Why Online Customer Review Matter to Local SEO

 

 

Online marketing experts are saying that local SEO will be the “in” thing in 2013. And as many SEO specialists scramble to gear up for such imminent trend, they are discovering that customer reviews actually serve its two-fold purpose – it provides prospective customers the chance to know about the success of the business, and making the site look good in the eyes of Google.

Why Online Customer Reviews Matter  

Every SEO knows that search engine spiders like regularly updated unique content. Customer or user reviews are a great way to create more of this. Online users would normally refer to customer reviews whenever they are not sure about certain product or service offered by some unknown companies through their websites. Through such reviews, the online user gets an idea of how other customers rate the product or service. And from information gathered, an informed decision can be made. And since customer reviews serve as a powerful tool for increasing the website’s ranking and visibility, every review therefore, has an effect on your search engine optimization campaign. 

Customer Reviews Make a Difference on Your Site 

The usual product search would often generate websites that offer similar if not identical description of a specific product category. This is because most businesses use the standard description supplied by the manufacturers for the product. And if online users are presented with pages that look essentially the same, nothing differentiates your site or page from the others. Thus, online users can randomly pick from the list regardless of other criteria. This issue can be countered by including customer reviews on your page for online users to see the difference. 

Search Engines Look for Fresh Content 

Customer reviews represent the opinion of the customer on your site. The customers not only provide fresh content but they also activate user engagement, which is an important factor in SEO ranking. For the search engine crawlers, the more comments and reviews your site generates, the higher ranking and visibility your site will enjoy. 

Gaining Effective Keywords

Another impact made by customer review is its usage of keywords. Usually, customers review your business by its niche, nature, product or service provided; this is a good point to take advantage of in increasing keyword density in your website. By doing so, search engine spiders will find your website more relevant to the keyword or keywords you wanted to rank.

To have an idea on how to choose the right keyword, you can click here.

Increasing Local Ranking 

Google and other search engines customize search results by geographic location. For businesses catering to local market and clientele, the customer reviews will help keep your site at the top of the local search results. If possible your site should encourage customer reviews from genuine local customers. Here’s the reason why local search engine optimization is important.

By encouraging your customers to provide reviews or ratings for your products or services, you are actually helping your site get optimized for search engines resulting to increased visibility and higher page ranking without having to do hardcore search engine optimization techniques because your customers are helping you with credibility and reliability.