Like most business owners… You know Google reviews are important.
You know it in your gut.
But how important are they?
Well, we need to talk about technology to truly understand why and how they’ve become so important.
Mobile has changed everything.
Over the last decade, mobile adoption has gone from 20% to 90%.
This dramatic shift has led to similarly dramatic shifts in consumer behavior.
97% of consumers now use the internet to find local businesses and three in four people who use their smartphones to search for something nearby end up visiting a local business within a day.
Crazy, right?
For small businesses, this means the yellow pages and the iconic physical storefront have been replaced by digital ones.
Think about it. When you’re looking to try a new restaurant or find an electrician, what do you do? You might get a recommendation from friends or family, but you probably also do a “near me” search on Google.
And what else? 90% of customers(so most likely you) now read reviews before visiting a business.
The truth is this: Consumers now go online before buying offline and reviews are now a fundamental requirement in winning today’s consumers.
This is the new normal.
It is how we find solutions to our problems.
We’ve done a lot of research on google review statistics, here are 7 stats that will prove that gut instinct of yours is correct.
👉 In 2021, 77% of consumers will always or regularly read Google reviews when browsing for local businesses (up from 60% in 2020 – Bright Local Report)
👉 More people are using Google to evaluate local businesses than ever before. In 2021, 81% did, but the year before that, just 63% did.
👉 78% of consumers use the internet to find information about local businesses more than once a week (up from 69% in 2020 – Bright Local Report).
👉 In 2021, just 3% of consumers said they would consider using a business with an average star rating of two or fewer stars. That’s down from 14% in 2020. I mean, would you?
👉 About 90% of customers read reviews before visiting a business.
👉 72% of consumers will wait until they read reviews before taking action.
👉 If a business has more than nine current reviews, they earn 52% more revenue than the average. If a business has more than 25 current reviews, that increases to 108%
So what do these 7 stats show us?
(in lamen terms)
We.. me, you… everyone.. goes to Google to solve our local problems.
Reviews are now a fundamental part of local business.
If your reviews are Sh*&t people won’t buy from you.
To compete (and win)
you need reviews, you need recent reviews
and you need more than the other guy or gal they can buy from.
Come on seriously.. You type plumber near me? electrician near me? lawyer near me?
Who are you going to pick…
The business with 10 reviews or the one with 1000s of reviews.
It is hard to put a number on how much money that is worth.
Most business owners either aren’t proactively focusing on their review profile, are afraid to ask, forget to ask or struggle to get reviews.
And this is an opportunity for you (even if you’re starting at 0).
If you believe this is the new normal (like we do)…
If you take your online presence seriously…
If you start collecting more reviews than your competitors…
You will win today’s customers.
