How To Build Customer Reviews And An Online Presence

Wondering how to build an online presence for you or your business? Do you want a short and sweet version of some of the many ways you can tackle this? If so then you’re in the right place! In such a rapidly growing digital world and with the aftermath of the recent worldwide pandemic, a lot of marketplaces are moving to the digital world. Also, many businesses found success by leveraging their online presence. And as an extra, towards the end, we look at customer reviews and how to best manage them. Let’s jump in.

Gaining An Online Presence

There are endless ways for you to gain footing online, and even longer lists of steps to guide you there. However, as mentioned above, these will be the short and sweet key points you should at least start before spreading out.

Build Your Website

It could be debated in what order this should come into play, but where would your customers go if you did not have a place for them to find you? There are many amazing tools on the internet for you to build great websites from. Three that come to mind are Squarespace, Wix, and WordPress. Both are good tools and relatively easy to use, built with the user in mind. Easy to pick up, hard to master, with amazing customization.

Learn SEO

SEO stands for search engine optimization and has gained a lot of traction in recent years. Now it is hands down the most important thing you can do for your online presence. There are full-length courses on how to master SEO and gain basic knowledge of the term, but in essence, it’s how users find you. Using relevant keywords in emails or on your site can help google drive more traffic to you. If you can master SEO you’ll be strapped on a rocket ship and grow very rapidly. We recommend Neil Patel as he offers free courses on the subject!

Be Active Online

Have active and engaging social media accounts that attract more users to you. The more users that are following you tend to lead to more customers and more sales. This also means always updating your site, always showing people you or your business is constantly making improvements and adapting. Sites that look like they come from the early 2000s will likely scare people away.

Produce Content, Be Competitive, Develop Relationships

Who wants to buy from a site whose last drop of content was from months ago? Or when the last promotion or sale was equally as long ago? Always be striving to get the next thing out the door. The next site feature, the next product drop, the next sale. People like to come back and see there is something new, and when there is something new people will likely become returning customers. Make sure you’re competitive! Your direct opposer does a sale, do an even better sale. Make sure you never let your competitor walk over you easily. SEO is a never-ending battle, websites rise and fall off google’s top listings, try to always make sure you can be near the summit. Lastly, make some friends! So many opportunities are born from relationships that it’s an endless well of potential for you to tap into. Your next COO could come from a movie night or a friendly conversation at a networking event. Leverage your relationships to grow your business the best you can.

Show Up Where Your Audience Is and Automate Your Process

If all your users are on Twitter and Facebook but not Instagram or TicTok (as of late) then you should not be putting all your effort into the latter two. You want the most people possible to see you, so put that effort where it will pay off the most!

Social Proof

Growing your “Social Proof” is very important. It’s up there with some of the more important points, like learning SEO. We have a blog on just this alone here but for your convenience here is a quick definition from Hootsuite, “social proof is a psychological phenomenon referring to people’s reliance on the feedback and actions of others to determine what is right and what is wrong in a given situation…”

Care About Your Reviews

This one is quite important as well, even more so when you start to make sales. We also have a blog here on just this alone but what type of list would this be if it’s not mentioned here too? Your customers will in fact read your reviews and on average someone will read 5 to 10 before they feel some level of trust and buy from you. So make sure you’re keeping an eye on your reviews and make sure you have a place on your site where they can be collected and viewed easily. Wondering how to improve your online reviews? Keep reading to find out!

Improving Online Customer Reviews

Since you did your homework and read to this point we baked up a little extra treat for you. As mentioned above online reviews are one important pillar of your business’s success and it can be hard to find out how to improve them or just monitor them. And here just for you are three simple ways you can better your online reviews.

Educate Customers On Leaving Reviews

Interestingly enough a lot of people do want to help you and your business. But most times they do not know where to go or what to write. Take some time and direct them to a specific site or web page. Then explain the importance of why they should leave a review. It’s why so many places ask you for reviews after a transaction so they can find out how they can do better. Regardless of content, a review can be very helpful for the future growth of your business.

Prioritize Customer Service

Yes, good news spreads quickly, but bad news spreads even quicker. If you want as many good reviews as possible you’ll have to create a culture where customer service is a priority. But cultivate it respectfully. Try not to put customer service above your team’s or your own well-being. Mentally if employees know they have a metaphorical gun to their heads to have perfect customer service. It tends to weigh heavily on their mental health and could lead to worse reviews or a drop in sales.

Respond Affirmatively to Negative Reviews

Be sure to monitor your online presence and respond to those that leave negative feedback. Be sure to tailor your response toward making things right for the customer. Customers sometimes care more about how you handle a bad situation.

Conclusion

With these basic steps in mind, hopefully, you’re able to start and thank about how to get your digital presence going. As I mentioned before, this is only scratching the surface. But it should be enough for you to dive deeper into more advanced and longer ideas out there and worry about things like researching influencer marketing and so on. Good luck and happy creating!