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Leveraging your reputation to drive more clicks & calls - Inboundcon - BrightLocal.com

The document discusses the importance of reputation management for local businesses, highlighting how positive online reviews influence customer trust and decision-making. It presents data showing that star ratings and the recency of reviews significantly impact click-through rates and conversions. Best practices for managing reviews are outlined, including strategies for generating positive feedback and responding to negative reviews.

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Leveraging your reputation to drive more clicks & calls - Inboundcon - BrightLocal.com

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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Leveraging Your Reputationto Drive More Clicks & Calls
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon about
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Local SEO Reporting & ‘Citation’Service
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon 90% customers in US& Canada Based in UK
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Create In-depth research& content featured in:
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Chat to usat our stand!
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Leveraging Your Reputation toDrive More Clicks & Calls
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon ‘Leverage’ ‘Promote’ ‘Amplify’ ‘Exploit’
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Demonstrate Impact of Reviews Best Practicefor Managing Reviews 1 2
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Links to resources: www.brightlocal.com/leverage-reputation
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Focus on ‘physical’, local businesses
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Does reputation have animpact on conversion? How BIGis the impact?
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon I love ‘Reputation’
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Powerful ‘Social Proof’
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Power of Reputation is notconfined to Search
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon On-site Offline marketing Socialmarketing Email marketing Sales materials
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Consumer attitudes to localreviews
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon • Annual survey •2011-2016 • 2000 consumers • 15 questions
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon To understand the impactof reviews on decision making
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon of consumers read online reviewsfor local businesses Source: BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2016 %
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon of consumers trust onlinereviews as much as personal recommendations Source: BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2016 %
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon say positive reviews makethem trust a business more Source: BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2016 %
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon This influences whothey use 46% 11% 63% Select a local business on other factors Read reviews but don't influence purchase Positive reviews make me more likely to use a local business Source: Local Consumer Review Survey 2015
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon 😃 Read Reviews Trust Reviews Trust Business Buy from Business
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Star Rating is#1 Factor 58% 47% 41% 35% 27% 20% Star rating Sentiment of reviews Recency of reviews Quantity of reviews Length of review If business has responded Source: Local Consumer Review Survey 2015 Source: BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2016
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Sentiment of reviewsis 2nd 58% 47% 41% 35% 27% 20% Star rating Sentiment of reviews Recency of reviews Quantity of reviews Length of review If business has responded Source: Local Consumer Review Survey 2015 Source: BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2016
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon ‘Recency’ of reviewsis 3rd 58% 47% 41% 35% 27% 20% Star rating Sentiment of reviews Recency of reviews Quantity of reviews Length of review If business has responded Source: Local Consumer Review Survey 2015 Source: BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2016
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Do ‘Reviews’ Boost SearchCTR?
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon • June-July 2016 •6,000 consumers • Plumbers, Florists, Realtors • Organic Search & Local Pack
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Seller Ratings knownto boost PPC CTR Source: Local Consumer Review Survey 2015 Source: Google Adwords, 2011 %
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Local Pack
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon No Ratings With Ratings
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Positive reviews increaseclicks by 22% Source: BrightLocal Search Click Through Rate Study, August 2016 63% 66% 61% 43% 42% 37% Plumber Florist Realtors With Reviews Without Reviews
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Organic Search
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon No Ratings With Ratings
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Positive reviews increaseclicks by 5% Source: BrightLocal Search Click Through Rate Study, August 2016 11% 15% 13% 5% 10% 10% Plumbers Florists Realtors With Reviews Without Reviews
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Again…Positive Star Ratingsare #1 Factor 56% 10% 9% 7% 7% 7% Positive Star Ratings I liked the business name It was the top result Picked at Random 1st result I noticed Centrally located Source: Local Consumer Review Survey 2015 Source: BrightLocal Search Click Through Rate Study, August 2016
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Did changing thestar rating vary the impact?
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon CTR only increasesabove 3 Stars Source: BrightLocal Search Click Through Rate Study, August 2016 0% -19% -9% -4% 7% 16% -25% -20% -15% -10% -5% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% Column1 0 1 2 3 4 5
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Do ‘Reviews’ Boost LandingPage Performance?
