A candid discussion: Brand purpose and honesty in marketing

A candid discussion: Brand purpose and honesty in marketing Preview

In this webinar, our experts discuss the importance of brands adopting an ethical stance and purpose, and how you can implement a purpose-driven marketing strategy.

If you found this webinar inspiring and would like to discuss this topic further with a reputation expert, why not book a free Trustpilot demo? It's quick and easy, just click the link below.

Brand purpose and honesty in marketing – a candid discussion

Bekijk onze webinars en video's waarin Trustpilot de nieuwste inzichten deelt over het verbeteren van je online reputatie, het verzamelen van reviews en het optimaliseren van je marketingactiviteiten.

Webinars en video's | Blog

Webinars and Videos

the role of customer experience trustpilot - NL webinar

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On Demand Video - E-commerce: verhoog je conversie door je customer journey te optimaliseren

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Bedankt!

E-commerce: verhoog je conversie door je customer journey te optimaliseren

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Alle informatie die besproken wordt is praktisch toepasbaar, en stelt je in staat om de [conversie van je website](https://www.bureaubright.nl/kenniscentrum/conversie) te verhogen door de prestaties van je SEO, Google Ads, e-mailcampages, retargeting en social advertenties te verbeteren. We tonen diverse voorbeelden van e-commerce-sites en vertellen je welke stappen je kunt ondernemen om je bounce-rate en het aantal winkelwagenverlaters te verlagen. Ook bespreken we hoe social proof de koopbeslissing van de consument positief kan beïnvloeden.

#### Tijdens dit webinar komt het volgende aan bod:

- Hoe je de sales-funnel van je e-commerce-website kunt verbeteren.  
- Tips om het aantal winkelwagenverlaters en je bounce-rate te verlagen.  
- Social proof: hoe je optimaal kunt profiteren van de reviews van je klanten.


A middle-aged woman with glasses looking at the camera

the role of customer experience trustpilot

E-commerce: optimaliseer je customer journey en verhoog je conversie

Hoe kun je met reviews je conversie verhogen?

On Demand Video - Hoe kun je met reviews je conversie verhogen?

Met online reviews kun je het gesprek aangaan met je klanten om een sterke online reputatie op te bouwen. Daarnaast kunnen reviews de traffic en de conversie op je website flink verhogen. Maar op welke manier gebruik je reviews nou het best?

Onze experts zullen klaarstaan om al je vragen te beantwoorden over hoe je je klanten als kern van je bedrijf kunt gaan zien, en hoe je het meeste uit de mening van je klanten kunt halen. 

Stuur ons je vragen vooraf of stel ze live tijdens het webinar.

#### Je zal meer te weten komen over:

- Hoe je reviews van klanten inzet tijdens de gehele customer journey
- Hoe je de conversie verhoogt van je online marketingkanalen (Google, Facebook, Instagram, etc.)
- Tips hoe je online reviews op je website toont voor meer sales
- Hoe je het aantal website-verlaters tot een minimum beperkt

Boost your Digital Marketing Strategy with customer reviews

On Demand Video - Productreviews: best practices en Q&A

Productreviews: best practices en Q&A

Productreviews hebben een grote invloed op het koopgedrag van consumenten en kunnen je SEO een flinke boost geven. Na dit webinar ben je in staat om productreviews effectief in te zetten voor je website.

### We behandelen onder meer de volgende onderwerpen:

- De verschillende manieren voor het verzamelen van productreviews.
- De invloed van productreviews op SEO.
- De rol van productreviews in Google Shopping.

####  

Improving your online reputation with reviews

In this Trustilot webinar, we discuss the important of online reptation, how to build it from scratch, improve and monitor it, and capitalise from a positive online reputation.

Are you worried that negative reviews are hurting your bottom line?

Are you using your positive reviews to improve conversion rates?

In this webinar recording, you'll learn:

- Why your online reputation matters 
- How to monitor your online reputation 
- How to build your reputation from scratch 
- How to change a negative online reputation from zero to hero 
- How to capitalise on a positive online reputation.


