Online customer reviews have a significant impact on driving traffic to a website and influencing consumers’ decisions to purchase goods and services. But they can also benefit your SEO program, both as relevant content on a webpage for web search algorithms and also benefitting local search.
What effect do customer reviews have on SEO? Reviews can affect your website’s visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) in a number of ways. Keyword Relevancy: Reviews are written in the language of your customers, using keywords naturally. These key phrases that are included in the reviews can help you rank for long-tail keywords that potential customers are searching for. The best part is that business owners do not have to create this user-generated content for their website. Fresh Content: Search engines love fresh content. Your site’s visibility in the search engine results pages (SERPs) may rise as a result of an increase in on-page customer reviews.
Potential to Increase the Clickthrough Rate (CTR): Reviews that use structured data and schema markup may appear directly in the search engine results pages (SERPs) as rich snippets with visible star ratings. These review featured snippets can increase clickthrough rates for your site’s pages, as consumers can see the customer rating at first glance. If customers like what they see, they might click through to your website, which will increase your CTR. Provide Customers with Credible Feedback on Products and Services: Reviews Provide Customers with Credible Feedback on Products and Services. As part of their E-E-A-T initiative, search engines want to provide users with information that is reliable and authoritative, and reviews can do just that. Before making a purchase, customers can learn more about a product or service by reading customer reviews and testimonials. Reduce Bounce Rates: Positive reviews that reflect your offering can entice customers to stay and find exactly what they are looking for rather than bouncing from your site.
Local SEO: In order to compete for a spot in the coveted Google Local Pack, which shows the top several businesses for local searches on the first page of the SERPs, your business must have an abundance of recent 4- and 5-star reviews. Those reviews should naturally be positive, and you must be responsive to all reviews.
In a nutshell, the relevance, freshness, quantity, and quality of your reviews all send signals to search engines that increase your website’s visibility. How to Make the Most of Existing Reviews Leverage your existing customer reviews by featuring them in prominent places on your website, like the homepage and key landing pages. An on-page SEO tactic to add more keywords naturally on the page is to include your top two or three reviews that include keyword phrases that are positive and contextually relevant. A helpful SEO strategy that you can easily implement across your website is downloading and exporting keyword-rich reviews and matching them to the keyword themes of your pages if you have access to your customer review database.
Ask for Reviews
Even though your business may naturally get reviews, it’s still important to get happy customers to leave glowing reviews. Make it easy for them to leave their feedback. You may also choose to send follow-up emails after a purchase, asking your customers to leave reviews mentioning the specific products or services.
Respond to Customer Reviews in a Timely Manner
Gaining reviews is important, but going the extra mile by responding to these reviews is equally important. Google’s local search ranking algorithms promote sites that are customer-focused, as measured by review responses. It’s important to respond professionally to both positive and negative reviews. Be sure to compose personalized responses for each review.
Express gratitude for positive reviews and customer loyalty. Address negative reviews in a timely manner, asking for additional feedback, apologizing, and offering up a solution. Taking the conversation offline may be necessary to come to a resolution, so you may offer that as an option. Be sure to respond to any new reviews you find on a regular basis. Your online reputation with potential customers and search engines can be enhanced by responding to reviews. Google is also consistently working to detect spam reviews. Follow the guidelines set forth by Google to report reviews that appear to be spam or completely unreasonable. Customer reviews have the power to do much more for your business than simply act as a glowing testimonial (though that’s beneficial, too). Doing everything you can to gain positive keyword-rich reviews can impact your SEO in regular web search and boost your visibility in the local search SERPs, too.