Despite the fact that many site owners, especially new ones, do not pay attention to customer reviews at all, they are very important. First of all, you need to understand that having reviews helps increase sales. They help a potential customer get rid of doubts about a particular product or help in the final choice of a product from several similar options.

Therefore, in this article, we will look at various aspects of the usefulness of reviews for websites - from SEO to increasing sales, and also learn how to get more reviews from your customers.

SEO benefits of customer feedback

In addition to increasing conversions and sales, customer reviews bring a number of other benefits to your site. In particular, we are talking about the performance of the site in search engines.

In this context, the benefits of having reviews would be:

• Additional unique content. Text on product pages usually contains descriptions from manufacturers that are not unique and are duplicated on many other sites. User reviews are a great way to increase the amount of unique content on these pages and improve their ranking in search results.

• The growth of clicks on LF queries. We are talking about queries like “product name” + “review / reviews”, which are especially popular in the niche of computer and digital technology. The presence of such information on your website site has a positive effect on the growth of search traffic for such queries.

• Product ranking in search. The rating from the product page, which is displayed using microdata and in search results, increases CTR in search results, the number of user transitions and ranking in general. Typically, such a rating is displayed in the form of stars and is based on the rating of the product by users.

These seemingly insignificant details have a positive effect on the website, contributing to an increase in the amount of targeted traffic, and hence sales growth. That’s why you should definitely consider the possibility to embed Google reviews or reviews from any other website on your homepage. 

Negative feedback is also important

Why is criticism necessary? Although it may not seem obvious, all reviews are valuable to your business, and combining positive reviews with negative ones can increase the level of trust. A solid positive is unnatural and arouses suspicion.

The appearance of negative reviews on the pages of your website can and should be allowed. But in no case should they be left without a reaction and, even more so, removed. In this case, the offended buyer will try to post even more negative reviews about you, moreover, on sites where you can’t delete them, but everyone can see them.

Negative comments should not go unnoticed

It is necessary to understand what the dissatisfied customer wants to achieve and, if possible, solve his problem. And do it as quickly and efficiently as possible. In this case, handling the negativity will benefit you, and you will not only turn a dissatisfied customer into a grateful one, but also increase the loyalty of other users, who will make sure that your company is really trying to help its customers and is focused on satisfying their needs. Do not miss the opportunity to expose the process of solving the client's problem for all to see.

Algorithm for processing negative reviews

Despite the fact that some of the complaints may be fake and published by competitors, you need to understand that the goal of the vast majority of dissatisfied customers is simple - they need to solve their problem:

• Do not try to criticize the client or allow the transition to personal.
• Politely apologize, understand the situation.
• Solve the problem promptly. Show the result to other users.

The Internet is a public space, so you need to work with reviews carefully, otherwise you can provoke such a reaction from users that will simply destroy the reputation of your company.

How to get customer feedback 

When choosing between the ability to do something and the ability to do nothing, in most cases people are clearly inclined towards the second option. Realizing this, it is necessary to encourage users to leave reviews, because their absence reduces the credibility of the one-page website.

And you can do this by using the following methods:

• Simply ask. Nothing prevents you from simply leaving text on the product page asking you to express your opinion about a particular product. Even this simple step will encourage users to be more active;

• Send a letter after purchase. You can set up automatic sending of a letter to the client's email with a request to leave a review, which will come some time after the purchase;

• Offer bonuses. For example, introduce a cumulative bonus system that, upon reaching a certain level, allows you to get a discount. And offer registered one-page visitors to receive bonuses for posting reviews;

• Show an example. It's no secret that people are more active in commenting on those pages on which someone has already expressed their opinion. Therefore, in order to encourage new visitors to leave reviews, you can simply order a small number of comments from copywriters to start with, which will become the basis for further activity;

• Simplify the process. The easier it is for a visitor to leave a review, the more likely they are to do so. Therefore, place a call to action in a prominent place, and as an addition to the comment form, also offer the ability to quickly rate a specific product;

• Show gratitude. People love recognition, and if you send a thank you email to a user who has left a quality review, it is likely that this will encourage them to return to your site again and again, because here their opinion is valued.

Usually everything is much simpler than it seems at first, and many people themselves are ready to share useful information and their opinions with others. You just need to give them a little push.