Why ignoring your online reputation

Trustpilot tips and tricks: leveraging reviews to build a trusted brand

leveraging reviews across channels

In this Trustpilot webinar, we talk about the importance of social proof today, and talk you through how you can share your customer’s voice across all channels, including social media, to boost confidence and reduce scepticism.

In fact, it's growing so fast that it has now become essential for companies to implement social proof into their omni-channel marketing strategies. Indeed, online customers feel much more comfortable purchasing from a store when presented with evidence that others recommend it.

That’s why in this insightful webinar, two Trustpilot experts share some key concepts that you can start implementing immediately in order to power your business forward.

Watch the recording today, and learn how you can share your customer’s voice across all channels, including social media, to boost confidence and reduce scepticism.

Marketing & Reviews 101

### About Trustpilot

We were founded in Denmark in 2007. The reason it all started was because our CEO's mum was basically shopping online. She was looking for a washing machine. And back in 2007, buying a washing machine online was something that doesn't happen every day. So she was lookhttps://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1s6omllUbvl6Bngo9len-W6dxRqJuz2x0vCqDG7wBL5E/edit#gid=0ing at various different websites, they both sold the same product, but she couldn't decide whom to buy from, because there was no way of knowing which website was most trusted. That's where it stemmed from, the lack of trust for consumers online. And since then, we've had over $173 million worth of investment. That's basically gone into growth to make sure that our product stays at the forefront of reviews. We now span 150 countries, 35 different languages, seven offices with over 800 employees around the globe. We've collected over 100 million reviews for 400,000 businesses around the globe.

### Why are reviews important today?

Reviews do really have an impact. 92% of consumers read reviews before making a buying decision, 44% think the number of reviews is important and 63% of consumers are likely to make a purchase from a site which has user reviews. So you can see, reviews are really important when consumers are looking to buy from you. We find that a lot of consumers will actually do a search on the company. So like company name plus reviews before they make that buying decision and that's where actually the majority of our traffic comes from.

So authentic content. Obviously back in the day, it used to be the brand would tell everyone what the brand should appear as, but this has basically changed now. Consumers are looking more and more for user-generated content. And this basically leads on nicely into the next part.

### Reviews and social proof

So, we've just heard that reviews have an impact on those buying decisions. So now I'm going to talk through the different types of reviews and how you can use these in your business. There are two different types of reviews, there's a service or your brand focused reviews, and then there's product focused reviews. And together, these provide a twofold view of social proof down the entire sales funnel.

There are also two types of reviews within that, that consumers can leave. There's an organic review or there's a verified review. Verified reviews are the ones that give consumer confidence on the authenticity of the review, that is, that it's come from a genuine experience. And another thing about the verified reviews is that they are easier for the consumer to leave. And on top of that, it helps qualify your brand for Google seller ratings, the gold stars that show up against your paid ads.

Now, the way in which we're asking for reviews, is very important and there's many different flexible methods out there. So I'm going to run through a couple of what Trustpilot can offer. So to start with, we need to, of course, understand and follow the consumer through their journey of identifying their need, making a decision, making a purchase and therefore having an experience. And that's when we're going to send that invitation.

### Collecting reviews

So we don't have to wait for people to come to your review profile or to your Facebook page to leave an organic review anymore, we can go to them. And so, there's multiple ways that we can do this, but some of the most popular ways, and for good reason, is how we can do it through our automation method called Automatic Feedback. Sorry about that siren, let's wait a minute. Yeah, is our Automatic Feedback Service. So this is triggered from your CRM or your emailing platform, or you might want to look into using one of our eCommerce plugins like Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce, but we can also help collect verified reviews on your site or even through your own SMSs or emails.

So now, understanding how we can collect review, we need to think about when is best to do so. If we go in too early, we risk a lower conversion rate or misconstrued feedback as it can all be a bit too vague, as the experience isn't yet complete. That being said, asking too late is also not the best thing to do. This can also give us a lower response rate or even worse, they don't remember their experience well enough to give us that qualitive review that we're after. But when we get them in the right spot, we get meaningful and relevant sentiment. Our customer facing teams get a chance to get in early, to turn anyone around and overall the customer is still riding high on the experience.

There's more than one way to help improve review conversions, but here are some of the most effective that we have found. 

