Yes, you read that right. And we all know in the small business world how important referrals are. Here’s the full survey from Bright Local.
If you are someone that is reading this right now, run a small business, are spending money advertising on Google or other places on the internet, it is essential that you don’t have any negative reviews floating around. Litterally, by the definition of the word, essential. The last thing you probably want is an increased amount of people looking your company name up on Google because they saw your ad and have an interest in what you do and then find the bad review.
The survey also shows that an increased number of people in 2013 are looking at online reviews, but they’re reading less reviews when forming their opinion on the business. In other words, every small business should be concentrating the vast majority of their time on the review websites that are on the top half of the first page of Google when you search your business name. Those reviews in that real estate will make or break you.
It’s one thing to advertise your business. Get people to your website. Get phone calls from those people. But after that point comes the most important part where the potential customer decides if they’re going to give you their money or not. For a lot of people online reviews can be something that will help decide that.