- Consumer reviews and opinions are the main source of information about products and services on the Internet. Virtually all (95%) potential customers check online reviews before making a purchase, two-thirds (68%) very often read the opinions of other customers, while 30% of consumers check reviews with every purchase, according to ESW research.
- Nine out of ten (88%) consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations, and 93% of consumers say online reviews influence their purchasing decisions. All this means that customer opinions are on average responsible for an increase in sales by almost 1/5 – according to Dixa market data.
Fake reviews online
More than half of internet users from every age group say they have encountered fake reviews in the last year. Although young people notice the most unreliable opinions, according to research by Exploding Topics. As many as 92% of people aged 18-34, 74% of people aged 35-54 and 59% of consumers aged over 54 said they had seen a fake review online in the last year.
That's why it's so important to collect authentic, unique but also extensive reviews. Thanks to them, e-commerce will gain better positioning in search engines, have better conversions and increase sales. However, as it turns out, this is a difficult and demanding task.
20 characters and that's it
Companies selling online always want to rank high on search engine results pages because this increases traffic and sales on their websites. Customer reviews can improve SEO results significantly because they often contain keywords such as product and brand names. In fact, Google's algorithm gives consumer review sites higher rankings in search engines, and a high word count means more opportunities for relevant keywords. Ultimately, e-commerce sites with higher-rated products and reviews are more likely to rank higher in general and local search results. However, what is crucial in the case of search engine results is the length of the reviews and whether they are extensive and varied.
– According to our research, a typical review added by Internet users in Poland contains only 20 characters with spaces and looks like "everything is OK, I recommend it" – says Jerzy Krawczyk, president of the management board of Trustmate.io. – Unfortunately, it is impossible to build good SEO results based on such laconic, non-unique reviews, which not only increase traffic, but above all, online sales. You need to encourage customers to leave long and varied reviews that will have a positive impact on conversion and sales results.
How to get more authentic and extensive reviews
Customer reviews have become such an important part of e-commerce that you should collect as much of them as possible. However, contrary to appearances, it is not an easy art. As market data from Trustmate.io shows, in Poland only 3% of customers add opinions organically – on their own. Unfortunately, most of them (88%) are negative. So how can you significantly increase the number of opinions collected? You need to ask customers to write reviews. However, it is not enough to send an email asking for opinions. Many aspects are important, such as the title, personalized message and content of the invitation, day and time of sending and the frequency of email repetitions. An important element is also who sends the invitation to leave an opinion and who will store it. Technical details are also important, such as the responsiveness of data collection forms, to make it easier to add forms from smartphones. As Trustmate.io data shows, most reviews are added via mobile devices. Therefore, the forms must be prepared in such a way as to facilitate the issuance of mobile reviews and reduce the time needed to do so to a minimum.
Improve your results with reviews
Product reviews can encourage shoppers to purchase a product they may have been hesitant about. A product with just five reviews is 270% more likely to be purchased than a product with no reviews, according to ESW data. Additionally, reviews have a greater impact on the likelihood of purchasing more expensive products than cheaper ones. Research shows that showing positive reviews for more expensive products can increase conversions by 380% and increase conversions for cheaper products by 190%.
Research also shows that consumers are more likely to purchase products from companies that have both positive and negative reviews published because they are more credible. Customers also tend to trust reviews twelve times more than any other form of marketing.