We have always trusted the word of friends and family in regards to which products, brands and businesses to use, but with the increase of online review arenas, such as tripadvisor, google reviews and facebook reviews, it is increasingly easy to get a good picture of a company from looking at what their customers say. Customer feedback and reviews are one of the most powerful tools available to businesses, especially online for a number of reasons. 

We take a look at these reasons in more detail…

Star Ratings are powerful

When searching for a product or business online, star ratings can really play a huge part in our decision to get in touch with a company, being the number one factor that determines whether someone picks up the phone to you. First impressions really count and star ratings can help to give a good one.

Recent Reviews

If a review is recent and has been published in the last month, it is more likely to appear as reliable. With this in mind, it is important as a business to promote to your customers that they are able to leave reviews. This helps to keep the reviews fresh, recent and relevant.

Increasing Trust

If reviews are regularly made about your services, not only is it clear that your business is active, but also that you are providing a good service to your customers. This promotes trust and awareness around your brand and business and can help to encourage an increase in customer enquiries.

Fact or Fake?

Many websites choose to add testimonials onto their websites. This however can pose the question, are they fact or fake? No business is going to add a review or testimonial to their website unless it is a positive one. With the introduction of website plugins, you are now able to integrate your reviews from different platforms such as Google Review and Trustpilot directly into your website. This assists with credibility, as they are linked directly from these platforms, rather than being created within the back-end of the website.

Increasing Traffic

Positive online reviews have been shown to increase website traffic. If a review is particularly good, it is likely that users will click onto your website and engage with you, whether it is in person, over the telephone or simply through your website.

All in all, it goes without saying that everyone likes to hear something nice said about them, and if we read positive reviews about businesses that are backed up by their relevance, recency and collective praise from other reviews we are more likely to trust and want to work with such a business. If a business has a low star rating and some reviews that are not so shiny, this can then cause an element of doubt when considering the prospect of working with a business and we are more likely to continue looking until we see a business that ticks these boxes more readily in terms of star rating and positive shared customer reviews.

If you would like to talk to us about how we can integrate Google Reviews into your website, or would like help with anything else related to your website or digital marketing, call us on 01865 98 98 99 or email hello@cleverbusinesswebsites.co.uk