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon • August–September 2016 •3,000 consumers • Plumbers, Florists, Realtors • Local Landing Pages
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Positive reviews increasedtrust by 11% 83% 6% 11% 72% 15% 13% Trustworthy Not Trustworthy Don't know / Not sure With Reviews Without Reviews Source: BrightLocal Landing Page Performance Study, August 2016
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Positive ratings increased‘contact’ by 6% Source: BrightLocal Landing Page Performance Study, August 2016 72% 20% 8% 66% 28% 6% Would contact Would not contact Unsure With Reviews Without Reviews
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Best Practices for ManagingReputation
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Effective Review Strategy
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon 6 Pillars ofan Effective Review Strategy How to manage bad reviews Clear targets Process to get new reviews Identify Target Sites Educate & Incent Staff Leverage Reviews
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Set Clear Targets
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon It’s
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon It’s
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon You need enough reviewsto convince a consumer to trust you
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon More Reviews Greater Social Proof =
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Can’t have too many reviews
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Law of diminishing returns applies
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Review ‘freshness’ is important
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon ‘Recency’ of reviewsis 3rd factor 58% 47% 41% 35% 27% 20% Star rating Sentiment of reviews Recency of reviews Quantity of reviews Length / detail of review If business has responded to reviews Source: Local Consumer Review Survey 2015 Source: BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2016
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon of consumers think reviewsolder than 3 months aren’t relevant Source: BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2016 %
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Shield yourself from negative reviews
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon You need monthly, incremental targets
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Don’t get 10 reviewsthen stop
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Process to Generate NewReviews
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Ask people to write youa review
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon of consumers will leavea review if asked Source: BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2016 %
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Make it partof the post-sales process
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Timing is key tosuccess
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Ask when customer satisfactionis highest
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Don’t let them cool off!
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Consider a ‘Stepped’ approach
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Get a small commitmentfirst
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon And then ask themto review you
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Selecting the Best ReviewSites
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Build reviews ona few, key sites. Using too many will dilute reviews
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Small. Irrelevant. Forgotten.
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Who ranks high in Google
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Which sites displayed in ‘Knowledge Panel’
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Where do you alreadyhave reviews?
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Type of Audience Larg e Loya l
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Highly relevant, niche sites
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Review Site ScoringMatrix Site DA Score Trust Flow Citation Flow Reviews In Google KP? Google Rank Audienc e Type of Site Quantity Reviews Overall Score Yelp.com 94 70 67 Yes Page 1 Large General Very High High GoogleMyBusiness 100 96 95 Yes Page 1 Loyal General Very High Very High MerchantCircle 82 36 43 No Page 3 Neither General Medium Medium WhoDoYou 38 22 25 No none Neither General Medium Low
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Managing Negative Reviews
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon It happens. Accept it.
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Don’t ignore them!!!!!
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Reduce the impact ofnegative reviews
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Get more positive reviews
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Respond positively & publicly
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Identify the issues &try to resolve them – publicly!
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Show customers that youlisten & care
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Turn a negative situationinto a positive one
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon And don’t attack the reviewer
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Educate & Incent Staff
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Help staff understand thesignificance of reviews
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon More customers, More revenue, Stronger business, Jobsecurity!
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Make it worth theirwhile
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Leveraging Reputation
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Twitter
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Facebook
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@Bright_loca#InboundCon Facebook Ad

Editor's Notes

#2 Shutterstock image PPC slide – consumer review survey Swap out guardian – for canadian publication Sell studies more about CTR study – first time we shared studies, put together with inboundcon in mind Consumer review – promote more CTR study – says it’s local results – so it’s clear CTR – make it clear that we changed/varied the position in the results NPS – 9 or above – not 7 (explain about NPS) Choosing review sites to look at – “brand name / business name” + “reviews” – this is what customers will do Scoring sheet – explain a little more –
#8 MOb
#9 It’s about creating or growing a positive reputation for a business. And then making that reputation for to bring customers to you. Well here are some other words that I could have used.
