What are the tell-tale signs that your website needs reviews? Why are reviews so important?

Ratings and Reviews are very important for any eCommerce business. Most consumers today rely on reviews to make their purchases. Studies show that more than 90% of consumers rely on reviews and ratings for their online purchases. Good ratings and reviews can really turn the tide for your business. Therefore ratings and reviews have become ever so important.

New and established businesses depend on reviews and use it as a trusted form of marketing. A strong focus on reviews helps your business and your website grow. eCommerce stores must collect reviews from their customers to boost performance. Reviews can be both positive and negative and both are equally important. In fact as an online shopper I can tell you from personal experience that only seeing only positive reviews doesn’t really build trust. I sometimes want to know what is not good with the product, because I genuinely want to know what I am getting into. This is where a review generation platform like aveJana can really help eCommerce businesses. It automates the entire review generation process and gets 9x more reviews.

What are the 5 Clear signs that your website needs reviews?

Increase in Website Traffic:

One of the first signals that your website needs reviews is an increase in traffic. An increase in traffic on your website doesn’t always translate into sales. That said, it is one of the most important aspects of digital marketing. Organic searches are really important for any eCommerce business. As many as one third of all online shoppers usually start their journey from a search engine. Which makes good performance in traffic and SEO extremely important.

If your website is getting a lot of traffic then it is time for you to start collecting reviews as well. The presence of reviews not only builds trust with prospective customers but will also lead to search engines crawling through that content, leading to higher SEO ranks.

A website with reviews also catches the eye of a customer easily. This in turn ensures that shoppers will click through to your website, giving you a higher CTR (Click through Rate). One way to get reviews is also to work on an interactive website that allows the shopper to participate. Factors like uniqueness, a good interface and a well-designed site all add up to boost traffic for your website.

Low Conversion Rates:

There is a good amount of traffic on your website but the visitors aren’t converted into customers. What could be the possible reason behind this?

Pitching sales will not help you draw in customers in today’s markets. In fact, today customers are already well informed about products they want to buy. Researching any purchase is easy as pie. Customers don’t really respond well to advertisements anymore.

As a customer I would like to know what others like me who have brought the same product think and experienced. But if this information is not there, then there is a good chance that I will go to some other website where I can find this info.

Not having reviews therefore, is one of the key reasons why you may have low conversion rates on your website. Close to half of all online shoppers say that they will not buy from a website that doesn’t have reviews from its customers. These customers instantly look to search engines or to retail giants like amazon for reviews.

Reviews from customers add credibility to your products which is invaluable. If your website has reviews, the customer doesn’t need to go elsewhere to verify the credibility of your products, this is a very important factor for conversion of visitors to customers.

Increased Sales:

An increase in sales means that your business is gaining momentum. This is a great time for you to start collecting reviews as it can really help build your brand name and image. If the quality of your products is great and your sales are also doing well, there is often a tendency to relax and not do much about boosting sales further. However, let’s be clear that if you don’t get reviews for your website, your long term numbers will definitely suffer.

Customer reviews are a great way to gain insight into your products and understand them better. Even bad reviews are important. They sometimes contain valuable information for you as a business. This information will help you make your website and your products better in the long run. Many businesses often make the mistake of not taking into account critical reviews for the sake of better ratings. Focus instead on putting your customers first so that they know you care about them and your product too. This goes a long way in building trust with your customers. As your sales numbers grow your website needs reviews in greater numbers as well. Sales and reviews today go hand in hand. An easy way to integrate all your reviews is to use SaaS platforms like aveJana which help you integrate your reviews all in one place.

Building Your Presence on Retail and other sites:

Retail giants have a lot of influence in buying trends. Building a strong presence on retail sites is a great way to get more reviews on your website. Retail websites also allow you to get reviews from sellers which are very important too. Seller reviews will help your business gain a good reputation among both buyers and sellers. Retail websites also pay a great amount of attention to customer reviews. Many customers who aren’t able to find enough reviews for a product on your website will turn to retail websites to get a better idea about your products.

Surveys show that customers review products more often on retail websites. A great way to tell that your website needs reviews is also to observe trends on such retail websites. If your products are getting momentum on these sites, you should try to expand that momentum to your own website.

Increase in Social Media Activity:

Social media marketing is a great way to get more reviews on your website. A business with an engaging social media presence usually does well with reviews. An increase in social media activity is a clear sign that your websites needs reviews. You can also get reviews for your website via social media. A clear social media marketing strategy with targeted posts and constant interaction with your customers are extremely important too.

Social media is a big driver of any eCommerce business. In fact the influence of social media can no longer be ignored for any business. Study the data you get from social media websites carefully to understand when your website needs reviews. This is a long term strategy that your business can benefit a lot from.

Conclusion:

Reviews are a great way to build your products into brands. Careful study of your website, the traffic and the data available from customers will help your business grow radically. A clear strategy for getting reviews is also a key element here. Reviews are a great way to build long term relationships with your customers. Don’t hesitate to answer queries and acknowledge all kinds of reviews. Focusing on positive reviews is important but improving your products from the valuable critical feedback from your customers is equally important. If you are worried about bad reviews then this is how to handle bad reviews. The competition is tough, every website needs reviews to succeed as a brand and as a business.

The post 5 Signs that your Website needs Ratings & Reviews appeared first on aveJana.