Proof
Social proof is a concept in psychology that describes how other people’s behavior influences people. In review management, online reviews serve as social proof because customers value the feedback of people who have already purchased the product or service they’re considering. Reviews make customers hesitate less about making a purchasing decision. Reviews offer consumers the reassurance they need that your product or service offering will be worth the money.
2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
You don’t have to learn how to use Google reviews for SEO, because just making sure that you are getting a steady influx of reviews makes you more visible to potential customers online. The goal of search engines like Google is to provide users with high-quality search results. Google would much rather suggest a highly recommended business over a poorly rated one. Positive reviews increase your business’s credibility, improve your website rankings and drive traffic to your site.
3. Customer Experience Marketing
Customer experience marketing focuses on improving customer interactions at every touchpoint – keeping them happy and earning their loyalty. Through customer experience marketing, your existing customers naturally become promoters who recommend your business to other people. While this used to mean actual word-of-mouth marketing, nowadays, your customer leaving a positive review serves the same purpose. About 76 percent of people trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations, so it’s not a stretch to say customer reviews are the equivalent of word-of-mouth in today’s digital age.
5 Ways To Boost Your Sales Using Online Reviews
A jump from zero reviews to just five reviews makes customers 2.7 times more likely to purchase from you (Spiegel Research Center). And that’s an easy number to reach if you give your online review generation tactics a bit of attention! This is why you should have a review management strategy in place. It also takes a much smaller investment in time and resources to showcase customer reviews compared to other marketing initiatives to reap similar results.
Here 5 tactics you can use to showcase customer reviews and increase your sales:
1. Highlight Positive Reviews on Your Homepage
You invest in your website’s homepage because of the narrow window of opportunity to hook your customers before they leave your site. It’s best to display Google reviews on website sections where your site visitor will see them, so consider your homepage and where you could showcase your happy customer comments. A review widget will showcase your customer reviews with just one click. It hovers over your content as a constant on the page, so your potential customers can access it no matter how far they’ve scrolled.
2. Display Reviews on Website Pages With High Traffic
Your main product and service pages receive a high volume of website visitors. While you could have an online review widget on all your pages, it’s even better to intentionally include reviews in the content for key pages like these. Aside from learning about why they need you, what you offer and why they should choose you, visitors would also see customer testimonials that can drive them to take your desired action and convert.
3. Have a Dedicated Page for Customer Reviews
Aside from placing reviews within your content, another best practice is to have a page solely for showcasing your positive customer reviews. Display reviews on website pages labeled as “case studies” or “what our customers say about us.” Fill these dedicated pages with trust signals, such as written online reviews, video testimonials, company awards, achievement badges and more.
4. Feature Customer Reviews Through Multiple Channels
All digital channels present opportunities to promote your business through reviews. You can get very creative with how to use Google reviews on platforms such as social media and via email – combine images and videos for social posts or create an email footer featuring your average review rating. Some customers won’t read through 100-word comments, but you might capture their attention with attractive visuals and snippets of customer testimonials.
5. Create a System to Generate and Showcase Reviews
There are countless ways to use online reviews to sell more, but you can’t showcase reviews you don’t have. What you really need is a strategy to continuously generate online reviews – precisely why online review management services exist. You can consult with a reputation management agency on how to increase reviews, how to get good reviews and how to showcase them in line with your business needs.
Get Online Reviews for Your Business the Right Way
Remember this: The strategies for how to increase reviews and how to get good reviews will be unique to every business. But there are tried-and-tested online reputation management techniques that serve as the roadmap to leverage your online feedback the right way.
Here’s what makes a robust review management strategy:
Review Generation
The answer to how to increase reviews is simple – just ask for them! Online review management software speeds up the review acquisition process by automating SMS and email review requests. Your customers can also leave a review through your website’s review widget. The idea is to use technology to acquire reviews automatically and continuously, helping you reap the long-term benefits of positive online reviews.
Review Monitoring
Many business owners want to know how to get good reviews. But aside from genuinely providing great products and services, the most you can do is monitor your reviews and strategize to keep them as positive as possible. Online review management software alerts you of brand mentions across the web, allowing you to collect valuable customer insights and even respond to your reviews. Use your customer feedback insights to improve your business, find the best reviews to feature using your online review widget and encourage your customers to leave great reviews.
Review Response
When your reputation management software alerts you to new customer reviews, it’s vital to respond to the good and the bad. About 96 percent of people who read reviews also read your responses. Responding to your reviews is critical to show your customers you value their feedback and commit to providing the best experience possible. If you respond well enough to negative reviews and take action, you might even be able to turn their negative feedback around.
Work With a Top Reputation Management Agency
There’s no better way to get online reviews for your business than working with industry experts. Placing reviews randomly in your content or only adopting an online review widget won’t cut it – you need an overarching strategy and continuous optimization.
For instance, a thorough understanding of SEO and website analytics will help you display Google reviews on website pages that will actually improve your results. Optimizing your strategy successfully takes a tactical approach.
An online reputation management company has the expertise to ensure your time and resources are spent wisely. Experienced review management experts implement the best practices, with knowledge on how to display reviews on website pages, social media and all other digital channels to focus on delivering maximum return on investment (ROI).
Rize Reviews is a trusted reputation management agency helping businesses of all sizes and industries showcase reviews the right way. We help you generate, monitor and respond to reviews with your unique business goals in mind. Our 100 percent done-for-you online review management services help you leverage your online reviews to your complete advantage.
We help you reap the benefits of positive customer reviews through our reputation management software expertise. We customize your review widget according to your branding requirements and feature your most compelling customer reviews on your site.
Contact Rize Reviews today to learn more about how our online review management software and services can help you sell more.
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