#12 As I mentioned before our area of specialization is on local search. So a lot of the data I’ll share & the ideas related directly to businesses which have physical locations or provide a service at customer’s location. As opposed to pure online businesses or ecommerce businesses.
#13 I think that answer to this is clear for all of us. We’re all consumers. We regularly use the internet. And so I bet everyone has consulted online reviews at least 1 time. But for many of us I’m sure we do it a lot more. Also we know how much money businesses invest in generating reviews & making them prominent. Do you think that Amazon would bother with reviews if they didn’t make a material impact on sales & revenue? So I don’t think that this is real question we want to answer.
#14 I love reputation. And I don’t mean my own. In fact what I really mean is that I love the benefits that having a positive reputation brings to a business. A good reputation is a brand asset & a powerful marketing tool
#15 It provides valuable social proof to potential customers & even business partners etc… Consumers use social proof to short cut their research & decision making on everything from electrical products & home furnishings to flights to educational courses & - of course - local businesses. If we see that 50 other people have used a business and given it good feedback, then we can feel confident that our experience will be similar to their experience. This means that we don’t need to explore every option open to us, but can narrow down our selection faster & make a decision with greater confidence.
#16 Not confined to search, even though a lot of the data we’ll be looking at is related to search performance. But when you consider digital marketing and the tools that we have our at our disposal their usage is often limited to the channel they serve. So a good quality score serve you well in adwords but doesn’t translate to other channels. And if you stop using adwords it doesn’t have any benefit beyond there. What is great about Reputation is that Reputation can be leveraged in many areas of marketing. And I use Reputation & Reviews interchangeably throughout this presentation. Reviews are just a part of reputation but they’re very public and play a big part in conversion for local businesses It’s a very powerful social proof that helps potential customers gain rapidly confidence in a business and to choose them.
#17 Reputation adds powerful social proof into all these consumer touch points.
#18 Lets examine some consumer attitudes to reviews.
#19 Every year we run a survey over 2000 local consumers, asking them about their use of local reviews when researching & purchasing from local businesses. 2016 study was released this week – timed to coincide with Inboundcon – so all the data from this years study can be found on BrightLocal.com Study seeks to understand - How do the feel about online reviews? How regularly do they use them? How do they impact their trust of a business?
#20 And what we’re really trying to determine is the impact that reviews have on purchase decisions for local businesses/services by consumers
#24 And this influences who they use. 51% of consumers say positive reviews make them more likely to use a local business (Ross updated to 2016 figures)
#26 In terms of what aspects of online reviews have the most impact on consumers beliefs or actions. Star Rating is the main one. That top level, aggregate star rating is what they look at when making a judgement about a business. ROSS – Used 2016 stats & removed those who “don’t use reviews”
#27 Sentiment of reviews is 2nd. So people reading the review content and taking it on board.
#28 And recency or ‘freshness’ of reviews is 3rd. I mention this now because I’ll refer to it again in the second part of the survey. Feel like a magician setting up a trick – and for my next trick ROSS – updated for 2016
#29 Ok so we’ve established that consumers use reviews & reviews influence their attitudes & also their behaviors. Powerful stuff. Now we want to quantify that a little and see the tangible impact of reviews in search results & when used on landing pages.
#30 Earlier on this year my team conducted some detailed research into CTR from search when positive reviews a present.
#31 And recency or ‘freshness’ of reviews is 3rd. I mention this now because I’ll refer to it again in the second part of the survey. Feel like a magician setting up a trick – and for my next trick ROSS NOTES 1. “On average, ads with Seller Ratings get a 17% higher CTR than the same ads without ratings” (Google, 2014) https://adwords.googleblog.com/2011/04/5-simple-ways-to-improve-your-adwords.html 2. Case study on Wordstream from an agency says CTR improved by 28.72% for Gopack.co.uk http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2016/02/11/google-ratings 3. Trustpilot says CTR rates improved by 12% for Rev.com http://blog.trustpilot.com/blog/2015/6/22/revcom
#33 Here are some screen shots of the SERP pages that we showed to our test groups. ON the left we have a standard 3 pack with no reviews On the right we have a 3 pack but with star rating added. We varied the star rating and the position throughout the test.
