In the day to day activities of running a busy business, it can be quite easy to totally forget about the importance of reviews for your business. I see it everyday where businesses totally neglect their reviews online. It just goes to show how most of them don’t seem to find it important to get customer reviews and to manage customer reviews for their business online. Below, I’ll share with you a few reasons why reviews are very important for your business.

1. Reviews Provide SEO Benefits

Google really tries hard to provide search results that benefit the user so it’s no surprise that Google uses the customer reviews on your Google My Business page to help determine where your business should stand in the search results. In fact, earlier on this year, Moz published an article showing the top local ranking factors. If you’re business has a lot of negative reviews, that can harm your rankings but if you have many positive reviews, that will have a positive impact on your rankings.

2. Increased Conversion Rate

When people search for a local business on Google, Google generally returns 13 results on the first page (the local snack pack and the organic results). For the average user, there are generally three ingredients which will help them choose which business to go with:

1. The rankings (The higher, the higher chance of grabbing the sale).
2. The conversion optimization of the landing page.
3. Location (which business is closer).
4. Last but not least, the reviews for that business.

When they can’t decide, reviews are really what seals the deal with potential customers and clients for your business. In fact, Search Engine Land found published an article that stated 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation.

3. Increased Click Through Rate

Not only do you have a better chance to convert a customer with positive reviews, but you have a better chance of increasing your click through rate. By looking at the two comparison’s of Plumber reviews in two different cities, it’s obvious that more people will be inclined to click on local business listings that look similar to the listings on the right. They reviews are big time eye catchers.

4. Bad Reviews Aren’t That Bad

Bad reviews suck. No one wants a bad review for their business. However, the fear of bad reviews shouldn’t deter you from encouraging reviews from your customers. A study be Reevoo, a social commerce company, stated that bad reviews can improve conversions by as much as 67%. They found that 68% of people trusted the reviews more when they saw a mixture of both good and bad reviews. Also, 30% of potential customers would actually suspect fake reviews or some sort of censorship if they didn’t see any negative reviews at all.

5. Shows You Care

When you encourage your customers to leave reviews, it actually shows that you care about your business and your reputation. This will build trust in your existing customers and possibly increase the chances of them becoming a return customer. And if you think you’re being too pushy by requesting reviews, don’t be afraid to offer an incentive such as a discount on your products or services.