Inviting absolutely everybody to leave a review. We don't have to wait for them to come to us, we go to them. This is more than likely to help us get more reviews.

There's also the option to send them a reminder. People do get busy and we forget that we've got an invitation sitting in our inbox. So no one minds getting a small little once-off nudge to leave that review. And then, if none of this works, which it shouldn't, but we can always A/B test, to see what is going to work for your unique set of customers.

### Incorporating social proof throughout the buying journey

We're going to look at a couple of examples of social proof throughout the journey. We'll look at some stats to validate social proof, that is something that we should be considering. So 92% of consumers read online reviews, 84% of consumers say that they trust peer recommendations, but only 22% of brands are actually trusted. So this could be a great gap you're currently missing with your marketing strategy, and a really easy and effective way to be implemented.

So you've got the header. So as soon as people hit the site, they're met with reviews that fills them with the confidence and it shows them that they can trust in your brand, straight from the get-go. And then they're able to just easily scroll through the reviews on site, make an informed decision and decide whether they want to proceed to the next step. You've got the footer, so as you can see, Safe Financial use social proof, it's huge to them. They have all their social platforms in one place, and then dedicated to building their brand reputation. Another great way for consumers to keep them engaged throughout the website.

So Bridgestone, they do more location based reviews, which is something a little bit new to us. We just brought that out, it's pretty cool. So you can obviously understand where potentially, which one's performing best in terms of location. And there could be a particular location that's not performing too well. But more specifically, it gives you again, that social proof on each of your locations. So if someone is looking to potentially come in store, they're then given that extra nudge with all these fantastic reviews, showing that they're going to get great service. And the location based reviews are also pretty good for localized searches, so we can mark up key landing pages and drive click through rate with review snippet stars.

So that was sort of the more service brand focus, but we can jump down into the product reviews. So at that point where the consumer has made a product choice and a selection, displaying product reviews from their peers basically, of what they also thought of the product, is a really good option. It helps generate that FOMO and drives them to make that decision that we want them to, which is to put it into checkout and purchase the chair.

We all have FOMO. But a lot of this has been focused on acquisition and it doesn't just have to be. Reviews can be used, and they should be used, to help turn your customers into returning customers. And we can see here in these retargeting emails, that's exactly what they're doing. Electricity Wizard, being a comparison site, is calling out how many reviews and trusted customers have had an experience with them. The same for rental of Omega Car Rentals.

We also see ads every day that we're on social media. So using trust marks, such as the Trustpilot stars alongside your customer's own words, is also another great way to re target. We know that social proof does help boost that click through rate when it's used across all of the marketing channels.

### Boosting conversions with trust signals

So having reviews on-site can help build your brand reputation and create consumer confidence, but we've done a lot of testament to the companies that we actually work with and so actually displaying reviews throughout the journey. And we've proven that you can convert up to 130% more, but as well, you can actually increase sales up to 315%.

Obviously, that would depend on the amount of traffic that you've got coming to your website. But either way, if you have two identical websites next to each other, one's got loads of fantastic reviews from a third party like Trustpilot, the other one's got no reviews, you're obviously going to choose the one that's got reviews. Pretty simple.

So top of the funnel stuff, so you can integrate the reviews on some of your key landing pages. So you could pick where you appear really well in organic search and basically mark them up with what we call review snippet stars, so they're basically just the stars that appear in organic search. You can also have product reviews, so again, product reviews allow you to integrate the review snippet stars onto each of your product landing pages, but as well, product reviews are actually hosted on your site, so it helps build your SEO for each of your product searches. And obviously, those stars are going to increase click through rate.

And then, last but not least, obviously the PPC, which I would imagine majority of you spend on. We can basically help you achieve the stars within your paid ads as well, because we basically have a license agreement with Google, and on average that will increase your click through rate for your ads by 10%. 

If you'd like to find out more about the importance of social proof to convert browsers into buyers, speak to one of our review experts for free! It's quick and easy, just click the link below.

Marketing & reviews 101: Leveraging your reviews across channels

Importance of reviews in offline advertising

In this Trustpilot webinar, we cover how impactful ratings and reviews are in advertising and marketing, and highlight how ratings and reviews also affect consumer trust, sentiment, and even their intent to make a purchase.

