improve your online reputation

Can Reviews Help to Improve Your Online Reputation?

SEO

Ever wondered if people read the reviews for your business?

If you want to improve your online reputation, drive traffic to your site, and see profitable conversions then yes, you should care about reviews. These come from the customers and are direct testimonials for people to bear witness.

How do reviews affect your business and reputation? It all starts with understanding user behavior:

Customer Spending Behavior

Think about this real quick: 90% of consumers will read reviews before shopping for a product or service. That’s 9 out of every 10 customers. Imagine how devastating it could be if those reviews were negative in nature.

As a matter of fact, reviews affect purchasing decisions by a margin of 67.7%. If people don’t see positive reviews, they’ll assume your business is a scam or that the products and services are not worth the investment.

There is the popular saying, “I read it online, therefore it must be true” and this is true when it comes to reviews. The average Internet user won’t spend much time looking for multiple reviews to verify what they read. If one or two reviews said something good or bad about your business, the reader will take it at face value.

Reviews and Ratings

One of the reasons why your online reputation relies on reviews is because of the high volume of people reading reviews. There is a valid argument about how people don’t have a long attention span when it comes to using the Internet but online reviews already worked around this years ago.

The answer is the star rating system.

People don’t have to read long reviews. They don’t need to watch 15-minute videos. They can look at the average star rating, an aggregate score pooled from numerous reviews, and judge your business from that number.

Got 3 out of 5 stars based on 200 reviews? For most people, that means your business is average, meaning it’s fine but with a few kinks that need ironing out. A 1 out of 5 is a death sentence because even if there are positive reviews, customers will only see the aggregate score and think your business is a sinkhole.

People Trust Online Reviews

Would you buy a product you never heard about based only on a video advertisement presented to you? Or would you buy it after watching the advertisement and reading a positive review proving that the ads didn’t lie about the quality of the product?

See, the thing is people trust online reviews. A whopping 84% of people trust reviews, with 19% of that group saying they always believe what reviews say. Only 3% state they don’t trust online reviews at all.

If you have even only one review for your business or a product you sell, that could become the deciding factor for most of your site visitors. They will trust or move away from you depending on how good that rating is.

As a matter of fact, ratings below a high average could spell your doom.

Take the case of Uber drivers. Uber tends to penalize drivers with an average rating below 4 out of 5 stars. 4 out of 5 should be amazing but in the eyes of the company and its customers, that’s not enough because it hints there’s a percentage of error and mistrust.

Negativity Drives Customers Away

With one negative review, you could lose an approximate 22% of customers. That’s around 30 customers in regards to the scale of small businesses. Gain three and that rate increases up to 59%.

If all the reviews on your site are bad, it doesn’t mean all your customers are unhappy. 9 out of 10 happy customers won’t write a review because they already got what they wanted. More often than not, it’s the unhappy consumers who leave reviews.

It’s human behavior to remember the negative things more than the good ones. Even if you have several positive reviews, people will likely share and discuss the negative reviews more. This is bad publicity but always keep in mind you can spin it to your advantage.

To improve your online reputation, deal with these reviews in a professional manner. Respond to them with enthusiasm and maintain an air of optimism.

Other readers will judge your business depending on how you react to negative reviews. If you handle the situation with your own negative feedback, it may only drive more customers away.

Reviews Spread Fast

Take into consideration Healthy YOU Vending reviews. The rate of recommending the company to a friend is at 100%. This is a good example but pause for a second and consider how many people shared this information with the company’s target demographic.

It’s true that there may be a few. Good word-of-mouth spreads fast, yes, but nowhere near as quickly as a negative review. You could have a 100% approval rating and 9 out of 10 good reviews but most people online will only talk about the 1 negative comment.

That’s simply how the Internet is. Sometimes it’s a toxic environment.

If you aim to improve your online reputation you’ll have to work hard to remove those negative comments or spin the situation in your favor.

Also, take into consideration how fast people share things on social media. People will share good or bad reviews in the snap of a finger and from that point on it becomes difficult to control its reach. Before you know it, thousands of people already read the review that may make or break your income.

Improve Your Online Reputation Now

Think your business generates positive word of mouth? Do you see a lot of positive reviews passing around the Web or are you struggling to respond to negative comments regarding your services?

After reading reviews you have to analyze what people say about your company. If you want to improve your online reputation, build on what people like and work on what they don’t.

Do they complain about page loading speeds? Lack of a good user interface or site navigation?

Whatever you need, we’ve got your back. You can contact us for more inquiries, site consultation, and to help reduce site downtime, ensuring your site is always running.