#36 We showed users 2 different
#37 Organic study
#38 In terms of what aspects of online reviews have the most impact on consumers beliefs or actions. Star Rating is the main one. That top level, aggregate star rating is what they look at when making a judgement about a business. ROSS NOTE: *Should not be local consumer review survey
#39 A moment ago I mentioned that we varied the star rating across the tests. This allows us to determine the uplift in CTR for different star ratings.
#40 And what we found is that CTR only goes up if a business has more than a 3 star rating. At 3 stars or below the CTR goes down. And if a business has only 1 star then it goes down by 20%! The results are as we’d expect when we think about our own use of reviews and how we interpret them. But this gives us some concrete data to inform our conversations with clients or internal stake holders about the importance of managing our online reputations.
#42 We showed users 2 different
#43 Firstly we found that +ve reviews increased trust in a business by 11%.
#44 And secondly that XX% more consumers would go on to contact a business. Without reviews XX% more would keep researching other businesses
#45 So we’ve established that reviews have an impact on consumer attitudes & purchase decisions. And we’ve put some concrete figures around the uplift in CTR & trust of a business. The levels of ‘trust’ are very dependent on a business have a positive reputation and a high, public star rating. Now I want to look at how a business gets to that point. How they generate & manage their reviews & reputation strategy. How they leverage that in search & beyond.
#46 And to do that a business needs an effective review strategy. And by effective I mean one that is tried, tested & delivers results.
#48 Having a target is important because it allows us to measure the success or shortfall of the review strategy. And this allows us to modify or extend what we’re doing. But what target for reviews do we set?
#49 This is 1 of the most common questions that business owners ask. How many reviews do I need?
#50 Well of course it’s 16. You need 16 reviews. Well actually it’s not & the answer is different for every business type & location. But it would be great if we could give such a clear, specific answer.
#51 Well actually it’s not & the answer is different for every business type & location. But it would be great if we could give such a clear, specific answer.
#52 So you need to achieve a quantity of reviews that convinces consumers to trust/ believe the star rating.
#53 More reviews = more social proof More social proof, the more they’re likely to use your business.
#54 Really you can never have too many reviews
#55 But the law of diminishing returns applies. Going from 0 reviews to 50 will provide a huge amount of additional social proof. But going from 500 to 550 reviews will add less weight to your reputation and therefore less impact on consumer attitudes/behavior
#56 But freshness or ‘recency’ of reviews is also important
#58 Going a little bit deeper into the findings around this. We found that 73% of consumers think reviews older than 3 months aren’t relevant
#59 What you also need to think about is that the more reviews you have – and the more positive. These will shield you from the impact of negative reviews. If you only have 3 reviews and then you get 2 negative ones. Those 2 negative reviews have a great impact on your star rating & overall social proof. But if you have 50 reviews with a good star rating, then 2 negative reviews have less impact. And if you’re adding more reviews each month then any negative reviews will get pushed further down the page. And they’re impact will be greatly reduced.
#60 You don’t want to set a target of 50 reviews and then stop. You want to set a monthly target of 5 or 10 reviews and aim to deliver that month after month for forever more. And this is what your review strategy should deliver for you.
#62 Implement a process into business practices that continuously generates reviews
#63 It’s not rocket science. It all starts with asking customers to review you. Well actually it starts with delivering a great service & then asking customers to review you. Customers are familiar with reviews – 92% of consumers read reviews. So it’s highly likely that read reviews about you before they contacted you or visited your business. Not going to be an alien concept to them.
#65 Make this part of your standard sales process. Don’t make it an afterthourght. Don’t make it 1 person’s job. It should be something that every customer facing employee is aware of and involved in.
#66 . Timing is key to success
#67 When they are a red hot fan of yours and they’re basking in the warm the glow of your amazing service.
#68 Don’t let their happiness cool off But don’t wait for the customer to forget about you or how happy they were with your service. If you ask verbally and they agree, then follow up with an email. They’ve made a commitment to you and most will follow that through by writing a review.
