7 Reasons Why Product Reviews Matter for an eCommerce Site
If you aren't giving your customers the ability to leave product reviews, you could be significantly hurting your conversions and sales-especially if you're marketing to Millennials.
As a generation raised with technology, Millennials are more inclined to research your products well before they make a purchase. One essential piece of information that they're looking for is social proof, which is something that you can give them through product reviews.
Of course, that's not the only reason why you should have product reviews on your eCommerce site. Here are seven more reasons why you need to have them if you want to drive conversions:
Product Reviews Inspire Trust
Building trust can be difficult for eCommerce stores, but many merchants know that it is the key to increasing conversions. It's why many business owners go to great lengths to make their eCommerce sites appear trustworthy.
If there is one thing that customers trust, it's the recommendations of other consumers. Your word about your product won't count for much, but a Moz study found that 67 percent of consumers will trust online reviews from complete strangers. More than half of respondents said that these reviews influenced their purchasing decisions.
Product reviews give your online business greater transparency, which paves the way toward building consumer trust.
They Help Boost Your Product's SEO
An overlooked benefit of product reviews is that they can help boost your SEO. When your customers leave product reviews, they are essentially giving your site unique and relevant content that can be indexed and ranked by search engines.
Customers use natural language in their reviews, which often include long-tail keywords. These long-tail keywords can give your site an SEO boost and drive highly-targeted traffic to your eCommerce site.
This content is generated by users for free when you enable product reviews. Why wouldn't you want to take advantage of that?
Product Reviews Increase CTRs and Conversions
As a consumer, which would you rather click on: an ad with a five-star rating, or one that had no rating at all? If you're like most online shoppers, you would probably be more inclined to click on the search ad with a five-star rating.
Before a consumer even clicks on an ad, they can receive some information about that product just by looking at its rating. These reviews can persuade consumers to click on your ads, therefore, increasing your click-through rates and driving more traffic to your eCommerce site.
One way of getting your product ratings to appear in search results is by using Rich Snippets, a type of on-page markup that shows web users a small sample of content from a web page in Google's search results pages. If you want your reviews to show up in the SERPs, make sure that you follow Google's new guidelines when it comes to their Review Snippets.
Customer Feedback Can Improve Your Products
We have ways of testing and tracking the performance of our marketing strategies, but the most valuable insight often comes directly from our customers. Product reviews matter because they can provide helpful feedback to online business owners and give them the opportunity to improve their products and services.
But how do you get customers to leave product reviews, exactly? One effective method is to create a winning post-purchase email campaign. You can use automated marketing to send out messages after 2-3 days following the purchase so that the customer has had enough time to form an opinion.
Consider giving them an incentive to write a review in the form of a discount on a future purchase or a chance to win a gift card. If there is one thing that every customer loves, it's a good discount or amazing deal.
Builds Consumer Loyalty
The most loyal customers are the most valuable to your eCommerce business. That's why you should be using your product reviews to increase your customer's loyalty to your brand.
For example, featuring your customer's reviews regularly on your blog or putting their testimonials on your website can make them feel connected to your brand. Not only do loyal fans get their recognition, but others will see how loyal your business's fans are and potentially show greater interest in your product.
Even Bad Reviews Can Lead to a Purchase
One of the biggest concerns that business owners have in regards to online reviews is what to do with their bad reviews. There are plugins that allow you to approve reviews before they're posted, but it's not recommended to delete a review altogether.
Yes, you want as many good reviews as possible, but the bad reviews serve a purpose as well. In fact, they can increase your conversions by 67 percent. That's because customers may read a bad review and find that the problems listed in the review are things that don't bother them. If they believe that they've read the worst about your product, they might end up purchasing it anyways.
Similarly, how you respond to bad reviews can elevate your business in the eyes of the consumer. If you go above and beyond for your customers, others will take notice and become loyal customers as well.
Product Reviews Inspire Confidence
Finally, product reviews matter because they remove any final doubts that your customers have with your products and gives them the confidence to go through with a purchase. You may have described your product in detail, but customers want to confirm these details with others before they make a purchase.
For instance, many of us have seen a disgruntled customer complaining that their shirt was a much brighter pink than the picture shows, or that the customer was glad they bought a larger size because their sizes run small.
Product reviews give information that is extremely valuable to online shoppers. Only with this information will some of them feel confident buying from your eCommerce site. By giving customers the power to leave product reviews, you are making the buying decision much simpler for your future customers.