More than 50% of the buyers check reviews before they buy, say the surveys; more than 75% of them take the reviews as personal recommendations! Another survey mentions that the chances of people making the purchase goes higher by 105% when they get to read the reviews. Is this not a big reason as to why every business should consider this for their store? Not just for estore conversions, reviews contribute to eCommerce store SEO too.
- What’s the importance of reviews for eCommerce platforms? They highly influence the customer decision!
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How do the search engines make their pick for the SERPs? Fresh content are preferred over static pages; reviews are one of the main aspects of fresh content. Reviews are mostly laden with keywords and long tail keywords which add to the plus point; search engines index them. Thus the product page gets a high rank for the relevant keywords. The business gets organic traffic at free of cost!
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Google now shows elongated snippets including ratings and reviews. Sites get better attention, so more clicks!
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Social media is a giant forum on which people discuss on pros and cons of their buys. Product reviews get shared virally, they get likes and comments thus get known to those looking to buy. Totally free of cost for the business, reviews create the product reach, brand exposure and thus cost saving in marketing end too!
- Extended validation SSL certificates are given to websites as a reflection of customer reviews and rating. Customer trust such websites comparatively 75% more than they do others. This results in repeated customers, new and more customers, customer base expansion and higher sales.
- Negative customer reviews are a positive sign; does it shock you? Don’t be. Every buyer knows not every other buyer has had a uniformly positive experience with the brand and hence he or she tends to trust a product with mixed customer reviews than one shining with all stars. Mixed reviews are known to boost sales by more than 50%.
Now we know the importance of reviews for eCommerce stores, let’s take a look at the strategies to make customer write their reviews for you,
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Ask the customers for reviews immediately so they pour in their happy comments as such or even exaggerated! Don’t mind on negative reviews; address them immediately to revert the adverse effect if any.
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Good offers, personalised deals and discounts to customers consistently dropping in reviews encourages them to do more.
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Influence marketing is marketing a brand using the voice of a few popular figures familiarly associated with the brand; such people hold a good knowledge and idea of the specific brand or the product or the field as a whole. Shares, likes, comments and posts of such people, in the social media platforms(Twitter, instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest or so) matter a lot today to grab buyer attention. Make way for it!
- Don’t miss to show any single positive review on your site. Share those reviews in social media, classifieds and listings of business or business magazines. Don’t miss to display the average customer review and rating at the top of product pages.
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As mentioned earlier, deal with the negative reviews immediately so the dissatisfied guys get convinced to buy again and soon. Such people matter really high, to influencing buyers.
- Ask for feedback in mails if the customer has permitted you to send mails. A United Kingdom based giant retailer has seen the customer reviews going higher by more than 400% by implementing this tactic. Why don’t you have a look at these platforms, Windsor Circle or mailchimp, helping you out here?
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Try building review forums and sending it in the parcels you deliver. Adding personalisation to the review form, as in addressing the customer, works even better!
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Don’t pay for positive reviews. No customer is ignorant today, to identify such fake acts. In fact, you can pay a few customers who have given you a negative review; that would show people that you care on customer reviews and open to the bad ones too.
Let’s take a look at the below good practices in displaying reviews,
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Make the provision to write down reviews in all platforms connected to your store.
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Display reviews on the product search page in your store. Also use rich snippets so reviews show up in SERPs.
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Show a few average reviews on top of product pages. Use them in marketing forums too.
- You can even ask for reviews in social media, in addition to showing reviews there.
We believe that’s a great amount of detail on importance of reviews in eCommerce store social branding. Don’t wait to put some time and effort to implement what it takes to use reviews for higher conversions! Need an assistance or service support? Do ask now!
