Business reviews continue to become more and more important for search engine optimization (SEO), improving user experience, and driving more traffic to your website.
“Online review count and score are factored into local search ranking: more reviews and positive ratings will probably improve a business’s local ranking.”
Now if that doesn’t convince you that Online reviews are important to your business’ online success, we don’t know what will!
The Importance of Online Business Reviews
- Review signals account for 13% of the overall ranking factors for a website.
- 90% of customers say buying decisions are influenced by online reviews.
- 32% trust online customer reviews as much as personal recommendations.
- Both positive and negative reviews help your business understand what you’re doing right and where you can improve
Encouraging Reviews for Your Business
It’s good to get in the habit of asking for reviews from your customers- but you should not try to solicit reviews all at once. Google is known to flag and disregard reviews that happen within a brief period. The best strategy is to build them consistently over time at trying to ingrain reviews into your business strategy. A few ideas to encourage business reviews include using signage at the final point of sale, reference leaving a few on receipts and invoices, put it on the menu if you own a restaurant, offer a discount for those that leave a review. Get creative with how you go about building your business reviews on Google but just remember that you have to ask!
Conversion Rates Impact Rankings
The more people who trust a company or brand, the more likely it is that conversion rates will increase.
A conversion rate is factor search engines use when ranking websites. A drop in your conversion rate due to negative reviews or an increase in your conversion rate resulting from positive reviews have a corresponding effect on your search engine rankings.
Submit Reviews, Listing directly impact your conversion rates, SEO campaigns, and Google ranking.
It’s essential to gather local citations on as many review sites as possible. This is because a lot of customers pay attention to businesses who have a diverse range of reviews across a variety of portals.
This signals a wider reach in general. Many customers will associate this quality with more authoritative companies.
What’s more, Google gives priority to businesses that have a wide digital reach. It is more likely to assign higher rankings to companies that are visible and active on multiple platforms because this signals authority.
Start by claiming a Business listing. This is free for all businesses and essential if you want to leverage your SEO efforts.
Once you register for Business Listing, make sure that you include all relevant information, including name, address, phone number (NAP), website, and hours of operation.
Make sure you also upload a clear and relevant image of your website.
You can manage this listing whenever you wish. Always update information the moment anything changes, especially if you are changing hours of operation during holidays or moving to a new address.
Business listing Websites will enable your customers to review your product or services online easily, which is why this is the most important local citation.
Once you’ve claimed a Business listing, it’s time to gather other local citations. A lot of businesses register profiles on the heavy hitter business review sites, such as TripAdvisor, Yelp, and Angie’s List.
But don’t forget about other review portals. Other portals to investigate are Glassdoor, WOWPilot, Manta, and Yellow Pages.
Above all, keep your contact information consistent across all of these platforms. Inconsistencies can directly impact your conversion rates, SEO campaigns, and Google ranking.
Best Review Sites
With so many review sites online, registering on all of them would be a full-time job. As a business owner whose time is at a premium choose the review sites that are most relevant for your business. Let’s take a look at which would be the most useful for you.
- AMAZON– With so many similar products from different sellers on Amazon, you need to stand out from the crowd. Shiny gold stars and great customer reviews are the keys to doing this. Amazon operates a five-star rating scale governed by the percentage of reviews per star, followed by most helpful and most recent customer reviews.
- GOOGLE MY BUSINESS – These are the reviews that show on the right-hand side of Google’s search results. Google’s Pigeon algorithm update uses location and distance ranking criteria to improve local search results. As a business owner, you should ensure that your website is correctly optimized for search with verified accounts on local directories, most importantly Google My Business. A verified local Google+ page enables you to respond to reviews while reviews, comments, images, etc. boost your search rankings. The bonus is that the Google Maps app uses the information and reviews, so the more content, the more reputable your business will appear.
- YELP– This is a free review site where consumers rate businesses on a five-star scale. Businesses and consumers (Yelpers) register free of charge on this platform that allows businesses to respond to comments from consumers.
- WOWPILOT – Choose WOWPilot. Wowpilot has various features which offer Businesses to Collect Reviews at ease and Grow Revenue with at least 50% higher.
Here are the Plans WowPilot Offers:
- Free Starter Plan: Free Listing, Collect Reviews
- Small Business Plan: Get Featured on WOWPilot’s Listing, Create Free Listing, Collect Reviews Via App, Display Reviews On Your Website via Widgets, Displays Reviews on Google
- Plan For Corporate Companies: Get Featured on WOWPilot’s Listing, Collect Reviews Via Email, display reviews On Your Website via Widgets, Displays Reviews on Google.
Sign Up now to WOWPilot and List Your Company Now & SEE YOUR BUSINESS GROW!
