In the current digital world, many businesses are capitalizing on online presence and visibility as a marketing strategy. A big percentage of customers make their buying decisions based on online reviews. Content alone may not be enough and to complement their content strategy, many companies are investing in online reviews.
Online reviews occupy an integral place in the purchasing cycle. Usually, however, before a person goes to read the reviews, they already know what they want and how the business might fulfill their needs.
There is a very narrow mental gap between reading the review and making
the final decision to buy from a certain business. So, how do online reviews impact on a business’s SEO strategy?
Strengthens long-tail keyword traffic because reviewers are the buyers of the products, the language they use in making the review is very similar to the one that will be used by the target audience. This constant flow of reviews, therefore, helps a business target more traffic by identifying and using the right keywords that are coming from the customers themselves.
Boosts social conversation
Several impressive reviews help a product and business become popular. This helps boost the business’ online presence and improve sales. Additionally, a business can incorporate reviews into its social strategy to improve the love for its products.
Google favours rated sites
Google highly considers the rating of sites and favours sites with the highest ratings. Ratings act as an authority and social proof that reviews work to boost Google rankings. This means that a business should not only focus on getting reviews, but it should also focus on improving them.
Get visible star ratings
When star ratings are displayed in the Google search results, potential customers can instantly judge the level of trust in the product and the site. This goes a long way to boost traffic and sales. Google uses specific reviews from third-party sites to determine the rating of a particular site. Star ratings help increase the conversion rate by up to 17%, which is a big incentive to attract more research about them together with Google’s guidelines on eligibility.
Helps improve product ranking
As the number of people searching for your product reviews increases, it opens more opportunities to improve ranking in SERPs.
This increases the chances of viewing more searches in the form of review and product name. This is a boost and an additional opportunity for the business to reach its potential customers in the most effective and relevant way i.e. at the very moment they are searching for additional details about your product.
Conclusion
Businesses should, therefore, come up with a well-crafted strategy on how to maximize returns using reviews and ratings. Use reviews to track and improve your Google ranking. To gain more reviews, a business can invest in rewarding customers who review the products. This should, however, be done with care to avoid overdoing it as many reviews may be regarded as scams.