Are positive reviews really the all-important online resource they’re made out to be? Without a doubt. And this guide will explain why.
When using a search engine to find a product, service, or business, you don’t have to go far before you come across a list of customer reviews.
Reviews are everywhere. And when it comes to positive reviews, they have more persuasive influence than most people realize.
If you’re a business owner, you need to know why positive reviews are important for your business and how your business can get more positive reviews.
Put simply, if you want to improve your business’s online reputation, understanding both of these is essential.
Positive Reviews Inspire Trust
A positive review means a happy customer, which is hard proof that your business has delivered on its promises.
And the more positive reviews you have, the more reasons you are giving prospective customers to trust your business.
Positive reviews, in a nutshell, are real-life testimonials from customers who have had first-hand experience of a product or service.
Due to this, it’s only natural that potential customers will trust existing customers’ words over what a business itself claims to offer.
That doesn’t mean your business is left out of the equation, however.
By leveraging positive reviews, you can build a credible, trustworthy reputation around your business that will attract more customers.
Needless to say, trust will lead to more sales.
Positive Reviews Improve Visibility
It goes without saying that a business with many positive reviews is more appealing than a competitor business with negative reviews - or fewer positive reviews.
Businesses with bad reviews are often quickly disregarded by customers, essentially making them less “visible” than businesses with largely positive reviews.
But it goes further than that. Positive reviews improve SEO and this ultimately determines your business’s online visibility or, in other words, customer reach.
The more positive reviews you have on Google, the higher you rank on its search engine results pages.
On review websites, such as Yelp and TripAdvisor, having more positive reviews helps your business rank higher on the website whenever searched or listed.
Through SEO, your business is essentially being “recommended” by the review site or search engine.
This is the kind of authority you can earn from positive reviews, which makes it a whole lot easier for customers to discover your business.
Positive Reviews Are A Chance To Show Your Business Cares
Despite the fact that a lot of businesses don’t respond to positive reviews, doing so can be highly beneficial.
Why? Because this kind of customer relationship management demonstrates that you care on a whole other level.
Responding to your positive reviews will further help to build trust around your business and brand.
It shows approachability, gratitude, and that your business truly cares about its customers and what they have to say - positive or negative.
Of course, you need to collect positive reviews in the first place to be able to respond, but this is yet another reason positive reviews are important, since each positive review is an opportunity to interact positively with your customers and generate loyalty.
Positive Reviews Build Credible Reputations
It’s no longer about which business has the most franchises or which business has the bigger budget when it comes to marketing campaigns.
Business reputations, in this day and age, are built on online customer reviews.
No matter how small or large a business is, the customer reviews it receives can make or break its reputation.
This is worth remembering as, for many modern-day customers, even a small business can be more attractive than a household brand if its online reputation—built on the positive customer reviews it’s received—is much more credible.
Positive Reviews Increase Sales
Whether positive reviews increase sales is a widely discussed topic. But the fact is that positive reviews do increase sales, and it all comes down to the points made above - that positive reviews improve trust, visibility, and credibility.
The more trustworthy your business is and the more reach your business has online, the more that customers will be organically drawn to your business.
Needless to say, this can generate more sales.
But that isn’t the only reason why positive reviews can increase sales, as they can also help to influence the buyer decision process.
Customers who read reviews—and that’s around 95% of consumers—can find specific information about a product or service that may be the final push in their decision to buy.
Once again, this can result in a sale.
Positive Reviews Can Fix a Bad Rating
Negative reviews are the bane of businesses today, simply because they can quickly harm a business’s reputation.
Even a single negative review can scare away a customer, resulting in one lost sale.
More importantly, though, when a business is unfortunate enough to receive multiple negative reviews, its star rating on that website will decrease.
Business star ratings, scored from 1 to 5, are essentially online badges of certification.
They’re displayed on all review sites and, as a result, can determine whether or not a customer will consider that business or avoid it altogether.
Most businesses think it’s the “end” once they receive a few negative reviews and their star rating drops.
But this is one more reason why positive reviews are important, as they can be leveraged to fix a bad rating - specifically by getting more positive reviews.
The Importance Of Getting More Positive Reviews
The best thing about positive reviews is that the benefits feed each other.
More positive reviews lead to more trust, more trust leads to more sales, and more sales can lead to receiving more positive reviews.
Still, to get the ball rolling, you need a stream of positive customer reviews in the first place.
It’s not easy to collect positive reviews, as most business owners know, but that’s why thousands of businesses have turned to ReputationStacker: a powerful tool that automates the review process to encourage more customers to post reviews.
ReputationStacker won’t just collect positive reviews for your business, but reduce negative reviews.
You can even choose which review sites it directs your customers to, so that you can quickly boost your business’s reputation on the sites of your choice.
Above are all the reasons why positive reviews are important, and ReputationStacker can help you take full advantage of these benefits.
