When people want to buy a product or service these days, one of the first things they do is head to a review site.
Third-party review sites have changed the way that people shop and compare products online, and if you don't have any reviews, this could be hurting your sales.
If you are a B2C company, here are some of the most important review sites that you should be getting reviews on.
You can set up your profile free of charge on Yelp, which is one of the largest review sites, and consumers can rate your business by giving you a star rating from one to five.
You can also respond to reviewers, which can be a way for you to thank them for positive reviews or put your side across in the case of a negative review. Just remember to always be polite and professional when responding because ranting is very bad for business.
In your free profile, you can include information about your company like your opening hours and where you are located, all of which can help you to get discovered by more of your target audience online.
Trustpilot is another one of the big review sites, and it is continuing to grow fast. It now has a presence in 65 countries, and you can use the site to collect reviews from your customers and be proactive about doing so.
It is used for product reviews as well as company reviews, and it's easy to get started. You might want to start by creating a free profile, which you can use to collect reviews.
However, there is also a paid version that you can use to send review invitations and share your reviews on social media.
If you have a local business, you need to be listed on Google My Business. It's completely free to sign up, and you can then complete your profile and add all the pertinent information so that your business can show up in the search results.
If you manage to get lots of reviews for your business, this can help to improve your search profile. Those reviews also show up in Google Maps, so this can increase your visibility even further.
TripAdvisor is the biggest review site for any business in the travel and hospitality industry, so if you run a hotel, restaurant, attraction, bars, or anything similar, you need to get reviews here.
It has over 200 million reviews, and it also has a popularity index. Get to the top of this, and you can drive more business.
You might want to ask your guests to leave you a review or to at least check out your profile on TripAdvisor after they have visited your establishment, and this can help you to boost your number of reviews on the site.
This is one of the biggest and best review sites for restaurants. It has 1.2 million restaurants in 24 countries, and it currently has 10 million reviews.
People use it to discover restaurants where they are, and you can also provide information about your restaurant and keep your profile up to date. The site also provides a reservation service.
Foursquare was not always a review site. It was originally a social network, but it has since changed its focus, and now it's an important place for business to get reviews. With millions of users, it’s an important place to make sure you have a presence.
Monitor Your Reviews
Now that you know which sites you should be getting reviews on, it's important to make an effort to build up your reviews and keep an eye on them.
You can remind your customers to give you feedback after they have bought something from you, but don't deliberately ask them for positive reviews. You might do this in an automated email sent out a week after they make their purchase.
You also want to keep a close eye on your reviews, and you can do this using a reputation management service. Using specialist software, you can receive instant alerts about brand mentions so you can follow up with your reviews and find out what people are saying about your service.
If you are receiving negative feedback because of a specific problem, you can take steps to fix this to improve your overall feedback.
Take Advantage of Reviews
Third-party review websites should very much be a part of your marketing strategy. While you don't want to bribe customers to leave positive reviews, you can remind them about how important it is to you to take feedback.
Try to point them in the direction of the review sites mentioned in this article, and keep an eye on your reviews to find out what people are saying so you know what your customers really think about your company.
