Reviews have become one of the battlegrounds in local. They appear to impact local rankings, and certainly consumers pay attention and are influenced to varying degrees. Litigation has been waged over negative reviews.
UK local SEO firm BrightLocal conducted an online survey among roughly 2,000 UK and US Internet users recently and asked a number of questions related to local. The most interesting questions and findings pertain to reviews in my opinion. I wrote up some of the US data on SEL.
The US and UK findings are almost identical. Here are the UK findings about the role and influence of reviews:
- 61% of UK consumers have read online customer reviews of local businesses
- 62% of UK consumers trust a local business more having read positive online reviews
- 48% of UK consumers are more likely to use a local business having read positive online reviews
- 72% of UK consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations
That latter point — online reviews have as much value as personal recommendations — is quite interesting and new. Here are the comparable US data:
- 71% of US consumers have consulted online customer reviews of local businesses
- 55% of US consumers trust a local business more after reading positive online reviews
- 50% of US consumers are more likely to use a local business having read positive online reviews
- 67% of US consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations
Do you trust online customer reviews as much as personal recommendations?
SMBs will now need to solicit reviews (and Likes) from customers on an ongoing basis. Call it “review management,” as part of overall reputation management. But it will become a permanent feature of the local landscape. This shift involves some new tools and a new orientation to dealing with customers. Some of these tools already exist within the rep management platforms and some are being developed.
There’s also a permanent “culture shift” required here too.
December 10th, 2010 at 2:22 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Greg Sterling, pc4media, Andrew Goodman, seo2feel, KennstDuEinen and others. KennstDuEinen said: An Bewertungen kommt keiner mehr vorbei: "The Rise and Rise of Local Reviews" http://bit.ly/fPToFf (by @gsterling) [...]
December 10th, 2010 at 2:42 pm
Thank you Greg a very interesting post that just goes to prove that many local small businesses may well be missing out on custom that is right on their doorstep. I wrote a quick post myself on how these directories can influence your listing on Google Places - http://www.monicowebdesign.co.uk/computing/seo/local-search-get-started/
December 10th, 2010 at 2:43 pm
Thanks Robert.
December 10th, 2010 at 4:12 pm
[...] The Rise and Rise of Local Reviews [...]
December 10th, 2010 at 5:10 pm
The need to solicit customer feedback has been with us for a while. The benefits from reviews, mentions, likes, etc. (driven by Google’s dominance in local search, role of reviews in ranking and conversions, and consumers increasing use of search to find/choose local businesses) are slowly being understood by SMBs. But (depending on the industry) we are a long way from the tipping point. For many (probably most) SMBs the “culture shift” required to get, manage and publish customer reviews is significant.
That said, there is a virtuous cycle at work – good businesses make engaging with their customers and building this digital asset a priority – they get more business – those that don’t get less – wash – rinse – repeat.
December 10th, 2010 at 5:13 pm
What I mean by “solicit” is ensure that positive experiences are being captured and delivered to the right places online. Good service doesn’t always turn into reviews. There needs to be some structure put around the process. That’s what I’m referring to principally.
December 10th, 2010 at 7:38 pm
Greg, thanks for keeping us all informed as you keep your finger on the pulse of local search. I usually don’t take the time, but I don’t believe I have ever visited your blog and not come away with a greater knowledge of the local search market place.
Anthony
P.S. – We didn’t get to meet at the time, but I was working for Innovectra several years ago when their management team solicited your wisdom & expertise. It was at that point that I started to follow you.
December 10th, 2010 at 7:45 pm
Thanks Anthony that’s very nice of you to say.
December 10th, 2010 at 8:22 pm
I don’t think over time it will be necessary to constantly solicit ‘likes’ when other functionality becomes more developed. For example, when we get to the point where I can automatically/anonymously check-in to a location, you could start to tease out data on who gets repeat visits, which in my mind is a higher indicator of satisfaction than a review. This might also be more difficult to game, especially if I could look for places with return visits from those I am friends with.
December 12th, 2010 at 10:30 pm
Greg,
Are you aware of any study that would pose the similar question of “trust” in reference to products reviews? I’ve see many that relate to importance or numbers of consumers who rely on the reviews, but never such a well focused question. The challenges are quite similar as well under 1% of customers provide any kind of product reviews and many products suffer from being dismissed off hand by the consumers who cannot find enough reviews about them.
P.S. we have met a few weeks ago at Avram’s lunch.
December 13th, 2010 at 12:44 am
I’m not specifically aware of a such a study around product reviews and trust beyond the fact that people consult them and do rely on them. It would probably need to be about review sources (or site context) and/or under what circumstances people would be inclined to trust reviews at all (few vs. many reviews).
January 24th, 2011 at 3:42 pm
[...] new data from a September 2010 survey of 2,000 US and UK adults. The first wave of the data was released in December and this is the second release. The data aren’t segmented by US vs. UK [...]