Here at Soap Media we believe with the amount of money being spent online expanding exponentially every year, it has become essential that website owners capitalise on this traffic to their sites. This is the same whether it is an eCommerce site or an affiliate based enterprise. Website ratings and reviews systems are a prime way in which to help a visitor take action and improve click through rates. By using a review optimisation of a website becomes so much easier.
Whatever type of website reviews and ratings system you use, what is undeniable from the statistics is that if you generate reviews to place on your site they will both draw in new surfers as well as increase sales. With a review optimisation of a site can yield significant benefits on many fronts including clickthrough rates on your PPC Ads. The main and most tangible ones from product reviews are:
1. Visitor Confidence
If your website reviews products and services honestly, that is pretty obvious to any visitor. Regurgitated manufacturers’ marketing copy is a turnoff so having good user reviews and feedback will fill the visitor with confidence as to your intent and approach
2. Social Ratification
As soon as visitor confidence increases, you will be accepted socially. This means currently sharing through Google +1, Facebook and Twitter. The positive consequences of this are significant for adding to a site’s kudos in the marketplace and on the net.
3. Domain Authority
If you get visitor confidence and interaction and this is backed up by increasing social signals, you will build up ‘domain authority’. The increased natural and organic linking to your site and pages show this authority to the Google bots. Also, you are likely to get more return visitors and increased interaction.
4. Viral Potential
If you have domain authority, the viral potential for your website reviews is high. It is probable that you will be monitored on feeds and other channels by your readers. If hooked up with your own social profile as well, getting shared around the Internet is highly likely.
5. Increased Conversions
The trust that is built with the benefits above will help convert more visitors to sales. From studies by Deloitte & Touche LLP, over 50% of those asked said they were more likely to buy from a site with product reviews, increasing to over 80% when those reviews are based on actual consumer experience.
6. Long Tail Keyword Ranking
Reviews themselves generate a host of long tail keyword rankings. If you have the full details of a product in a review, optimisation for long tail is very effective. You could see quite a few high rankings without much effort.
7. Move A Potential Purchaser One Step On
What you are attempting to do as a seller and website owner is to move on the buyer to the last stages in the buying cycle to where they are ready to make a purchase. You have to go past the idea of a desire, through the information gathering and then checking to the actual purchase. User reviews and product reviews are very effective at doing this by adding confidence to a potential buyer that they have made the right choice in their mind.
8. Free Content
User and product reviews basically are free content for your site. This is the case, whether they add to an existing page through comments, or if they are actually full review articles submitted to you and they published. Where they are ad hoc comments added, with a rating, they are very powerful. This is not only free content, but it is continual fresh content in the eyes of the search engines and this will rank you higher. The ability to generate reviews in this way is highly beneficial.
9. Reduction In Complaints and Returns
It has been shown that reviews are very good at reducing returns. They highlight weaknesses so that a buyer is fully aware and has decided to spend money in that knowledge, knowing they can put up with it. But you do need to generate reviews in increasing quantities along with user input to see the benefits that website reviews will have on those figures.
10 Trust, Trust And More Trust
This really is the core of review optimisation for any business on the Internet. The build up of trust in all aspects of your interface via your website ratings and reviews will snowball. Each time you generate reviews or user comments, it provides a correlating review for you and it increases your trust factors. Soon, you will find that your product reviews become more trusted with less feedback. What you say, for instance in an ecommerce store description, is acted upon more as your word has been ratified as honest. Review optimisation is the key.
