The internet is littered with user-generated content. From YouTube videos to blogs, every site has a section where people can provide their thoughts on that particular site or product.
These are called online reviews or user reviews. While most of these may be positive, some of them may not be so kind. An online review is similar to a book review but instead of analyzing the content provided by one author, you’re asked to analyze someone else’s experiences with a product or service.
That being said, there are specific things you need to know about online reviews before you start soliciting them for your business…
What is an Online Review?
An online review is a type of review where one person describes their experiences with a product or service, usually on a website, forum, or another online platform. The online review can be positive, negative, or somewhere in between.
The reviewer usually provides their thoughts on the product, how they used it, and how they felt about it. Online reviews usually follow specific guidelines. These guidelines usually include the review being honest, detailed, and unbiased.
Why Do You Need Online Reviews?
There are many reasons why you may want to get online reviews for your business. Here are some of the most common reasons:
Improve SEO
When you’re starting a new blog, forum, or website, the first thing you need to do is get backlinks so you rank well on Google. Once you have a few backlinks, you want to make sure you start building your Google SEO with the right keywords and content for those keywords.
Now, how is this related to getting online reviews? Well, online reviews can also be used to boost your SEO. But instead of boosting your Google rank, you boost your website’s backlink count.
Because it’s a website, not a blog, you can boost your backlink count with both positive and negative reviews. This means you can improve your SEO while also boosting your online presence.
Promote Customer Retention
With seasonal sales, you have to keep your customers and grow your base to increase revenue. You can do this by offering discounts or coupons. While these may work well during these special occasions, you may also want to consider asking your customers to write reviews.
Now, you may be thinking, what’s the point in asking for reviews if we’re just going to discount the product again? While this may be true, reviews are a great marketing tool for retaining your current customers.
Boost Brand Equity
No matter how hard you work to promote your business, you’re not going to get every customer to become loyal and raving fans of your brand. Online reviews help you spread the word about why your brand should become more than just a name on a shelf.
Reviews are not just about raving about the company’s products; they are also used to share your customer’s experiences. You want to see if they like the items they purchased if they got the quality they were looking for and if they found their products easy to use.
Types of Online Reviews
Positive Reviews
These are the most common and frequent types of reviews. Positive reviews are usually about how a customer felt about their experience with your business. These reviews are usually very detailed, accompanied by photos, and oftentimes written on a blog or another online platform.
Mixed Reviews
These are usually negative and may be accompanied by photos. Mixed reviews are usually written on a blog or another online platform. They usually contain mostly negative comments and opinions on your business, accompanied by photos and details.
Negative Reviews
These are usually negative and usually contain mostly negative comments on your business accompanied by photos and details. These are usually written on a blog or another online platform.
Get More Online Reviews
There are many ways to get more online reviews for your business. Here are some of the most common:
Ask for them
Although you may not want to solicit reviews for your business, you should always keep in mind that people are more likely to leave you one if you ask them to.
Be Mindful of Your Posts
Just like what we have mentioned above, you need to be mindful of your posts. Be careful about promoting your product in a way that is not appealing to your customers. If you see that your content is not appealing to your users, you may want to consider rewriting it or removing the content from your post. Be wary of what you are promoting and make sure that it reflects your brand.
Actively Engage
The more you engage with your fans on social media, the more they will trust you. There are many ways you can engage with your fans, like reposting their content, answering their questions, and more. All of these acts will show your fans that you are genuinely interested in their well-being.
Reward Your Fans
This is a common sense tip, but it is still worth mentioning. If you are getting online reviews for your business, try to reward your fans who leave you positive reviews. This will show them that you appreciate their efforts and they will be more likely to do the same in the future.
Take Action After Getting Online Reviews
The best thing that you can do after you get reviews for your business is to act on them. This means that you should make sure that you are replying to the reviewers, thanking them for their comments, and addressing any concerns that they may have. If you want to make good use of your online reviews, you must remember that these are only as good as the actions that come after getting them.
Responding to Positive Reviews
Now that you have more online reviews for your business, you need to make sure that you respond to them. This is especially important if you have positive reviews. If someone writes a positive review you need to make sure that you respond to that.
This is something that many businesses fail to do. They think that they have satisfied customers who will write negative reviews if they’re not responded to.
This is not true. When you respond to a positive review, you want to make sure that you’re thanking the customer for their feedback and saying how much it means to your business. You can also use this response to offer a small gesture of appreciation like offering them a free sample or a free consultation.
Responding to Negative Reviews
If you receive any negative reviews, then you need to address them as soon as possible. Here are a few things that you can do to address them. – First, you can ask the reviewer to provide more details about the problem. – You can also promise to address the problem if the reviewer permits you to do so. – And if all else fails and the reviewer is too negative, you can simply ignore it.
Responding to Mixed Reviews
If you have even a few positive reviews and some negative ones, then you want to make sure that you respond to the positive ones. This is especially important if you have mixed reviews.
A lot of business owners forget about the fact that they have a few negative reviews. Their focus is on the fact that they have a lot of positive reviews. If you’re like this, then you need to make it a priority to respond to negative reviews.
At the same time, you want to respond to the positive reviews as well. This is something that a lot of business owners forget. At the end of the day, it’s important to make sure that you’re showing your customers that you’re grateful for their feedback.
Conclusion
The internet is a vast place full of people with a lot of knowledge, and you need to connect with as many of those people as you can. One of the best ways to do this is to seek out and collect online reviews for your business. Doing so can drastically improve your SEO, boost your brand equity, improve customer retention, and more.
While these reviews are important, it’s important to note that not everyone who writes a review is going to be happy. It’s important to remember that these reviews are written from a subjective point of view. This means that each person who reads your reviews is going to be looking at them through their lens.
Now that you know what an online review is and why you need them, start looking for ways to get more of them for your business.
Articles You Might Want To Read:
The Importance of Online Reviews in 2022
6 Good Reasons To Care About Ratings and Reviews
How Online Reviews Can Help Your Business Engage More Customers