#69 Business should consider a stepped approach to maximism their success in getting reviews
#70 Get a small commitment. Get them committed to helping you. Many effective businesses use things like NPS surveys or quick feedback forms. We use NPS survey. And once we get feedback from that we ask the positive respondents to leave a full review on a site we direct them to. And once you’ve got that small commitment…
#71 And once you’ve got that initial commitment then you go for the kill!
#72 And here some very good tools that you can use that automate this process. And we have a post that compares these sites on BrightLocal – just go to that resources link I shared earlier and you’ll see the comparison.
#73 Different review sites are better for different business types Selecting the right ones for a business is crucial to maximizing the impact of the reviews.
#75 You don’t to invest time in sites which won’t be around long term as those reviews & value will disappear.
#76 Determine which sites Google cares about. These are sites that google will rank for category searches on page 1. And if Google is choosing to show these sites it gives you a reading on their relevance & significance for your industry. And if their on page 1 then they’ll be getting some traffic from google which gives them a better than average chance of survival and being around long term.
#77 Google recently started including 3rd party review sites with Knowledge Panel for local businesses. And again this gives you a good indication of the significance & value of a site for your industry. And any star ratings you develop on these sites will appear on your KP.
#78 Look at where you already have reviews. This gives you insight into sites that your customers use. You can build on the start you have on that site/sites & make it easy for customers to review you.
#79 Look at the type of audience a site has. A site with large audience – like facebook or Google – offers chance to reach customers at scale. A site with loyal audience – yelp or tripadvisor – means …. And in both their cases that have both & larger & loyal audience which is ideal.
#80 Also the relevance of a site is very important. Most industries have a cluster of review sites that focus on their niche. These sites have deeper content about that industry & also better listing information on businesses. For example a site like zocdoc allows users to filter based on their insurance provider so they see a list if doctors which These sites attract higher intent consumers. Consumers who are further down the buying process. Consumers who are likely to be better prospects with higher conversion to sale. Site
#81 For example a site like zocdoc for medical professionals which – Carries information about training & experience Allows users to filter results based on their insurance provider so they see a list if doctors which they use And even have appointment booking engines
#82 We have a neat little excel template that can be used for scoring review sites. It takes into consideration some hard metrics like Domain Authority & Majestic Citation Flow. And also some more qualitative factors like type of site, audience type, & if google shows reviews from these sites in the Knowledge Panel.
#83 And then there is painful side of reviews – the negative ones.
#84 Everyone gets a bad review from time to time. Everyone has a bad day, everyone drops the ball occasionally. And our customers also have bad days – they get pissed offer and leave a scathing, harsh indictment of your business for the world to see.
#85 Don’t just ignore them and hope that your customers will ignore them. They won’t. Negative reviews will impact the overall trust a user has in a business and if it appears that they business doesn’t care then that compounds the
#87 Get more, positive reviews that push the bad ones down the page.
#89 Get more, positive reviews that push the bad ones down the list.
#92 And don’t argue or publicly attack & slag off the reviewer. Even if the review is false & inaccurate. Hold your tongue – don’t give potential customers more reasons not to like you.
#94 Internal education is often overlooked or not properly handled. Just telling staff we need more reviews, go get them, doesn’t work. They need to understand why. What the significance of a positive reputation & reviews means.
#95 And they need to clearly understand the benefits – for the business & for them as individuals.
#96 It’s considered wrong to incent customers to leave reviews. But it’s not wrong to incent team members to go after them. Many businesses with highly effective review strategies use incentives to get staff members fully engaged. And some even factor the public rating & review growth into their targets & appraisals. It could even have an impact on their career progression.
#97 Different review sites are better for different business types Selecting the right ones for a business is crucial to maximizing the impact of the reviews. You don’t

Editor's Notes

#2 Shutterstock image PPC slide – consumer review survey Swap out guardian – for canadian publication Sell studies more about CTR study – first time we shared studies, put together with inboundcon in mind Consumer review – promote more CTR study – says it’s local results – so it’s clear CTR – make it clear that we changed/varied the position in the results NPS – 9 or above – not 7 (explain about NPS) Choosing review sites to look at – “brand name / business name” + “reviews” – this is what customers will do Scoring sheet – explain a little more –
#8 MOb
#9 It’s about creating or growing a positive reputation for a business. And then making that reputation for to bring customers to you. Well here are some other words that I could have used.
