As a business, you want to inspire trust amongst your potential customers and website visitors – but how can you do this if you're a start-up or an unfamiliar brand? Third-party credibility relates your products and services to a trusted source that can help potential customers to feel more confident about making a purchase through your site, and even well-established businesses can benefit from third-party reviews from sites such as Feefo and TrustPilot.
Building consumer trust
It's common for visitors to your site to ask, “Who is this company and why should I trust them?” This is a common query that most customers will ask of for the first time they visit a website. To some extent the professional appearance of the website, information available about the company and any reviews we can find will allay any fears they have about purchasing products or services. Relating your brand to third-party sites builds immediate trust and a connection with potential customers which can increase your B2B website conversions.
Authenticated reviews
Using a third-party review sites such as Feefo, TrustPilot, Revoo or Bazaar Voice makes your product pages more persuasive. These reviews are authenticated, which means that customers can be sure the review is written by somebody who has purchased the product or services in question. Many large retailers rely on these third-party review providers as an easy way of adding reviews to their site – they allow you to build up a large body of reviews without much time and effort.
Why do you need reviews?
The majority of customers nowadays will want to see a review before deciding to make a purchase – with so many products and services out there competing for attention, which should come as no surprise. User reviews increase conversions, the evidence is clear. Reviews can help customers to select products or eliminate any doubts they have about products or services your organisation offers. These include delivery times and costs, reliability, customer service etc. When you consider that 47% of people in the UK have reviewed products online, it's would be prudent to consider that this is a huge area you can tap into to increase your B2B conversions.
Statistics from Revoo reveal that 50 or more reviews for a product can increase your conversion rates by 4.6%, whilst according to iPerceptions (2011), 63% of customers would be more likely to purchase from a site which has user reviews. Having reviews on your site also has SEO benefits which can, in effect, increase your conversion rate.
SEO benefits of reviews
We all know the importance of unique and regularly updated website content when it comes to boosting your website search rankings. User reviews are a great way to keep your site content current and to optimise your site for improved search engine results, increasing your chance of a higher Google ranking. Find more on Google reviews here. With more customers than previous endeavours searching for the product name plus the keyword 'review', you have an increased chance of harnessing this traffic and attracting them to your site. All this can be achieved if you include third-party reviews on your site.
Take the bad with the good
It's not just positive reviews that are going to increase your conversion rate either; having a good mix of positive and negative reviews can help to improve the level of consumer trust. Statistics from Reevo indicate that having a few bad reviews (although obviously, there's a limit) can actually increase conversion rates by 67%. 30% of consumers will suspect a company has faked or censored their reviews if they don't see any negative reviews on the site.
How to get more reviews
So you want to get more reviews? Well, you can start by registering an account with a third-party review site such as Yelp, Amazon, Feefo, TrustPilot or Revoo. Reviews can be integrated into your site so that customers can read them without navigating to the review site, or you can link to the site directly. It's simple and quick to get started, and you can be up and running in minutes, which means you'll start reaping the benefits of third-party reviews almost immediately, increasing traffic and your conversion rates. Setting up automated emails which request reviews from customers after they have made a purchase ensures you'll get more reviews – you could even offer an incentive for reviewing products, such as entry into a prize draw or a discount off their next order.
The End Result
When you consider how you make purchases or search for services online, it makes sense to include third-party reviews on your site. How many times have you searched for reviews on a company or specific product before making a purchase? We're willing to bet that reading positive (and negative) reviews has greatly influenced your own purchasing decisions in the past, and the same is true for your potential customers. Here are some more ideas for improving your conversion rate.
