Word-of-mouth marketing has changed completely for the small or local business. In the past, if someone had a bad experience, it may only reach a few of their friends. In today's world, with the ease of online review sites, social media, and blogging, a bad experience can reach hundreds or even thousands of people. This revolution has caught many owners off guard and they are scrambling to figure out how to manage and improve their online reputation. Many are hoping that online reviews will go away. Customer content is exploding just like the penetration of mobile devices makes it very easy to rave or rant at the moment it happens. Customers are posting about their experience before they even get the check!
The impact of reviews is very great. 84% of Americans say customer reviews on blog have an influence on their decision to purchase a product or service they need. And these reviews can not be monitored. In addition, if you're business only has a few reviews, even if they are all positive, your business are at a risk. Just one bad review can have an immediate impact on your brand reputation. Therefore, you should work on wide campaign to generate reviews. There are a few other great reasons why reviews can benefit you:
What many entrepreneur don't realize is that reviews have actually increase profits. Great reviews and online reputations is a competitive advantage. Consumer research from the Kelsey Group reported, "Consumers are willing to pay at least 20% more for offline services that received an "Excellent" or 5-star rating than for the same service when it received a "Good" or 4-star rating. More importantly, merchants are seeing the effect on their bottom line. Of the 30 percent of small business retailers who had integrated product reviews into their Web sites, 43 percent said reviews had resulted in more sales, while 28 percent indicated reviews had resulted in more traffic.
In addition, positive reviews can also help drive profits through search engine optimization and may impact your rankings on local search and general search results. For local search and mapping sites from Google, Bing, and Yahoo, the search are aggregating reviews from many sites and use both quantity and quality (overall rating) in their ranking algorithms. It helps to get great reviews across many different sites as well. For sites like Yelp and Citysearch, review quality and quantity are very strong influences on determining rankings. Reviews can even benefit you on general search engine rankings. The more review sites that have content about your business (and links to your site), the more this provides validation and "trust" from the search engine's perspective.
Review management is important for successful local businesses. Use chatmeter wich designed to help you manage and monitor your reviews. It also save your time from visiting over all sites looking for your reviews.
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