#12 As I mentioned before our area of specialization is on local search. So a lot of the data I’ll share & the ideas related directly to businesses which have physical locations or provide a service at customer’s location. As opposed to pure online businesses or ecommerce businesses.
#13 I think that answer to this is clear for all of us. We’re all consumers. We regularly use the internet. And so I bet everyone has consulted online reviews at least 1 time. But for many of us I’m sure we do it a lot more. Also we know how much money businesses invest in generating reviews & making them prominent. Do you think that Amazon would bother with reviews if they didn’t make a material impact on sales & revenue? So I don’t think that this is real question we want to answer.
#14 I love reputation. And I don’t mean my own. In fact what I really mean is that I love the benefits that having a positive reputation brings to a business. A good reputation is a brand asset & a powerful marketing tool
#15 It provides valuable social proof to potential customers & even business partners etc… Consumers use social proof to short cut their research & decision making on everything from electrical products & home furnishings to flights to educational courses & - of course - local businesses. If we see that 50 other people have used a business and given it good feedback, then we can feel confident that our experience will be similar to their experience. This means that we don’t need to explore every option open to us, but can narrow down our selection faster & make a decision with greater confidence.
#16 Not confined to search, even though a lot of the data we’ll be looking at is related to search performance. But when you consider digital marketing and the tools that we have our at our disposal their usage is often limited to the channel they serve. So a good quality score serve you well in adwords but doesn’t translate to other channels. And if you stop using adwords it doesn’t have any benefit beyond there. What is great about Reputation is that Reputation can be leveraged in many areas of marketing. And I use Reputation & Reviews interchangeably throughout this presentation. Reviews are just a part of reputation but they’re very public and play a big part in conversion for local businesses It’s a very powerful social proof that helps potential customers gain rapidly confidence in a business and to choose them.
#17 Reputation adds powerful social proof into all these consumer touch points.
#18 Lets examine some consumer attitudes to reviews.
#19 Every year we run a survey over 2000 local consumers, asking them about their use of local reviews when researching & purchasing from local businesses. 2016 study was released this week – timed to coincide with Inboundcon – so all the data from this years study can be found on BrightLocal.com Study seeks to understand - How do the feel about online reviews? How regularly do they use them? How do they impact their trust of a business?
#20 And what we’re really trying to determine is the impact that reviews have on purchase decisions for local businesses/services by consumers
#24 And this influences who they use. 51% of consumers say positive reviews make them more likely to use a local business (Ross updated to 2016 figures)
#26 In terms of what aspects of online reviews have the most impact on consumers beliefs or actions. Star Rating is the main one. That top level, aggregate star rating is what they look at when making a judgement about a business. ROSS – Used 2016 stats & removed those who “don’t use reviews”
#27 Sentiment of reviews is 2nd. So people reading the review content and taking it on board.
#28 And recency or ‘freshness’ of reviews is 3rd. I mention this now because I’ll refer to it again in the second part of the survey. Feel like a magician setting up a trick – and for my next trick ROSS – updated for 2016
#29 Ok so we’ve established that consumers use reviews & reviews influence their attitudes & also their behaviors. Powerful stuff. Now we want to quantify that a little and see the tangible impact of reviews in search results & when used on landing pages.
#30 Earlier on this year my team conducted some detailed research into CTR from search when positive reviews a present.
#31 And recency or ‘freshness’ of reviews is 3rd. I mention this now because I’ll refer to it again in the second part of the survey. Feel like a magician setting up a trick – and for my next trick ROSS NOTES 1. “On average, ads with Seller Ratings get a 17% higher CTR than the same ads without ratings” (Google, 2014) https://adwords.googleblog.com/2011/04/5-simple-ways-to-improve-your-adwords.html 2. Case study on Wordstream from an agency says CTR improved by 28.72% for Gopack.co.uk http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2016/02/11/google-ratings 3. Trustpilot says CTR rates improved by 12% for Rev.com http://blog.trustpilot.com/blog/2015/6/22/revcom
#33 Here are some screen shots of the SERP pages that we showed to our test groups. ON the left we have a standard 3 pack with no reviews On the right we have a 3 pack but with star rating added. We varied the star rating and the position throughout the test.
