Apart from that pop-up, you can also quote or link to a review of your product or service in a relevant part of your blog post. I’m pretty sure there are several cases where a business links to a review of its product or service on another site. Don’t force a link or quote in a post just because you want to promote your brand. Like this one: You can use positive reviews about your business as social proof to encourage people to sign up for your product or service. They have an entire page dedicated to reviews, you know like many businesses have a page for case studies or testimonials. Customers can comment on and rate their service. Similarly, most times a customer can review their reviews and ratings, especially on some third-party sites. Generate content ideas from customer reviews The best content is usually a solution to the problems a reader may be facing. Zapier may not have gotten content inspiration from those customers, but they sure know what’s useful content to them. If you’re short of content ideas, mine reviews on your site or third-party sites about your business or even those of your competitors.
A study by the Spiegel Research Center in 2017 reveals that displaying reviews can increase conversion rates by up to 270%.
Another study by Nielsen and the Better Business Bureau shows that 55 percent of all US adults online “always” or “often” use ratings and reviews to make purchase decisions.
I’m sure even without these two studies, you’d still agree customer reviews are important.
The question is: how can you use them in the content you create? Here are five ways.
1. Add customer reviews to a blog post
Blog posts are the most common form of content available on the internet today. So chances are, your company’s website has a blog where you post useful articles for your customers and/or potential customers.
This is an example from the folks at Zapier where a quote from a review pops up while you scroll through a blog post.
Apart from that pop-up, you can also quote or link to a review of your product or service in a relevant part of your blog post. This is an example from Ahrefs where they once linked to a review by Matthew Woodward. (“Once” because I couldn’t find the link anymore at the time of this writing).
I’m pretty sure there are several cases where a business links to a review of its product or service on another site.
What to avoid: Don’t sound promotional or sleazy. The link or quote should occur naturally in the context of the blog post. Don’t force a link or quote in a post just because you want to promote your brand.
Readers will smell such promotions a mile away. And they may hardly trust anything you say again.
2. Use customer reviews on your homepage
“Thou shalt use social proof on your site’s pages.”
It’s almost a website design commandment. And though there are no tablets of stone with those words engraved on them, you know it is valid advice.
You can get your web designer or a plugin depending on your website builder to integrate reviews on your homepage. By integrating I mean the reviews will be taken from third-party review sites and not the result of you interviewing your customer. It’s near instant credibility.
The web is peppered with businesses who have reviews of their products or services on their homepage. For example, Fourlane has a slider on their homepage with customer reviews and their star rating.
WorldRemit also has a slider on its homepage, featuring reviews from customers via third-party site Trustpilot.
The best part is potential customers can always visit these third-party sites to read more reviews. That way, they’re less likely to feel you’re only biased towards positive reviews on your site.
What to avoid: Do not include only positive reviews of your business where possible. “Where possible” because I’ve seen some businesses with perfect five-star ratings.
Even if that’s the case with yours, you can choose to feature a review where a customer wasn’t particularly happy with some features of your product or service but still gave a five-star rating. Or one with a positive review but a star rating lower than five, probably from a fastidious…
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