More and more consumers are 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 becoming an increasingly crucial part of a business's success or failure.
Before even thinking about 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 places to visit, the opinion of someone who has already had that experience will impact your journey, right?
With that in mind, having customer reviews is a great way to attract new clients. Learn how reviews can help your results!
Reviews and impact on customers
Reviews, or customer ratings 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, those search results that the search engine offers to a consumer based on their needs. And of course, to be shown to a potential customer, you need to be relevant – and it's not enough for your company to just say that, consumers themselves need to validate your results!
Being well-positioned in local search results pays off for the brand: according to research, companies positioned in the top three local Google search results achieve 93% more conversions.
Of course, being well-positioned has to do with the customer reviews you receive about your brand, and anyone who thinks that reviews don't influence consumers is mistaken: 70% of people say that, during their buying journey, customer reviews are the source of information they trust most.
Furthermore, people want to find places that have reviews, and according to consumers, 63% are more likely to make a purchase on a website with user reviews.
Why are reviews so important for your brand's exposure?
Advertising is a well-known technique for brands to rank on the first page of search engines, but what if that exposure could happen organically, without paying anything to be at the top of the page? That's precisely where reviews are powerful!
Customer reviews are important ranking factors for businesses and offer several advantages, such as:
- It exposes your brand more to consumers: reviews influence your brand's ranking , meaning that comments generated spontaneously by users are taken into account by search engines to determine how much of your brand is displayed.
- It increases sales: the more exposure, the greater the tendency to reach new people, attract new clicks, increase traffic and, of course, conversions for the business.
- It increases the credibility of the business: when potential buyers see that other people have already consumed what your business offers, they perceive value and increase their confidence in engaging with your brand.
- It provides data to improve the user experience: in reviews, customers can rate suggestions and areas for improvement for the brand, and this is valuable feedback for the company to analyze and enhance 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 number of stars given to a business. It's important to pay attention to other criteria to gather increasingly comprehensive reviews, such as:
Overall assessment
The overall rating, that is, the score from 1 to 5 stars, is the first point considered in a review. The rating given by customers is an important factor in their choices: 40% of customers trust a company with an average rating of at least four stars, while 10.5% of customers do not visit a company with a rating lower than 4.5 stars.
Evaluation volume
It's no use being a 5-star company if your brand only has two reviews, right? The volume of reviews received is also relevant to the business's ranking; after all, the more people give their opinion, the higher the level of credibility of a business.
Current status of 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 that your business is inactive or not very relevant at the moment, leaving it behind in terms of user visibility.
Responses to reviews
It's not enough to receive reviews; it's important to respond to them and use this opportunity to get closer to your customer. 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 the customer has to say, whether positive, neutral, or negative, is a great asset for internal data, and valuing the time they spent talking about your company is extremely important.
According to our research, 53.3% of customers expect companies to respond to their reviews within a maximum of 7 days. Furthermore, 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 customer profile is and the more they talk about who you are and what you do, the better!
With all these factors in mind, a business will organically rise in search engine rankings 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 a brand, and through them, in an assertive, quick, and inexpensive way, a company tends to gain more and more market share and new customers for its base.
With the data and information we've presented so far, you can understand how reviews and SEO go hand in hand and how essential they are to your business results, right? Now that you know more about the topic, review your reviews and let's think together about ways to further leverage your brand's potential through what customers say about it. Talk to our experts and find out how we can help you on this journey!