#36 We showed users 2 different
#37 Organic study
#38 In terms of what aspects of online reviews have the most impact on consumers beliefs or actions. Star Rating is the main one. That top level, aggregate star rating is what they look at when making a judgement about a business. ROSS NOTE: *Should not be local consumer review survey
#39 A moment ago I mentioned that we varied the star rating across the tests. This allows us to determine the uplift in CTR for different star ratings.
#40 And what we found is that CTR only goes up if a business has more than a 3 star rating. At 3 stars or below the CTR goes down. And if a business has only 1 star then it goes down by 20%! The results are as we’d expect when we think about our own use of reviews and how we interpret them. But this gives us some concrete data to inform our conversations with clients or internal stake holders about the importance of managing our online reputations.
#42 We showed users 2 different
#43 Firstly we found that +ve reviews increased trust in a business by 11%.
#44 And secondly that XX% more consumers would go on to contact a business. Without reviews XX% more would keep researching other businesses
#45 So we’ve established that reviews have an impact on consumer attitudes & purchase decisions. And we’ve put some concrete figures around the uplift in CTR & trust of a business. The levels of ‘trust’ are very dependent on a business have a positive reputation and a high, public star rating. Now I want to look at how a business gets to that point. How they generate & manage their reviews & reputation strategy. How they leverage that in search & beyond.
#46 And to do that a business needs an effective review strategy. And by effective I mean one that is tried, tested & delivers results.
#48 Having a target is important because it allows us to measure the success or shortfall of the review strategy. And this allows us to modify or extend what we’re doing. But what target for reviews do we set?
#49 This is 1 of the most common questions that business owners ask. How many reviews do I need?
#50 Well of course it’s 16. You need 16 reviews. Well actually it’s not & the answer is different for every business type & location. But it would be great if we could give such a clear, specific answer.
#51 Well actually it’s not & the answer is different for every business type & location. But it would be great if we could give such a clear, specific answer.
#52 So you need to achieve a quantity of reviews that convinces consumers to trust/ believe the star rating.
#53 More reviews = more social proof More social proof, the more they’re likely to use your business.
#54 Really you can never have too many reviews
#55 But the law of diminishing returns applies. Going from 0 reviews to 50 will provide a huge amount of additional social proof. But going from 500 to 550 reviews will add less weight to your reputation and therefore less impact on consumer attitudes/behavior
#56 But freshness or ‘recency’ of reviews is also important
#58 Going a little bit deeper into the findings around this. We found that 73% of consumers think reviews older than 3 months aren’t relevant
#59 What you also need to think about is that the more reviews you have – and the more positive. These will shield you from the impact of negative reviews. If you only have 3 reviews and then you get 2 negative ones. Those 2 negative reviews have a great impact on your star rating & overall social proof. But if you have 50 reviews with a good star rating, then 2 negative reviews have less impact. And if you’re adding more reviews each month then any negative reviews will get pushed further down the page. And they’re impact will be greatly reduced.
#60 You don’t want to set a target of 50 reviews and then stop. You want to set a monthly target of 5 or 10 reviews and aim to deliver that month after month for forever more. And this is what your review strategy should deliver for you.
#62 Implement a process into business practices that continuously generates reviews
#63 It’s not rocket science. It all starts with asking customers to review you. Well actually it starts with delivering a great service & then asking customers to review you. Customers are familiar with reviews – 92% of consumers read reviews. So it’s highly likely that read reviews about you before they contacted you or visited your business. Not going to be an alien concept to them.
#65 Make this part of your standard sales process. Don’t make it an afterthourght. Don’t make it 1 person’s job. It should be something that every customer facing employee is aware of and involved in.
#66 . Timing is key to success
#67 When they are a red hot fan of yours and they’re basking in the warm the glow of your amazing service.
