Do Customer Reviews Matter To Your SEO Efforts?
Customer feedback has been used to enhance customer service for decades. Customer review is not something new. Customers are essential for the success of a business and a satisfied customer is a good referral for every business. Even today BBB or Better Business Bureau is a trusted information source for customers during their business research. Does this concept of quality service matter to your SEO efforts?
The ancient concept associated with quality service has been successfully directing more customers to a business for centuries. In this digital era, search engines have been prioritizing endorsements from backlinks but lately, it has switched their attention towards customer reviews. Today, reviews are ‘NEW’ backlinks!
Contact SEO services Australian Internet Advertising to understand more about customer review importance and have your website evaluated for search engine optimization. Proactive approach towards gaining customer reviews as it will increase profits significantly in coming years. AIA’s innovative digital marketing strategies can help in an effective SEO campaign!
Backlinks vs. reviews
Backlinks are generally votes from one site to another. It means if your site gets an external link [backlink] from a relevant website, Google bots count it as a ‘Vote’. The vote means your site is a quality place that offers the best user experience. These votes are gathered and tallied with other relevant sites across the world to identify the most valuable ones for specific keyword searches.
Backlinks are often spammed by black & gray hat marketing techniques, so Google is trying to find a solution for defeating this tactic. Negative press has been used by many business owners to build backlinks and gain ranking successfully. Ultimately, search engines are pushing or eliminating, or penalizing spammy backlinks. Backlinks are valuable, but it is different than what it was several years ago.
Social media buzz
Social media platforms like Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and more are employed in the ranking factor. The reason is that these platforms have public discussions from real people, so search engines focus on them to remove the spammy backlink technique. For example, your friend’s recommendation for a plumbing service carries more weight and there will be no need for Google’s recommendation. Google identified this and has created a technology to factor such recommendations into its ranking.
Currently, internet traffic boost is due to social media, and logically search engine is using social channel interactions as a ranking factor. Search engine bots track user behavior and decide if the discussion of a site is bad or good.
Reviews are new backlinks in the near future
Customer reviews interpret into backlinks. The search engines have gone smart and can evaluate review strength based on the history and action of the person that posted a review. In the future, search engines will experience major changes like evaluating customer reviews and ranking websites on their basis. It can be a huge driving force after keyword ranking.
Never try to trap Google with exaggerated or paid reviews because Google has a back plan to penalize such activities. Get proactive and work on getting plenty of online reviews. Remember, bad reviews if dealt with properly can work as an optimistic ranking signal —- it shows customers and search engines your business cares!