How to Leverage Online Reviews and Use Them to Your Advantage

While the control of online reviews lies largely in the hands of past and potential customers, there are still several ways you can use these reviews to your advantage. Below are five key ways to leverage your online business reviews.

1. Increase brand exposure. Prior to the internet, people would rave or complain about businesses via word-of-mouth. Today, this word-of-mouth concept has carried over into customer reviews that increase your company’s visibility. Not only do good reviews reflect positively on your products and service, but they also help improve search engine optimization (SEO) of your business by creating unique, up-to-date content on an ongoing basis.
2. Identify keywords for your products and services. By tracking the common words customers use to describe your products and services and implementing these keywords into your product positioning, keyword targeting, tags, and content creation, you can significantly improve how your brand ranks on an array of different search platforms.
3. Highlight positive reviews in PR and influencer outreach campaigns. Key individuals like local celebrities, well-known public figures, or established professionals can be used to influence others to check out your business. Products and services that are backed by dozens of positive reviews can be a great way to show these influencers, as well as PR teams and journalists, just how much customers love, use, and rely on your brand.
4. Improve your brand with customer feedback. Reviews are priceless ways to take advantage of customer feedback and increase sales. Furthermore, you can also use these reviews to quickly identify and solve product issues, analyze patterns, determine what customers rave about so you can deliver more of it, and keep an eye on the competition.
5. Directly engage with customers. You can easily build brand loyalty by replying to a customer’s review. Whether you thank them for their business, acknowledge the constructive feedback they offer, or request additional feedback, responding to a customer’s review makes them feel seen and appreciated by your company and will help to establish a client-business relationship that boosts and solidifies your customer base.You can also use reviews to salvage poor customer experiences. If a customer posts a negative review on a product you offer, for example, you can quickly connect with them to inquire about what went wrong, what improvements can be made, what they’d like to see more of, and what you can do to restore their trust in your brand.
6. Increase sales with positive reviews. Ultimately #4 and #5 will work together to increase your business’s sales! Customers respond to positive reviews as much as your willingness to resolve a negative one. They will be more apt to buy if they can recognize both the quality of the product as well as the company’s investment in its customers.