The report also highlights how ratings and reviews affect consumer trust, sentiment, and even their intent to make a purchase.

To celebrate the launch of this report, we’re excited to invite you to an exclusive webinar on May 17th, 11am BST/12pm CET where Trustpilot, Gain Credit, and London Research will showcase key results and highlights from our London Research report. 

Gain Credit, one of the brands featured in the report, will provide an in-depth look into how ratings and reviews have made an impact on their marketing and their company. We’ll also offer additional examples of how our clients have made the most of their ratings and reviews in above-the-line (offline) advertising.

Watch the webinar recording below:

### The methodology of the research

Let's start off with the methodology for the research. It's obviously worth saying that the aim of the research was really to learn more about the impact of ratings and reviews as a general level, and also to explore awareness of Trustpilot and various elements of the Trustpilot brand. In terms of the methodology, we did two surveys. We did a survey of more than 300 Trustpilot business partners and prospects. To complement that, we also did a survey of 2,000 UK consumers. The business survey was more global, but the consumer survey, we focused here on the UK market. We also did some qualitative research in the form of interviews with brands already harnessing Trustpilot in their offline advertising.

Finally, we did some statistical analysis using our part of the bottom line analytics to really get under the skin a bit more of the consumer motivations and to understand a bit more deeply the impact of different touch points, such as rating reviews in the customer journey. Also, to get a bit more nuance about the different elements of the Trustpilot brand. For example, the logo and the stars and trust for, more about that later. To look now at the objectives of the research, which I've already covered briefly. But essentially, this was around, as I say, a general understanding of the importance of ratings and reviews in the decision making process. That's the third bullet there. Then also looking at the use and benefits of Trustpilot in offline advertising, and, also, awareness of Trustpilot. I think it's worth saying for the uninitiated, above-the-line advertising, or ATL advertising, essentially overlaps quite a lot with offline marketing, so I guess, historically, its above-the-line was distinct from below-the-line advertising, which was more things like direct mail. 

Then the distinction has come to mean as well now more offline marketing as opposed to digital channels like online display or search advertising or social media. We're talking about more conventional media such as television, radio, print and billboards. Although, it should be noted that the lines are certainly blurry than actually a lot of these offline channels such as a billboard and TV, and even radio, have become more digital. 

### The importance of ratings and reviews

Okay, so if we look now at the first key finding of the report, and so looking at more the general research we did about the importance of ratings and reviews. What we found was that reviews and ratings, which we looked at separately as touch points, emerged as the most important sources of information when consumers are interested in buying something. When they're in buying mode, and we can see from this chart that reviews and ratings are actually at the top of the pile now in terms of how they're viewed as credible sources of information. 

That's partly to do with a lack of trust generally in information on the internet, whether that's through phenomena such as fake news, or a bad reputation that some aspects of display advertising have got over the years because it's not targeted. But not to say that all this advertising is bad in any way, but there is this general lack of trust in people looking for authenticity that reviews and ratings can provide. 

You can see here the percentage of UK consumers who are saying that each of these different touch points is either very important, important, and so on and so forth. Customer reviews, 40% of consumers regard these as very important. As you can see for consumer ratings, it's 38%. Then you can see in descending order the impact, or the perceived impact, that consumers think these have on their purchase decisions. It should also be noted that actually some of the other touch points, whether e-commerce sites or company websites or, as we'll see, even TV advertising can actually themselves have reviews. There is some overlap between these different touch points. 

Another key finding of the UK-focused consumer research was the high awareness of Trustpilot. We saw from our consumer survey that 58% of UK consumers are aware of Trustpilot. 

### How are consumers engaging with reviews?

There are two or three ways that the consumers interact with the reviews. 
Firstly is by leaving a review themselves, and not just actually leaving a review, but we've seen in a number of reviews, customers commenting on other reviews. For example, "I wasn't sure about borrowing from you, but I came and saw some reviews, and I'm really glad that I did." That's always a good positive first to come through. Apart from collecting feedback through Trustpilot itself, we have a number of internal mechanisms for collecting customer feedback, and again, we've seen some verbatim comments in there saying, "Wasn't to sure about it at first, but actually really pleased with everything that's come through, and really glad with what I've seen and everything else."