#68 Don’t let their happiness cool off But don’t wait for the customer to forget about you or how happy they were with your service. If you ask verbally and they agree, then follow up with an email. They’ve made a commitment to you and most will follow that through by writing a review.
#69 Business should consider a stepped approach to maximism their success in getting reviews
#70 Get a small commitment. Get them committed to helping you. Many effective businesses use things like NPS surveys or quick feedback forms. We use NPS survey. And once we get feedback from that we ask the positive respondents to leave a full review on a site we direct them to. And once you’ve got that small commitment…
#71 And once you’ve got that initial commitment then you go for the kill!
#72 And here some very good tools that you can use that automate this process. And we have a post that compares these sites on BrightLocal – just go to that resources link I shared earlier and you’ll see the comparison.
#73 Different review sites are better for different business types Selecting the right ones for a business is crucial to maximizing the impact of the reviews.
#75 You don’t to invest time in sites which won’t be around long term as those reviews & value will disappear.
#76 Determine which sites Google cares about. These are sites that google will rank for category searches on page 1. And if Google is choosing to show these sites it gives you a reading on their relevance & significance for your industry. And if their on page 1 then they’ll be getting some traffic from google which gives them a better than average chance of survival and being around long term.
#77 Google recently started including 3rd party review sites with Knowledge Panel for local businesses. And again this gives you a good indication of the significance & value of a site for your industry. And any star ratings you develop on these sites will appear on your KP.
#78 Look at where you already have reviews. This gives you insight into sites that your customers use. You can build on the start you have on that site/sites & make it easy for customers to review you.
#79 Look at the type of audience a site has. A site with large audience – like facebook or Google – offers chance to reach customers at scale. A site with loyal audience – yelp or tripadvisor – means …. And in both their cases that have both & larger & loyal audience which is ideal.
#80 Also the relevance of a site is very important. Most industries have a cluster of review sites that focus on their niche. These sites have deeper content about that industry & also better listing information on businesses. For example a site like zocdoc allows users to filter based on their insurance provider so they see a list if doctors which These sites attract higher intent consumers. Consumers who are further down the buying process. Consumers who are likely to be better prospects with higher conversion to sale. Site
#81 For example a site like zocdoc for medical professionals which – Carries information about training & experience Allows users to filter results based on their insurance provider so they see a list if doctors which they use And even have appointment booking engines
#82 We have a neat little excel template that can be used for scoring review sites. It takes into consideration some hard metrics like Domain Authority & Majestic Citation Flow. And also some more qualitative factors like type of site, audience type, & if google shows reviews from these sites in the Knowledge Panel.
#83 And then there is painful side of reviews – the negative ones.
#84 Everyone gets a bad review from time to time. Everyone has a bad day, everyone drops the ball occasionally. And our customers also have bad days – they get pissed offer and leave a scathing, harsh indictment of your business for the world to see.
#85 Don’t just ignore them and hope that your customers will ignore them. They won’t. Negative reviews will impact the overall trust a user has in a business and if it appears that they business doesn’t care then that compounds the
#87 Get more, positive reviews that push the bad ones down the page.
#89 Get more, positive reviews that push the bad ones down the list.
#92 And don’t argue or publicly attack & slag off the reviewer. Even if the review is false & inaccurate. Hold your tongue – don’t give potential customers more reasons not to like you.
#94 Internal education is often overlooked or not properly handled. Just telling staff we need more reviews, go get them, doesn’t work. They need to understand why. What the significance of a positive reputation & reviews means.
#95 And they need to clearly understand the benefits – for the business & for them as individuals.
#96 It’s considered wrong to incent customers to leave reviews. But it’s not wrong to incent team members to go after them. Many businesses with highly effective review strategies use incentives to get staff members fully engaged. And some even factor the public rating & review growth into their targets & appraisals. It could even have an impact on their career progression.
#97 Different review sites are better for different business types Selecting the right ones for a business is crucial to maximizing the impact of the reviews. You don’t

Leveraging your reputation to drive more clicks & calls - Inboundcon - BrightLocal.com

Leveraging your reputation to drive more clicks & calls - Inboundcon - BrightLocal.com

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