Online reviews can make or break your business. Here’s how.
Running a successful business inevitably brings negative online reviews. No matter how amazing your products or services, how well-trained your employees, or how excellent your customer service, there will always be situations when someone is dissatisfied with their interaction with your business or finds that your product or service doesn’t meet their needs and expectations.
But that doesn’t mean you have zero control over the situation! So how can you manage your online reviews to limit the negative impact on your business? In this article, we’ll discuss and analyze how online reviews can affect your click-through rates (CTR) and other key metrics, plus how they influence prospects and customers in sometimes surprising ways.
Online reviews can impact your business’s online reputation, traffic, and sales. Here are a few ways that happens.
When people search for businesses, products, or services on search engines or map pages, review sites not only appear in search results but also as featured snippets where review counts and star ratings are visible and highlighted even before users click on the result.
Google displays reviews and star ratings in both search results and local pack results for businesses listed on Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) or Google Maps.
Additionally, Google includes a “Reviews from the web” section in various business results and key phrases, aggregating reviews from relevant networks. In regular search results, when displaying a business profile from a review network, star ratings, and review counts are also presented.
On Bing local and maps results, review information and star ratings may be sourced directly from partner networks such as Facebook, OpenTable, TripAdvisor, or others depending on the search query.
DuckDuckGo, a private search engine, exclusively partners with Yelp to display business results, including reviews, for users.
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Multiple websites collect online reviews, each serving different purposes and attracting distinct types of audiences and review readers. For instance, individuals planning a vacation often visit travel-specific sites to see experiences and photos shared by previous travelers. On the other hand, job seekers read reviews on job sites posted by current and former employees.
Here are some of the different types of review websites:
Research from BrightLocal shows that businesses with positive 3 to 5-star reviews receive 25% more clicks from local pack results. Additionally, 82% of consumers read online reviews before making a purchase, spending an average of 14 minutes on review sites before making a decision. Positive reviews can also improve traffic to your site and boost revenue.
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At the same time, negative reviews can be highly damaging. For example, a well-publicized lawsuit in Australia revealed that a plastic surgeon experienced a 23% drop in online traffic after a fake, damaging review was posted on Google Maps.
According to findings from Inc.com, when customers are unhappy, there’s a 91% chance they won’t do any business with that company again. Moreover, they are 10 to 15 times more likely to share their negative experience with others, often by posting bad reviews on online platforms about the product or service quality.
At the same time, only 1 out of 10 happy customers typically leave a positive review, indicating that many people may not remember positive experiences that long because when they are buying, they expect good service from businesses. Negative experiences tend to be more impactful and remembered longer.
Zero-click search is when users search for something on a search engine like Google but do not click any links in the results. Nearly 60% of searches result in no clicks. There are several reasons behind this phenomenon, such as people using search engines for spell checking or relying on widgets and highlighted information to quickly find answers to basic questions like “How old is Brad Pitt?” or “What day of the week is Christmas this year?”
Similarly, in business-related, local, product, and service searches, many users conduct research on companies and look for things like phone numbers, addresses, or feedback.
It results in zero-click when they look up business information including star ratings and reviews directly in the search snippets. That’s why the appearance of positive reviews can be as important as the company’s website itself in the decision-making process.
Positive online reviews and good star ratings can drive increased traffic and sales to a website in two ways:
You’re probably going to click on results for a business with reviews like this over one with a lower star rating or no reviews.
Another unfortunate thing that can impact online reputation and sales is fake reviews. Fake negative reviews present a big challenge for businesses and are enabled by the anonymity of online platforms. It is estimated that over 23% of online reviews are fake, and “bad actors” like competitors, scammers, or disgruntled employees can post false or defamatory information about a business.
This not only leads to decreased star ratings but can also cause a significant drop in traffic, directly impacting sales. Addressing this issue can be expensive, requiring businesses to allocate resources towards damage control, increase marketing efforts to recover lost revenue, and in some cases seek legal advice.
One effective strategy for promoting positive reviews and ratings to improve CTR for your ads is to integrate them into your PPC campaigns. For example, Google Ads allows you to add positive reviews as ad copy extensions. Google collaborates with supported review partners to integrate and highlight these reviews under advertisers’ search or shopping ads.
Star ratings from the stores are integrated and appear in the shopping ads.
Additionally, you can share positive reviews on social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, X, and others. Promoting these reviews through sponsored campaigns targeted at your desired audience can further enhance your brand’s reputation and reach.
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Given the direct correlation between positive online reviews, click-through rates, and their impact on sales, businesses should prioritize monitoring and managing their online presence. This includes actively monitoring reviews and ratings, flagging and reporting fake or rule-violating reviews, and replying promptly to reviews to show customer service and commitment to future customers.
While some businesses are proactive in managing their online reputation, others may lack the knowledge and resources, especially when dealing with multiple review sites each with its own methods for managing business profiles, flagging, reporting, replying, and removing reviews.
