Online reputation has risen to prominence in recent years. As more shopping, browsing, and other services move online, reviews have become a quick way to understand the pulse of how a business conducts themselves.

It’s not uncommon for a business to feel like its reputation is doing fine with a 5-star rating on Google and 4-5 reviews. However, what’s important to realize is that while that looks strong at the time being, that score is only one 1-star review away from experiencing a severe drop in overall rating.

For this reason, businesses should be striving to continually develop its reputation and utilizing their happy, satisfied customers to become brand ambassadors who promote a business. Read on as we discuss several benefits of reputation management that several of our clients in Santa Rosa have reported due to an increased review score.

Improved Brand Reputation

Many web browsers admit that they won’t even give the time of day to a business that has a low review score. Especially on Google, a business’s online reputation can have a serious impact on their rankings and overall performance. This underlines the importance of having a solid business reputation online.

Businesses should be working to continuously increase and improve their online review score. Some important Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are:

• Total Review Volume: How many reviews do you have?
• Overall Review Score: What is your average review rating?
• Review Generation Consistency: How often are you getting reviews?

Improve Brand Awareness

This could be easily inferred, but if Google and other search engines love businesses with high review scores from a multitude of customers, the more exposure your business is going to get. In the end, setting up the right processes can really turn your reviews into a self-driving asset for your business.

The better your review score, the more likely people are to use your business and, in turn, the more likely they are to leave another review thus continuing the cycle.

In the ecommerce space, reviews become doubly important as you need reviews for not only your business, but the products or services that you are selling as well.

Provide Important Feedback

Businesses are always striving to provide the best customer experience, actively working on improving your reputation gives the opportunity to hear direct feedback from your customers. This highlights not only areas for improvement, but also helps to reaffirm that what a business is doing works the way they want it to.

Reviews can also provide a business with user-generated ideas of new products or solutions and ideas on how to improve existing products. Another opportunity presented by reputation management is the opportunity for a business to determine its Net Promoter Score (NPS).

NPS is a measurement of how likely customers are to recommend your business. The goal here is to have a high NPS which feeds back into the idea of a business knowing that previous and existing customers are brand ambassadors, or people who promote their business.

Benefits SEO

Briefly we discussed that having a strong online reputation benefits SEO in rankings on search engine pages. To elaborate, Google (and other search engines) have a specific focus in their purpose and mission statement. Oftentimes this centers around the idea of providing users with three things: relevant information, a great user experience, and high levels of user satisfaction.

Having a strong reputation online showcases to search engines that a business is more likely to be operating in a way that aligns with this thought process. Therefore, a business can expect to see increased visibility, rankings, and overall traffic by having a strong reputation.

Facilitates Word of Mouth Marketing

On platforms like Facebook and Nextdoor, people who leave reviews aren’t just leaving them in a place where anyone can see them. They’re specifically giving their endorsement in a place where their friends and family can see. This encourages people to have dialogues regarding your business and increases the potential for would-be customers to inquire more thoroughly about specific experiences with your business.

Lead Generation

All of the above benefits can translate into an increase in overall leads generated and converted by your business. A higher review score leads to increased brand awareness which generates more reviews that increases your brand reputation and consumer trust. All of which culminates in happy customers and a better business. A win-win!

By now, you should have realized why increasing your businesses online reputation is an important consideration for every business. If you’re not sure where to start, WSI can help! Our team is knowledgeable about the strategy and optimizations that go into making a review generation campaign successful in Santa Rosa. To discuss your needs with us, please call (707) 843-3714.