Why brand & product reviews in search should be crucial to your strategy

For businesses with a limited advertising budget and quality products or services, optimizing consumer reviews on search engines can be a real game changer — leading to more customers, higher sales, and more.  Brand and product reviews in search can also help you stay competitive with other businesses, too, all by showcasing what your existing customers have to say!

Catching customers when they begin

Potential customers go to Google and Bing because they have an idea on what to buy, but not sure where to buy it from. It’s a critical moment when people are making split-decisions on where they should click to shop. On a search results page, a customer’s eyes are drawn to URLs to see where a paid search ad comes from, or to the right to look at any Product Listing Ads (PLAs) that pop out to them. However, a good consumer review in the main results can potentially become the most attractive thing on the page — standing out more than the other things vying for their attention.

SEO product reviews can compensate for limited ad budgets

Businesses with great products or services don’t always have the benefit of a large advertising budget to get the word out. Therefore, consumer reviews can be especially important, because competing on ads likely isn’t an option. In 2016 alone, retailer spend on Google Ads rose 22% to $15.8 billion, with no signs of slowing down. That said, your competitors are competing on keywords and long-term searches to make sure they are the first link potential customers see. So gaining brand and product reviews in search listings provide an organic way to compete with businesses that are spending top dollar on search placement.

People trust consumer reviews

Consumer reviews are a powerful counter to top-dollar advertising for the simple reason that it’s human nature to go to sites where real people have written about a product or brand. The fact is, 88% of people trust consumer reviews as much as personal recommendations. This is your angle, leveraging your happy customers to push their reviews to search engines to surround potential customers with nothing but positive feedback about your business. And, this is how you are going to stand out over competition and compete with the Top 100 retailers million dollar ad budgets.

Product Review Optimization: What to do next?

It’s time to be strategic and leverage customers that want to give you feedback and use that to drive new business to your site and increase sales! Interested in learning how reviews can help you grab the attention of potential customers? Sign up for a demo here. And, check back on the ResellersRatings Merchants blog for the next article in this series, which will discuss how to keep your customers attention once you’ve caught it!