Whenever we, as customers, think about buying something online, we spend a significant amount of time researching that product or service. First, we check out similar items being offered and then filter them according to price, availability, color, or reviews. After a careful analysis, we pick one or two sites with offers we like and decide between the two.
Today, people on the internet feel very empowered. Not just because there are so many products out there, but because they also have access to a lot of information about anything they are interested in. This has led to something amazing; we can find out anything about anyone or about any product. This includes services and businesses, too. And since there is so much information available, it is getting harder to fool customers.
Customers can now easily check out a business and see the reviews of its products or services on different sites across the internet. And as you can imagine, people are more likely to trust the reviews posted by others that are not associated with or paid by the business than the business’ advertising campaign. The many sites where one can find such reviews are, for example, Yelp, TripAdvisor, and even social media platforms.
But the most common website for leaving reviews would be no other than Google. So let’s first define what a Google review even is.
Google reviews allow businesses to showcase that they are doing their work well. This lets them prove they are being honest and that they provide value in return for the money they receive. Basically, these reviews serve as social proof for other customers that a business is worth their time and money.
Some studies say that up to 88% of customers read customer reviews before deciding on a purchase, and that about 60% of them are more likely to buy from a site that has customer reviews. Hence, having some reviews, especially positive ones, is quite important.
However, this also means that if you don’t have reviews, or have a small number of them, people could be less likely to buy from you. As we mentioned earlier, customers today feel empowered and want to know they are getting something valuable for their money. So, if you have no reviews, people will be unsure if they can trust you with their money. And, honestly, that makes a lot of sense.
So, what should you do and why should you care about reviews?
As you can see, there are some benefits to getting customers to review your site, products, or services. Besides just getting some honest testimonials, you can use the reviews in your marketing campaigns and add them to your website. Through the reviews, you can also see what you are doing right (or wrong) and improve it so you can grow as a business.
You should also respond to these reviews, especially if they are negative, and apologize, maybe even say you are doing your best to resolve any issues that your customers might have. This proves to your customers that you genuinely care about them and it helps to improve your image as an honest and caring business in their eyes.
Lastly, good reviews also help you improve the visibility of your company/website on Google as even Google takes into consideration reviews when calculating your SEO score. Naturally, if a visitor sees you have a lot of reviews (especially positive ones), they are more likely to do business with you. Reviews also help boost brand trust and the transparency of your business.
Make sure you have real reviews
So, since reviews are important and your potential customers will read them, you have to do your best to collect honest and genuine reviews. Remember, customers today are so tech-savvy that they can easily spot when a review has been paid for or is spam. Don’t get yourself into a situation where you lose customers because of being dishonest. This will make it even harder to generate any revenue and get more customers, which is already tough enough as there is a lot of competition.
In short, having customer reviews on Google is of big importance. They are needed for your SEO strategy as Google aims to deliver the most relevant results in searches, and for that, it needs to know how your business is perceived. On top of that, reviews can also help increase your conversion rates.
How do you get your customers to write reviews?
First, you should have great customer service as that increases the chances of having high ratings and positive reviews. If you have employees that care about your customers and help them solve any issues, the customers will be more likely to share that with others.
Also, have a strategy using which you will encourage your customers to write reviews about you. For example, send them a thank you email for their purchase and include a link to where they can review your business.
How can you display your Google reviews on your WordPress website?
In case you already have Google reviews, that’s great! But how can you show them on your website?
Luckily for you, there is a plugin that does just that. Widgets for Google Reviews displays your reviews in predesigned widgets that you can customize and embed on your website.
This plugin is free to use and you can display up to 5 reviews at a time. It comes with 7 widget layouts and 9 predesigned widget styles that you can customize.
It also comes with the option to filter your reviews and it keeps them safe in a WordPress database. Plus, you can use this plugin with any page builder (Gutenberg, Elementor, Page Origin, Beaver Builder, and Divi).
To get more from the plugin, you can easily create a free account for Trustindex‘s professional review management software (no card details are needed) and thus have access to even more features, that are also free.
You can display your reviews from Google, Facebook, Yelp, Amazon, Booking, Airbnb, Hotels, and other sites, so you can rest assured all your reviews will be shown. With the professional review software, you also get 13 layouts, the ability to personalize widgets in any way you want to, and an unlimited number of widgets that you can manage for multiple businesses.
Your widgets will be automatically updated once a new review has been added and you can get email notifications for every new review. That way you know what is being said about you so you can properly respond, in time.
You can edit the order of your reviews, shorten them so they just show the most relevant info, modify the review links, as well as hide some of the reviews (although we leave the choice of hiding or not hiding the negative ones up to you).
The plugin software checks if the reviews posted are real and verified, so you can rest assured there will be no spam. You can also create a summary page where you can, as the name implies, summarize all of your reviews.
With this plugin, of course, you will get shortcode, HTML, and JavaScript support.
Finally, here are some facts that might push you to give this plugin a chance. Trustindex which is the professional review software this plugin was built upon, has more than 20,000 customers some of which have reported an increase in sales of almost 18%.
These people decided that they need this software for their business as it can also be integrated with many other platforms, such as WordPress, Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, and Weebly.
How to set up the free Widgets for Google Reviews WP plugin?
To show you how easy it is to use this plugin, we’ll do a short tutorial with snapshots on how to set up a Google review widget on your site.
First, you should download and activate this plugin, which can be done here or by going to the WP repository, typing in “Widgets for Google Reviews”, and clicking download.
After that, you should get a new option on your WP Admin dashboard labeled Trustindex.io. Clicking on that will take you to a tab containing what you see in the image below.
This is where you will type in the URL of your business website.
Below that, you can do some customizations. For example, you can select what kind of review template you would like to have, how you want to show your ratings, what date format you want to use, as well as your language and style.
The third step lets you check out how your reviews will look like on your website, so you can decide if you like it or not. If you decide that you like the template, the next step lets you copy a shortcode which you have to add to your site in order to display your reviews.
Basically, click Copy shortcode, go to your site, and paste the shortcode into a block of your site where you want your reviews to show up. That’s all!
Conclusion
In short, Google reviews can improve your brand visibility and trust among your customers. Also, they can help increase your conversion rates and the revenue you generate from selling your products or services.
That is why we would recommend you get the Widgets for Google Reviews plugin so you can start showing customers that you care about them and that your products are of good quality, right on your website.
Also, probably going to spend my honeymoon traveling across Asia.
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