Chances are, if you are shopping online for something or considering a business, you look at their reviews and testimonials to get an idea of how the company works before deciding to buy from them. This is not uncommon and many people consider reviews an important part of their buying decision. WSI Smart Marketing provides reputation management services in Santa Rosa which, when coupled with strategic SEO, develops an advanced sales and lead generation pipeline. Read on to learn more about the importance of reviews to your business and its online reputation.
Develop a Solid Reputation
Your existing customers already understand what kind of business you are and how much effort you put into ensuring they have a fantastic experience with your product or service. Why not use that power to have them inform potential customers about their experiences? Reviews and testimonials are the perfect conduits for this. In fact, studies show that people are more likely to trust reviews from other customers online than advertising from your business.
Creating, and maintaining, a solid reputation online can help provide you with a multitude of opportunities to engage with customers post-transaction. This, in turn, helps develop a long term relationship with your customers which increases the potential for customers to perform repeat business.
Improve Search Engine Optimization Results
Getting reviews inevitably benefits your rankings on a Google search engine results page. As we know, relevance and user experience are two factors Google uses in determining rankings and reviews feed directly into that. In fact, reviews are actually an important ranking factor themselves, not just the impact they have on other ranking factors. SEO is a multi-faceted approach to aggressively pursuing first page placements on Google.
While reviews are already an important ranking factor, they are doubly important for industries that benefit greatly from tourism. Tourists and visitors are highly likely to use reviews as a key deciding factor in where they plan to visit during their travels. Having a review score of less than 4 stars can get your business placed in a mental ‘no-go’ zone. Businesses with review scores between 4 and 5 stars are seen as having authentic reviews and reliable sources of information for potential customers.
Other impacts reviews have on SEO are noticeable upon website analysis. Higher quality reviews tend to lead to improved click through rates (CTR) and bounce rates. This is largely in part due to reviews helping Google determine who your business serves and what services they provide. Creating an overall better-rounded digital image of your business online which helps Google direct web visitors to your site who are more likely to find it helpful; creating more clicks and less bounces.
Improve Your Presence Online
By now, you know that SEO benefits from reviews, but what about your overall presence? Well, when you think about it, the more you show up online the more powerful your presence is going to be. This leads to an opportunity to generate a competitive advantage over your competitors who may not think about utilizing reviews to increase their traffic and digital sphere of influence.
By now, it’s easy to understand that reviews help get you found online more than you already are, but how do they help seal the deal? Well, let’s say you’re showing up on the Google Map for a phrase related to your industry as one of three spotlighted companies. Your company has 50 reviews, while your two competitors have 5 and 20 reviews. All of these business have 5 star ratings, but who do you think a potential customer is going to click on first? Many people scan the review score and volume of reviews and consider those a factor in their decision making. The more reviews your have, the more reason to click on your company!
Customer Engagement
It’s easy to see that promoting reviews online provides your business with greater opportunity to interact with your customers post-transaction. By acknowledging both the strengths and areas for improvement that customers highlight in reviews, you can improve your business. It’s a win-win! Your customers feel valued by having their voices heard and you learn of the strengths, weaknesses, and overall reputation of your business.
You may think that the best advertising is whatever you spend the most money on. However, this is not true. Your happy customers are one of the biggest forces helping drive new (and repeat) business to your company. Reviews provide an avenue for your satisfied customers to serve as brand ambassadors and their experiences can help be the tipping point to influence a potential customer’s purchase decision.
Lastly, reviews let the work your company does speak for itself. When customers feel valued, they tend to perform repeat business which leads to increased lifetime value of a customer.
At WSI Smart Marketing, we are always looking for ways to better serve our clients. Our clients have been asking and we have been listening. That is why we are proud to say that reputation management is the newest solution we are offering to improve our client services. Many of your business’s customers are willing to leave reviews, all you need to do is ask them! To learn more about our reputation management services in Santa Rosa, call us at (707) 843-3714.