### Does your Trustpilot score help you build trust?

The next part of the findings we're presenting here is we wanted to test the hypothesis that a good Trustpilot score helped brands build trust with consumers and increases conversion rates in terms of online and offline sales. We had a couple of questions, we shall see here, as part of the consumer survey. We asked the extent to which they agreed that a good Trustpilot score made them more likely to trust the brand, and 76% either strongly agreed or somewhat agreed that that was the case.

We could also see the extent to which consumers agreed that a good Trustpilot score makes them more likely to buy from a brand, and 72% of Trustpilot aware consumers, should stress that these are consumers who were aware of Trustpilot, said that they agree a good Trustpilot score makes them more likely to buy from a brand.

We wanted to look now at a couple of the statistical models we used as part of the research. The first one is really around the role of or the impact of different touchpoints including ratings and reviews in the consumer purchasing decision making process. What we've got here is a four quadrant where we've mapped the different touchpoints against their perceived importance and the impact on likelihood to buy, which is the X axis. We've used for this, or should I say, the statistician used for this multivariate regression modeling.

The most influential touchpoints are consumer reviews and ratings. This is something clearly that is in the interest of brands to use. The next most important quadrant is the 'maintain' one, and these are channels which are regarded by consumers, relatively speaking, as very important the search engines, company websites, and eCommerce. And I should stress here that all these touchpoints can certainly play a role in the influencing the customer journey, but we wanted to establish some kind of a pecking order here. In the bottom left, we can see channels such as direct mail, TV advertising, online display. One of the conclusions of the research is that the ratings and reviews can be used actually within those channels to make them more effective. And also, that those channels in isolation should really be monitored over time to see what their impact is on the consumer decision making in terms of trust and ultimately propensity to purchase. 

We found that there are things like the Trustpilot logo and Trustscore, the stars, the reviews, that ultimately directly drive trust, and it's the trust in turn which then drives propensity to buy. The elements of the Trustpilot identity, they do have an indirect or subsidiary role in actually driving buy, but it's actually earlier on in the decision making process where they come into play most importantly to really build that trust.

### The research's key takeaways

One of the really key findings of the report was the missed opportunity for many brands to harness Trustpilot in their above-the-line, offline marketing and advertising, and this part of the evidence by the survey we did of Trustpilot partners and business. For website, the vast majority of Trustpilot partner's customers use the brand, but when we look at the bottom of that chart for above-the-line channels, it's only eight percent we are using, but 16% are considering using it, and then the rest or around three quarters, no plans to use. It should be pointed out, some of those Trustpilot partners don't really do much above-the-line advertising, but there's a decent chunk of them who do so, and not yet leveraging ratings and reviews.

I think one of the things from the interviews that we've seen, generally in terms of the way Trustpilot's used, is that it's been a differentiator from other brands, particularly in the offline space, but over time it's becoming more of a hygiene factor, where brands need to be visible in that respect.

At the moment, there's still only a small portion of companies, relatively speaking, using Trustpilot in offline advertising. I think over time, and there's still very much an opportunity there, it will move from being a differentiator to a hygiene factor or table stakes as some people describe it.

And the survey of businesses also, when we looked at the perceived benefits, in the blue there, portion of respondents from the business survey, describing these benefits as major. There's a good consistency with the consumer survey in the building trust, creating more customer friendly brands. I think brands about very savvy that that's where the opportunity really lies and the indirect benefits around increased revenue, which is really what it's all about. In terms of conversion online and offline, there's a really wise benefit, I think, around integrating just offline activity to have that to appear to be seamless in your marketing or advertising as a brand that it can tie up have that consistency of the ratings and reviews figure both online and offline.

People ultimately use the Trustpilot logo and the stars as a by word for quality, and it's a quick way to get that message across and then be able to deliver on other things. There is a bit more to it than just plunking the stars and the logo on the ad, but by integrating that into campaigns, it can really help power any business forward. 

If you'd like to learn more about the importance of displaying trust signals both offline and online, book your free demo and speak to one of our review experts. It's quick and easy, just click the link below.

