Consumers are increasingly searching online for opinions and reviews of products or services before making their decisions – whether to buy online or even in a physical store – and having reviews is increasingly a crucial part of a business's positive or negative outcome.
Before even considering your organization, think like a consumer: how much does a positive or negative opinion impact your purchasing decision? Certainly, if you're researching products, services, or visiting places, the opinions of those who have already had that experience will impact your journey, right?
With that in mind, having customer reviews is a great gateway to new customers. Learn how reviews can help your bottom line!
Reviews and impact on customers
Reviews, that is, customer evaluations of your product, service, or business in general, are a major influence on how much your brand is shown to new audiences.
These reviews are an important part of SEO and local SEO , the search results that search engines offer consumers based on their needs. And of course, to be visible to potential customers, you need to be relevant—and it's not enough for your company to simply say so; consumers themselves need to validate your results!
Being well-positioned in local results yields results for the brand: according to research , companies positioned in the first three local results on Google achieve 93% more conversions.
And of course, being well-positioned has to do with the customer reviews you receive about your brand, and anyone who thinks that reviews have no influence on consumers is mistaken: 70% of people say that, during their purchasing journey , customer reviews are the source of information they trust most.
Additionally, people want to find places that have reviews, and according to consumers, 63% are more likely to make a purchase on a site with user reviews.
Why are reviews so important for your brand exposure?
Advertising is a well-known technique for brands to rank on the first page of search engines, but what about when this exposure can happen organically, without paying anything to rank higher on the page? That's precisely where reviews are powerful!
Customer reviews of businesses are important ranking factors and offer a variety of benefits, including:
- Exposes your brand more to consumers: reviews influence your brand's ranking ; in other words, comments generated spontaneously by users are taken into account by search engines to determine whether your brand is more or less visible.
- Increases sales: the more exposure you have, the greater the tendency to reach new people, attract new clicks, increase traffic and, of course, conversions for your business.
- Increases business credibility: By seeing that other people have already consumed what your business offers, potential buyers see value and increase their confidence in engaging with your brand.
- Provides data to improve the user experience: In reviews, customers can highlight suggestions and areas for improvement for the brand, and this is valuable feedback for the company to analyze and improve the customer journey .
Reviews and SEO: points considered by search engines
Reviews have a structure, and search engines, especially Google, take much more into account than just the stars awarded to a business. It's important to pay attention to other criteria to capture increasingly comprehensive reviews, such as:
Overall assessment
The overall rating, or a score from 1 to 5 stars, is the first factor considered in a review. Customer ratings are an important factor in decision-making: 40% of customers trust a company with an average rating of at least four stars, while 10.5% won't visit a company with a rating lower than 4.5 stars.
Evaluation volume
There's no point being a 5-star company if your brand only has two reviews, right? The volume of reviews received is also relevant to a business's ranking; after all, the more people who give their opinions, the higher a business's credibility.
Current assessments
Having up-to-date reviews is also important for search engines and potential customers; after all, people want experiences that are current. Very outdated reviews can lead search engines to believe your business is inactive or not as relevant at the moment, leaving you behind in user exposure.
Responses to reviews
It's not enough to simply receive reviews; it's important to respond to them and use this opportunity to connect with your customers. Customers and search engines value companies that put the user at the center , and responding to these reviews makes all the difference.
Listening to what customers have to say, whether positive, neutral, or negative, is a huge boost for internal data, and valuing the time they spend talking about your company is extremely important.
According to our research, 53.3% of customers expect companies to respond to their reviews within 7 days. More than that, 80% of consumers feel that companies care more about them when they respond to their reviews.
Keywords in evaluations
Comments with relevant keywords—that is, those related to your business and location—also make a difference to search engines. The more detailed your client is and the more they can tell you about who you are and what you do, the better!
With all these review factors, the business will organically rise in search engines and achieve better positions through SEO, especially when we talk about Local SEO .
Product and service reviews and customer experience comments are valuable content for the brand and through them, in an assertive, fast and inexpensive way, a company tends to gain more and more space and new customers for its base.
With the data and information we've gathered so far, you've now understood how reviews and SEO work together and how essential they are to your business's results. Now that you know more about the topic, review your reviews, and let's brainstorm ways to further leverage your brand's potential through customer feedback. Talk to our experts and learn how we can help you on this journey!
