As the old saying goes, “the customer is always right.” While you’ve been searching for the next big thing to give your site or clients a big SEO push, your customers that have been leaving reviews have the right idea. As it turns out, user reviews are shown to increase click-through rate, long-tail keywords and overall sales . And lucky for us, the number of customers leaving reviews isn’t declining.
These Numbers Don’t Lie
If you haven’t already implemented or actively searched out reviews for your clients or web store, here are a few statistics that will make you reconsider.
- 50+ reviews per product can result in conversion rates increasing by 4.6%
- User reviews are almost 12 times more trusted than manufacturer issued descriptions
- 63% of users reported being more likely to buy from a site which showcases customer reviews
SEO Value of Customer Reviews
Now that you’ve seen what reviews can accomplish numerically, lets get into the overarching SEO value reviews bring to your site.
Rise of the Long Tail Keywords
Showcasing user-submitted reviews not only is about gaining a potential customer’s trust, it also acts as long tail keyword rich content. Reviews often increase rankings for “[product name] reviews” and also typically include descriptive words commonly found in searches of ready buyers. Many descriptive words vary between niches and industry, but some examples of the most common include affordable, durable and best.
Increased CTR
Correctly formatting your reviews is pivotal in increasing your click-through rates. Thanks to rich snippets, product reviews will be noticed before a user even reaches your page. According to our friends over at Distilled, including these review stars can increase CTR by 10-20%.
How to Get Product Reviews
After reading about the benefits of reviews, I’m sure you’re just itching to get them implemented onto your site! But the question still remains, how do I get authentic reviews?
- Third party review providers such as Reevoo and Bazaarvoice provide stores with authentic reviews.
- Email your customers after a purchase. Your first post-purchase activity should be to ask customers for a thorough and candid review. Just be sure to give enough time between purchase and email.
- Offer incentives for reviews. Enter users that review products into raffles or offer small discounts for authentic reviews. This can be combined with the previous method.
- Ask for reviews on product page.
- Make it as simple as possible. This may be the most important–do not make the process overly complicated.
Presenting Your Reviews
Now that you’ve secured your ultra-valuable reviews from customers, its time to put them into place. However, inserting these in plain copy blocks underneath your products won’t do. Here are few quick tips in review presentation.
- Use filtered navigation. Allow your customers to view different levels of reviews (5 star vs. 2 star reviews)
- Take advantage of charts to show satisfaction. Charts (such as those used by Amazon) will give the user a quick idea of what percentage of the reviews left are positive, negative or just so-so.
- Guide the details given in user reviews. Creating categories in the reviews, such as Pros and Cons of the product will allow you to guide the level of details a user leaves in their reviews.
Now that you know why your site needs authentic reviews, how to get them, and how to present them, there is nothing left to do but implement them and reap the benefits!