How reviews in offline advertising impact consumers and brands

E-commerce: verbeter je SEO-strategie met user-generated content

On Demand Video - E-commerce: verbeter je SEO-strategie met user-generated content

Tijdens dit webinar vertellen we hoe je een succesvolle SEO-strategie kunt opzetten met behulp van reviews als user-generated content.

#### We bespreken onder meer:

- goede praktijkvoorbeelden met betrekking tot SEO;
- hoe je user-generated content kunt opnemen in je SEO-strategie;
- wat veelgemaakte fouten zijn en hoe je ze kunt voorkomen.

Heb je interesse, maar komt de datum je niet goed uit? Dan krijg je van ons na afloop de opnames per e-mail. Dus meld je direct aan en ontdek hoe je je SEO-strategie naar nieuwe hoogten kunt tillen!

####  

Allt du behöver veta om Google & onlineomdömen under 2020

On Demand Video - Hoe je meer resultaat uit Google haalt met online reviews

Hoe je meer resultaat uit Google haalt met online reviews

Hoe vergroot je de kans dat je wordt gevonden op product gerelateerde zoekopdrachten? Hoe proberen consumenten de betrouwbaarheid van je bedrijf via Google te verifiëren? Kun je meer uit je AdWords-campagnes halen, zonder het budget op te schroeven?

Kom erachter hoe je online reviews kunt gebruiken om je bedrijf meer te laten opvallen in Google, hoe Google precies met een reviewplatform als Trustpilot samenwerkt en hoe je de kracht van reviews kunt benutten om je customer journey op alle fronten te optimaliseren.

#### Bekijk deze webinar voor:

- De impact van reviews op zowel SEO als SEA prestaties;
- tips om je overall zoek prestaties te verbeteren;
- een heldere uitleg over Google Seller Ratings en Rich Snippets voor product reviews.

####

Win de klik: Hoe je meer resultaat uit Google haalt met online reviews

Reviews and SEO - a complete Trustpilot guide

In this Trustpilot webinar, we explain how to make sure any reviews you collect are contributing to SEO, how to measure the SEO benefit from your reviews, and how to best leverage them in your marketing.

The eternal pairing of reviews and SEO has always been the subject of scrutiny. 

Do reviews help SEO?

How do they help SEO?

Do all reviews help SEO?

Watch our webinar recording below, and learn:

- How to make sure any reviews you collect are contributing to SEO
- How to make the most of your reviews in your marketing
- How to get more reviews
- How to measure the SEO benefit from your reviews.


Reviews and SEO...

### About Trustpilot

Trustpilot is a leading online reviews platform. We're built on openness and collaboration. Our platform is open to all consumers and all companies, while we remain independent of both. Our mission is to become a universal symbol of trust, and we do this by tapping into people's desire to share experiences and make things better. For consumers, we're a place to share, discover, connect with and influence great businesses and awesome experiences. For companies, we're a platform of progress. A way to impress, improve and innovate by simply engaging and collaborating with consumers. All of this means Trustpilot is more than just a rating. The Trustpilot star signifies to the world that a company has nothing to hide, loves its customers and shares our mission to create ever improving experiences for everyone.

Here's some data that backs up how we are a leading online reviews platform. Firstly, our online reach is huge. We have over four billion impressions a month, so this means the Trustpilot brand is seen online over four billion times, and this doesn't even count the offline appearances. We're in the top 1% of most visited websites globally and we have over 18 million reviews to date. We add to this number by over two million reviews every month. For those that know the Alexa rank, by way of traffic, Trustpilot is ranked as the 393rd largest website in the world, which is not too bad going. That number is reducing day by day.

We've talked about Trustpilot's goal, to be a universal symbol of trust. This all revolves around our powerful customer feedback software, but how does this actually help businesses? Well, it brings together three key pieces. We help businesses get better. This means genuine consumers' feedback with insights to learn from and to improve with. It's the ability to see your business from your customer's eyes. By listening to this feedback and acting on it, you can improve, which leads to selling more. As the feedback comes in and your Trustpilot rating improves, you can show off to the world and get seen more too.

So let's move on to how we work with Google. 

