How Can Small Businesses Encourage Online Reviews?

As a small business owner, you may recognize that the most powerful tool for marketing your business is word of mouth. That is, it is one person telling another person about your product or service. This type of advertising as long been one of the most important forms because it is the most likely to create a positive outcome. Yet, many times, small business owners, don’t translate that often thought of as off-line type of marketing online. That’s a mistake. In short, you need reviews from customers online to showcase your business and to encourage others to interact with you.

But, How Do You Get Them?

Online reviews are powerful and very important. You may seem them occur on your social media pages, on review websites, and on third party websites and blogs. When they are good things, you’ll really want to ramp up the number of them you have. But, how can you encourage people to leave reviews for you online? These tips can help you to do just that:

• Ask for them. The most important and most effective way to get reviews from your customers is to ask for them. You can do this when you provide the product or service, for example. Ask them to leave you a review on your website or blog, for example.

• Use email marketing to help you to get them. When you send your customer an email, perhaps as a result of a purchase, you can leave a link in it to leave a review for your business online. Make it easy with a one click format.

• Ask on your social media pages directly. If you’ve worked to build a presence online like this, you just need to ask for your customer’s to voice their opinions of what you have to offer. And, listen to the feedback you get. Good or bad, it can help you to make big decisions going forward.

When it comes down to it, you need online reviews to help your business to stand out from all of the rest. They may not always be easy to get, though. When you work with a third party marketing team, there is the benefit of being able to attract more business, a bigger social presence, and better online reviews for your company. Good or bad, these help to get people talking about your company.

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We can help you develop a strategy for boosting your search engine rankings and increasing your website potential with customer reviews. As a top NYC marketing firm we have the experience and expertise you need, just get in touch today by calling us at 212-686-0806.

Do Reviews Online Boost Website Sales?

What do customer reviews, either on your own website or posted on an online review site, actually do for your online business reputation?

Most business owners tend to see them as a nice extra bonus to help sway an already interested buyer, but this is really just be the tip of the iceberg with regards to their impact.

Today, more and more online shoppers report that they read between one and nine reviews when considering a purchase, and that number tends to be higher with the price of the item or service. And, to add to that information, 90% of those shopping online indicated that the customer reviews had an influence on choosing to buy, or not to buy, a particular product or to do business with a particular company.

The Importance

There used to be a saying that only dissatisfied customers talk about their experiences, but if you read any online review site, you will find this simply isn’t the case. When customers have a positive experience, even if they had a problem that was resolved, they are still likely to provide good feedback and ratings. This shows future customers that you are a company or business that puts customers first.

Online reviews on your website, or on other websites, also provide assistance for your website movement up the search engine rankings for organic results (those results not from paid advertisements). This is because when customers use a description of the item they bought, or perhaps use an alternate term, this won’t count against your website with Google with regards to keyword density.

Those secondary or less common keywords that customer’s use in their writing is also seen by the search engines, adding to the search terms that will bring up your site.

Trust and Confidence

Word of mouth is still the best source of referrals and is ranked as the most trustworthy. While online reviews aren’t necessarily by someone known personally, if they are from a verified customer from your local area they are seen as trustworthy by other online buyers.
Facebook is a great source of positive reviews that are coming from local people. When your friend, or a friend of a friend, posts a positive review is has more weight than just a ranking with stars or happy faces completed by a stranger.

Getting Online Reviews

Encouraging customers to post online reviews is always a bit of a challenge.This can be done at the time of the purchase, and then a follow-up email with links to leave feedback is also a good option.

Make sure your website also links to all the external sites where you want customers to post reviews. It is also helpful to have information on how to post reviews printed as part of a sales receipt or invoice, and then follow up with clients with a thank you email when reviews are posted online.