They seek Social Proof & Reviews…

So you’ve got your website built to best-practice standards with great functionality and you are also regularly updating your content.

You’re making sure you are active on the most relevant social media platforms and all this activity means you have website traffic coming in from both Google search as well as your socials.

What actions would a Highly Effective Website Owner take next?

Because they understand that they are not alone in doing all of the above, they are also aware that a certain percentage of their competitors are carrying out many of the same activities.

Which means that their prospective clients are looking at other similar service providers and are trying to decide which one to approach and potentially do business with.

So how do you gain a competitive advantage over other businesses in your sector?

Highly Effective Website owners leverage social proof and reviews.

Whether we realise it or not, many of our decisions around products and services are based on some form of 3rd party reviews.

We might see or hear of a great movie review and choose to watch. We might see a car ad which says that it has won Car of the Year or is the best-selling car in Ireland and we’re more open to it. We hear our friends say they loved a new restaurant and so we’re keen to try it out also.

On the flip side, poor reviews can be equally persuasive.

That comedy movie we were interested in? We cancelled plans when some friends said they didn’t laugh once. A magazine reviewer thinks the service they received in a new restaurant was poor and so we go somewhere we’ve been before and know we’ll enjoy. When a work colleague tells us they feel overcharged for a product which doesn’t perform as expected, we decide not to get that product ourselves.

So many of our decisions are informed by feedback we have received from a wide variety of sources and the same is true when it comes to our own business products and services.

We might feel we are offering an amazing product or service at a fair price – but do our potential customers know all that?

Prospective buyers will be influenced by the reviews they see of your business – and they will see reviews – so you need to take charge of this area rather than being passive about it.

A good place to start is with Google Reviews as these are quite prominent when people are performing Google Searches.

Make sure you have a Google Business Profile in place and make sure you have access to it.

Find the ‘Leave a Review’ link for your own Google Business Profile and send it to the clients you have the best relationship with and ask them if they would please leave you a positive review – most clients will be happy to do so.

Going from a single-figure number of reviews to a few dozen is going to act much more persuasively when someone is comparing your business to others in the same sector.

Google Reviews are also a definite local SEO ranking factor so it’s a win-win – you rank higher in search results and then people also see that you’re providing a great service!

Good reviews also provide you with some level of protection from any bad ones.

If you have only 5 good reviews, then one bad one will seem more visible and will also have more impact on your overall ( average ) score.

However, if you have 50 good reviews, then one bad one will be almost lost amongst all the good ones and will have less impact on your overall score.

You can add your Google Review link to your email signature to encourage those you regularly deal with to leave one. Or just reach out to them directly at the end of a project or transaction with them.

While Google Reviews are important for search traffic, there will be people looking elsewhere for your products and services and so you should also give time to building up your LinkedIn Recommendations, Facebook reviews as well as your connections and followers across your various social media accounts.

Then depending on your sector, industry review sites such as TrustPilot, Yelp or TripAdvisor may be relevant to your audience also.

So actively take control of building up reviews for your business.

They will make you more visible, trusted and will ensure that prospective customers WANT to reach out to you in a way that makes converting them into customers that much easier.

That’s what a Highly Effective Website Owner would do!

Stay tuned for Habit no. 5 next!

Mark