Service-based Businesses: The Power of Online Reviews

Regardless of what service you provide — real estate, insurance, therapy, legal, medical, home renovation and more — you must be aware that what appears about you online is often the first thing a potential client sees. And if that first impression is negative, or even just questionable, you may never have the chance to overcome it, because people will simply keep searching and never contact you.

Nine out of 10 consumers — 90 percent — read online reviews before visiting a business. Almost all of them — 88 percent — put as much trust in online reviews as they do in personal recommendations. And nearly three out of four — 72 percent — say positive reviews make them trust a business more.

Even more important for your bottom line: customers who trust your online reviews are likely to spend 31 percent more than they would at companies with lower reviews. And online reviews are an inexpensive way to attract potential clients, one requiring a far less significant contribution from you than other marketing techniques like email blasts and social media campaigns.

How can you ensure this highly reliable method for establishing your business as trustworthy and professional works for you?

Here are some key ways to leverage your online reviews:

• Increase your exposure. The concept of word-of-mouth advertising has morphed into customer reviews that increase your visibility. In addition to reflecting positively on your service, they help improve search engine optimization (SEO) by regularly creating unique, up-to-date content.
• Identify relevant keywords. When you implement common words clients use to describe your service into your positioning, tags and content creation, you may significantly improve your ranking on various search platforms.
• Highlight positive reviews on your website, social media, in PR and influencer outreach campaigns. Showing that your service is supported by dozens of positive reviews can make a big impression on potential influencers, PR teams and journalists.
• Improve your offering with customer feedback. Rely on the invaluable feedback provided by reviews to analyze patterns, determine what clients rave about so you can keep doing it, employ it in your marketing assets, and/or quickly identify and solve any issues that come up.
• Directly engage with customers. An excellent way to build loyalty is to respond to a client’s review—thanking them, acknowledging constructive advice and possibly requesting additional feedback. And negative reviews should not be ignored, as they present an opportunity to learn what went wrong and what can be done differently to restore trust.

Sound like a lot of work?

It can be a full-time job, and you may not have the in-house capability to stay on top of all your reviews, responding to them, posting to your website and social media, and analyzing the data.

An excellent option is securing the services of a company that specializes in online reputation management, which is proactively creating and managing customer perception about a brand online. It primarily includes online reviews along with the comments people leave about a business on social media.

Contact us today to set up a discovery session. Let’s review where the gaps are in your online reputation and SEO optimization so your potential clients can find you and they make that first call to your business instead of your competition.