Digital marketing is a technique to promote a product or service by using digital technologies and tools. With the ease of using the internet, digital marketing has become one of the most effective marketing strategies around the globe. Businesses get the support of digital channels, such as search engines, social media, and other websites, to connect with present and potential customers. Advertising in the digital space uses newly emerged technologies and channels to promote a business. These advanced technologies are used by traders to reach out to their customers. A systematic set of digital marketing activities helps businesses to reach their goals with desired results.
Customer reviews in businesses play an important role in business expansion and goodwill. Let’s consider a potential customer who needs a product or service that your company offers. Unless they have a known place to go, they are not ready for change. Most people will go to the known places that their family and friends suggest or look out for a personal solution. Now, if you have excellent reviews on your website, potential customers have a much higher chance of trusting your brand. Though we live in the digital era, humans rely on others’ opinions when buying a product or availing of a service. A review is a public declaration of trust; hence reviews play a significant role in boosting website traffic.
Here’s how online reviews can boost website traffic:
1: Collecting customer reviews for SEO
Online reviews affect local search and search engine optimization. It improves ranking approximately by 12%. Keeping aside other factors, search engines rate websites based on online reviews. If your brand has many good online reviews, it has a probability of showing on top in a local search. This ultimately attracts more potential customers and helps businesses to grow worldwide. In addition, it also gains customers’ and upcoming customers’ trustworthiness.
2: Positive reviews ensure visitors take action:
Positive reviews make a vast difference on search engine result pages and platforms. A good ranking and hefty positive customer reviews will enable new users to visit your website, whereas multiple negative reviews could be a red flag for your brand and keep away potential customers. However, you can prevent this by directly responding to negative reviews.
3: Positive reviews guarantee referral traffic:
Positive reviews play an important role in popularity and brand expansion. Reading online reviews from Google or social media will let you know if you are dealing with a renowned and trustworthy company. This also allows you to go know about the brand’s wide reputation. And if the reviews are not satisfying, you are more likely to find an alternative from your sources. Reputed brands get enormous traffic from referrals every year.
4: Positive reviews elevate local search results
If you want to target local customers, the Google local pack is an excellent choice to appear your brand on the Google search result pages. By elevating local search results, you can help consumers head straight to your online store directly. Even they can click to place an order.
5: Social proof influences purchases and cultivates trust:
Online reviews gather customers’ trust. Let’s consider someone who has a pleasant experience with a brand and drop a positive review. People feel more confident and reliable towards that brand. Thus, we trust them with our money. Almost 78% of users say that positive reviews make them trust a business more.
6: Online reviews help in decision-making:
If we see things from a buyer’s point of view, we can understand that, if we are not sure which product to buy from two different brands. We go for checking the reviews of the two brands, and the one with better reviews gains our trust. Online reviews help in eliminating the anxiety of making a wrong decision while purchasing. Thus, online reviews are a superb feature of digital marketing.
3 top sites for online reviews:
Facebook:
Facebook reviews are a very essential way and powerful way to get hold of potential customers. When an individual drops a review on your Facebook business page, some of that individual’s friends get a notification mentioning they have recommended your business(depending on the review). It is a powerful way of expanding business because it’s like word of mouth. They are telling their entire friend circle digitally that your business is highly recommended. Facebook reviews are a much more targeted and powerful approach to growing your business. And since Facebook is the world’s largest and most accessed social media platform, getting more reviews on your Facebook business page is necessary to emphasize your brand name.
Google reviews:
Getting reviews on your Google business profile is a great way to improve your reach across search engines, Google maps, etc. Google reviews are not as targeted as Facebook reviews, they differ slightly but they can make your brand visible in a much wider aspect. A positive review and rating will make you more discoverable on the search engine, which in term will increase the amount of traffic on your website. Thus, you get more customers and become much more visible via Google reviews than Facebook.
Yelp:
This is a fantastic platform if you run a local-based business. It has a unique mechanism of filtering reviews, as it judges reviews as “most helpful”. Yelp weighs reviews and has a fair procedure. It weights:-
- The gross history of the reviewer
- It will incorporate new reviews depending on the quality of your existing reviews
- The likes or dislikes left on each review
Also, Read
7 Advantages of Social Media Marketing for Your Business
Do you want online reviews to boost your online traffic? Take advice from experienced digital marketing experts to have more positive reviews, a better business reputation, and a successful journey in your business.
