Customer reviews are important for local businesses to attract new customers and give them the confidence to purchase from you. When people are looking for real information about the experience others have had with your business or your products and services, they look to reviews to help them decide whether to move forward or not.
Though they’re highly important, reviews that appear on a Google search results page aren’t the only ones that matter. Sharing those and other reviews on your website is also a critical component of any review management strategy.
Here’s a quick discussion of the value of sharing reviews on your site, and how GatherUp’s review widget can help.
Why you should display reviews on your site
Customer reviews act as highly relevant content generated directly from your audience that’s specific to your business. Search engines like Google place a lot of value on this type of content and use it to help determine search rankings. When customers leave reviews, Google can verify with more certainty that your business is what you say it is, and that you do or sell what you advertise.
When you share reviews on your business website, you can actually give your site a bump in search results. And appearing higher in search results can get your business in front of more of your potential customers.
In addition to improving local SEO, displaying reviews on your site increases your business credibility and improves your reputation. People expect to see reviews in a Google search. But when they land on your site and can also read reviews there that are from verified customers, they have that much more reason to trust your business.
How to use GatherUp’s review widget to share reviews
GatherUp’s review widget enables you to display both first- and third-party customer reviews on your website. First-party reviews are written directly by your customers on your website; they include both the content of the review itself and a rating, and they’re owned by your business. Third-party reviews come from sites that are independent of your business, such as Facebook or Yelp, and are owned by those sites.
Here’s how the review widget works:
- Customize the layout and design: Choose from different layouts such as vertical, horizontal, or full page that best accommodate the format of your website, as well as design options such as font, color, buttons, and social media links to align the look and feel of the widget with your brand.
- Decide which review content to display: Choose to display first- and third-party reviews, or limit the review content to one type or the other. If displaying third-party reviews, select which sites to monitor, such as Google or Facebook. Whenever a customer leaves a review on a site you’re monitoring, the widget pulls that review into your website.
- Adjust other settings: Select the number of reviews to show on the page, calculate your average rating per all reviews, and adjust other settings that apply to all reviews or are only specific to first- or third-party reviews.
By sharing customer reviews directly on your business website, you strengthen your review management strategy and help build a more credible online presence — attracting more customers, increasing conversions, and earning more revenue in the process.
Strengthen your review strategy with GatherUp
It’s important for a comprehensive review management strategy to include the ability to share reviews. When you use GatherUp’s customer experience and reputation management platform, you get the automated tools you need to monitor sites for reviews from your customers, then pull in and display first- and third-party reviews on your business website — raising your credibility with potential local customers and increasing your conversions and revenue.
Contact us today to learn more about GatherUp’s review widget.
