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How displaying reviews on your website will increase your conversion rate
M ost people inform themselves online and pay close attention to reviews when choosing a company. Thus, displaying reviews on your website increases your chances to win new customers. In this article, we will discuss why it is important that you show reviews on your website and talk about the best practices.
Why should you show customer reviews on your website?
Reviews are a form of social proof which is a psychological phenomenon that our own behavior is impacted by the behavior of the masses. The idea is that if many other people think or behave in a certain way, it must be correct. For example, you will be tempted to visit a restaurant with people in it or if other customers left positive reviews of it.
According to research by the Spiegel Research Center, displaying reviews can increase conversion by 270%. So, let social proof work for you. Read further to learn how you can show customer reviews on your website.
Embedding reviews on your website
If you already have reviews on the major review sites such as Google, Tripadvisor, Facebook, and others, you can display them on your website. Follow the guidelines depending on the type of platform.
Embedding Google reviews
Google doesn’t provide an official review widget but you can use third-party services to embed Google reviews. For example, WordPress has many Google review plugins.
Embedding Facebook reviews
- Login to your Facebook business page
- Go to the Reviews tab and find a review you would like to embed
- Click on three dots in the top-right corner and choose “Embed”
- Copy the code and paste it into your website
Embedding Tripadvisor reviews
Tripadvisor offers various free widgets for accommodations, attractions, restaurants, and destinations that are listed on TripAdvisor. Up to 50 widgets can be added to a single website. To add widgets to your website:
- Go to your Widget Center and enter your business or destination name, then choose the correct entry from the list
- Choose the widget you would like to embed and pick the design and size from the available options
- Copy the code and paste it into the source code of your website
Embedding Yelp reviews
- Find the review on the main site (Yelp.com)
- Hover over the review until review options appear
- Click Embed review
- Copy the embedding code
- Paste the code into your website
Collect and aggregate all your reviews
While showcasing individual reviews has its advantages, as you can choose the ones that put your business in the best light, it is not very practical. To save time and have a better overview of what is written about you on the Internet, we recommend using a service to collect and aggregate reviews from different review sites.
With re:spondelligent, you can monitor reviews from Google, Facebook, Tripadvisor, Yelp, and other relevant for you sites in one dashboard. It is easy to measure your online reputation with our aggregated score, re:Score, which allows you to track and compare your performance over time.
What is more, now re:spondelligent customers can benefit from re:Score widgets. These weekly updated widgets can be embedded on your website to build trust and improve the conversion rate. Besides, you can opt in to make your widget eligible for Google rich snippet that has proved to bring more traffic to websites.
Where to put a review widget on your website
Using widgets such as re:Score widget on your website helps you leverage online reviews to grow your business. However, it is important to choose the right place where it will have the biggest impact.
We recommend placing the review widget on your homepage, as it typically gets the most traffic on your website. Usually, businesses put the widget on the bottom of the page next to the contact information. But don’t forget: the higher on the page the widget is placed, the better visibility it has.
It is a good idea to place the review widget near call-to-actions, for example, booking buttons. Customers are usually more inclined to book when they see the positive feedback from other people.
If your business has multiple locations, it is important that the widget showcases the reviews or the score of that particular location.
Last but not least, the review widget should look good on both desktop and mobile devices. As phone screens are smaller, the widget shouldn’t occupy too much of the screen space or distract the visitors from the content of the page. re:spondelligent’s re:Score widgets are available in different sizes and designs and optimized for different devices.
Displaying reviews or implementing review widgets into your website helps visitors gain the necessary information to form an opinion about your business and make a purchase decision. At a time when guests rely on others’ opinions and experiences, don’t miss this opportunity to turn visitors into customers.
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About the Author
Natalia is a Co-Founder of re:spondelligent. She is passionate about helping businesses manage and respond to their customer reviews and loves sharing her industry and marketing knowledge to help brands succeed.