Hello Chasers,
We all know that getting testimonials from satisfied customers is good for business, but in this day and age its importance is even greater from a marketing point of view.
In addition to using the testimonials in marketing your business, the other benefits of getting customer reviews are:
- to better understand what you are doing right and/or wrong as a business; and
- to improve the visibility of your business on Google.
And as far as Google Reviews is concerned, the importance of accumulating genuine and honest reviews of your services online is ever increasing. Whilst you may have all the other components of your local search strategy covered, you should not underestimate the power of review data.
Now, the power of a customer testimonial cannot be discounted in its influence on other potential customers. You can tell me you are good at what you do, and I may believe you. But, if an unbiased third party tells me you are pretty good, I’d be much more inclined to believe them.
One recent study suggests that customer reviews are the most powerful purchase influence. Another study found that 88% of consumers check out reviews before making a purchase, and yet another study indicated that 63% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase from a site that has customer reviews.
Nonetheless, a major hesitation businesses have in asking for online reviews is the fear of receiving a bad review. But this could very well be gold from a marketing point of view – receiving the odd bad review is not necessarily a bad thing if genuinely handled fairly and sincerely. Taking immediate action and replying to bad reviews and looking to fix the issue shows to your new potential customers that you really care about your customers.
Another study actually found that bad reviews can increase conversion by 67%.
Why, then, are testimonials so important in an SEO strategy?
In Google’s quest to deliver the most relevant and beneficial results for local searches, they not only want to know what your business does but how your business is seen in the ‘eyes’ of real customers. They do this by checking on how many reviews you have and what your average customer rating is.
Don’t believe me?
The tour illustrating the features of the updated Google Maps states outright that the “highest-rated” businesses near you will be returned when you search local. Google also updated its map search layout to show ratings and reviews much more prominently. Furthermore, content is king with Google too; adding user-generated content on your site or your Google plus page is a great way to add new, fresh, and unique content.
The quality and quantity of reviews on Google is one of the most important ranking factors for local SEO. And, when a customer scans the search results for a local product or service in Google, the business listings that include customer reviews present greater credibility and, naturally, receive more clicks. If your search result listing shows a 4.5-star rating with 18 reviews (and your competitor listings show less), that’s strong social proof that your product or service is trustworthy.
Also, in today’s competitive environment, your customers will review your products or services whether you want it or not. Even if reviews are not posted to your site, there are numerous websites such as Yelp, Trip Advisor, and social media sites where reviews will appear. To maximise the effect of your reviews, and to maintain as much control over them as you can, prompting your customers to leave reviews about your company on your Google+ Local page should be your first priority as soon as you have completed a service or delivered a product or outcome for them.
Don’t forget to secure your FREE Google Business Profile and keep it up to date too!
If you want to know how to get your customers to write reviews for your business in a systemised and automatic way call our Team on 55612643 today.
Have a great day!
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