"I saw your business online, and your reviews looked bad, so I went with someone else"
Potential customers won't tell you these things because you never even got the chance to talk to them. In fact, even one bad review pushes 24% of customers away on average and if you have 5 or more, that number jumps to around 60%. To many businesses, those losses can be devastating. However, reviews and review management have a much greater impact. Here's a couple to consider:
Your Online Presence
When it comes to online presence, where your reviews come from sends a huge signal of the capabilities of your business. Think of it this way, if you were a customer looking for a niche product or service, you might expect that the business you were looking at might have reviews coming from professional sources. You would probably put more stock into a review of an oil and gas manufacturer that originated from a drilling organization's website than a Yelp review. Often though, many companies only focus on the reviews themselves that who is giving them.
SEO
Make no mistake, good (and bad) reviews have an impact on how you show up in search. This is because Google, being a for-profit business has little desire in sending its users to businesses that have all the trust of a gas station burrito behind them. Their search algorithms have placed even more importance on this factor over the years up to a 20% positive or negative impact on search results overall in 2021.
Review management isn't merely mitigating poor or false reviews, but understanding the positive or negative impact they can have. Knowing who is sending signals to potential customers of your business is also a highly overlooked step that can help or hinder you.
Not sure where to start with your reviews? Want to get ahead of the SEO review relationship? Let's talk, we can help.
