Customer reviews are becoming more frequently cited as a ranking factor, particularly those from Facebook, Yelp and other consumer review platforms. According to Moz’s most recent study on Local SEO, reviews are more significant to Google than social media shares, and the search engine has been well aware of the way black hat SEO has attempted to game their system when it comes to their importance. Consequently, it’s essential to harness the power of customer reviews, not only for search visibility, but to provide your site with new content.
Reviews allow your customers to engage directly with your site, and boost the conversation around your brand. Although social may count as a less significant ranking factor than reviews, reviews can lead to your product page (and the reviews themselves) being shared on social media. Google has also stated that seller ratings improve a site’s click through rate by 17%—and since this information was released five years ago, it is almost guaranteed that that number has increased dramatically since.
One further benefit of using reviews as sources of content is that it will improve your long-tail keyword traffic. Given mobile search’s prevalence for question-based search queries, companies whose sites give users room to review their services are likely to benefit; after all, the people who are reviewing your products will be the same people who have purchased it in the first place. Taking inspiration from their choice of words and terms means that you can tailor your keyword optimisation around the language they use to discuss your product.
Allowing your content to be “outsourced” in this way, as well as being more selective about the onsite content you are generating, is ultimately going to be one of the best things that you can do for your website. By curating your blog posts more carefully, you can craft your message more effectively in a way that will have positive repercussions on your SEO.