Year after year, more data supports online reviews’ importance in consumer decision-making. The research shows reviews are the biggest deciding factor when customers choose between businesses.
Explanation: A good online reputation is priceless
Making sure your business has the essential criteria for a good online reputation will increase your bottom line. Studies find that consumers look for ratings, the number of reviews, how recent the reviews are, and how quickly the business responds to those reviews. According to a Harvard Business School study:
- Consumers expect businesses to have a minimum average Google rating of 3.84 across at least 20 reviews
- 89% of consumers are “highly” or “fairly” likely to use a business that responds to all its online reviews
- According to the study, a one-star improvement on Yelp leads to an increase of 5% to 9% in sales in the short-term
Go Deeper
You’ve probably seen in your own life how reviews have influenced your recent purchases, big and small. Let’s take a look at why every business needs more 5-star reviews.
Protecting an online reputation starts with a proactive review acquisition strategy and rapid response to positive and negative reviews. There are several reasons why reviews are such a critical factor. Let’s break them down.
Reviews have the power to gain consumer trust
In the digital world, where there’s no storefront to verify your existence or neighborhood word of mouth to vouch for you, online social proof drives purchases. Online reviews are the biggest source of social proof that your business is trustworthy. Forbes reports that 91% of 18-to-34-year-old consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.
Reviews drive sales
When BrightLocal’s Consumer Review Survey asked, “on a scale of 1 to 10, if you narrowed down two professionals you liked, but one had much better reviews online, how much would that impact your final decision?” consumers answered with an average of 7.931.
More reviews make you more visible
Most shoppers look at search engines like Google, Bing, and even Facebook when deciding what to buy. Each has its own way of indexing, but they all value original and recent content. Customer reviews feed the content machine, keeping your brand favored by the algorithms.
Reviews are an open forum for consumers
Reviews provide opportunities for business owners to show they care about their reputation. Consumers today expect companies to respond to their comments.
Express your brand’s vision by being open with consumers, reinforcing positive reviews with thanks or promotions, and quickly fixing situations that led to poor reviews.
Not only is encouraging consumers to talk about their experience a quick, easy way to improve your sales, but it has also become essential to compete in an online world. You want to make sure you have a strategy in place to have enough recent reviews and an adequate rating.
Big Picture Takeaway
Whether making a small purchase like a meal, a potential repeat business like a mechanic, or a large purchase like a home, online reputation is what consumers use to decide where and what to buy.
Likely Impact
- Generate the trust consumers need to feel
- Keep your business visible in search results
- Increase your bottom line significantly
The Bottom Line
As a full-service digital marketing agency, Search & Convert is committed to offering the services you need to reach your goals. Online reputation has become such a critical factor in making sales, we now offer review management, done for you. You’re a great candidate for us to help if
- Your business has no reviews
- Your business has less than a 5-star rating or worse
- Your business has a 5-start rating, but few reviews
- Your competitor has lots more reviews than you
- Your competitor has a similarly low rating and a number of reviews
- Your last review was months or longer ago
If you’d like to explore how our review management service can help you, let’s start with a complimentary checkup so you can see where you stand across the review boards.
Want to learn more about how Search & Convert can help grow your business? Our Hall of Experts is here! Send an email to the team at pm@searchandconvert.com, and we’ll be in touch!