### Trustpilot is a Google Review Partner

Trustpilot has a licensing agreement with Google, which makes us one of their review partners. This agreement means that [Google recognizes us as a trusted source of transparent, legitimate customer reviews](https://uk.business.trustpilot.com/reviews/get-seen-in-search/why-does-google-care-if-your-business-has-online-reviews-in-2019). These reviews are what Google uses within its search results to help consumers make informed, confident buying decisions. We'll talk about a few of the places online where Trustpilot reviews can be used by consumers.

So this partnership with Google enables businesses to achieve two key things when collecting reviews with us. The first one is Google seller ratings, and these are the stars on Google Ads campaigns that you've probably seen when you search online yourself. Product ratings in Google shopping, and these are the stars that appear next to specific products in Google shopping and on Google product ads. We'll go into more detail on each of these shortly.

Quick disclaimer, and it's important for anything Google-related, not just reviews. But obviously we have no control over Google and what happens and where things appear. As we've all experienced, the algorithm can be adjusted at any time. The recommendations we make are always in line with the best practice and guidelines set out by Google. So with that being said, let's move on to service reviews and take a bit of a closer look there.

### Service reviews and SEO

Service reviews appear on your business's profile page on Trustpilot and can also easily be placed on your website. Typically, these reviews will relate to the business and overall experience the customer has had, so they're not product specific. Other consumers can then read these reviews when considering whether or not to buy from you. So typically there'll be aware of what they want to buy, but they're still deciding on where to buy it from. Service reviews help consumers make a confident buying decision, especially if it's the first time they're buying from you. Any business can have a profile page on Trustpilot for free and start collecting feedback pretty much straight away. As you start gathering review content, it's super easy to then integrate this content throughout your customer's buying journey on your website. So it's a great way to tell your customer's stories and build confidence in others to buy from you.

### Acquiring Google Seller Ratings

Let's take a closer look at [Google seller ratings](https://uk.business.trustpilot.com/reviews/get-seen-in-search/why-wont-my-google-seller-ratings-show-up-and-4-other-gsr-questions). So firstly, to achieve Google seller ratings, there is some criteria that you need to hit as a business. So you need to achieve 100 verified reviews with an average star rating of three and a half stars or more. This would need to be within a 12 month period and it needs to be within each country that you advertise in. All of these reviews need to be service reviews. So typically once you've hit this criteria, within a few weeks, the Google seller ratings will appear on the relevant text ads. As you can see here, you'll probably recognize this from search results you've seen, it's the gold stars that appear within the paid ads on the Google search engine results page.

So when you do achieve seller ratings, the great thing is that your click through rate can improve by an average of up to 10%. So your ad becomes more relevant to the consumer who is considering buying and builds trust even before they've clicked through to your website. So imagine if this is combined with review content on the landing page, the likelihood to convert for your consumers can dramatically increase.

### Product reviews in search

Taking a closer look at product reviews now. They're slightly different to service reviews in that the consumer has the opportunity to review the specific product they've bought, instead of talking about the service and the experience itself from buying from you. So this content does not appear on the Trustpilot profile page. Instead, you can easily make it part of your product pages. By having product specific review content on your product pages, you're adding relevant content to each product page, helping consumers make a more confident buying decision. There are also some requirements to hit when it comes to product reviews. So you need to have at least three reviews per product. Across your product range, you need to have at least 50 reviews in total. This review content must be shared with Google regularly, which is something that's that's automatically done by collecting product reviews through Trustpilot.

Another great benefit of collecting product reviews is the ability to have these gold stars appearing in organic results. So these are part of review snippets, which is basically an enhanced line of text that you can see here, that can include stars like this, and it can include the number of reviews as well. So the great thing here is that when a customer does a product related search, it can really help your business stand out amongst the competition and help your consumer make a more confident buying decision from the results page even before they've clicked through to your site. So how powerful are product reviews really? Well, according to some research by Shopify, 79% of consumers trust a product review as much as a personal recommendation, which I think we can all relate to.

### Reviews and Google Shopping

[Google Shopping is another place where review content populates](https://uk.business.trustpilot.com/reviews/get-seen-in-search/what-the-new-google-shopping-updates-mean-for-reviews). This counts for both service reviews and product reviews are visible on Google shopping results. I'll show you a couple of examples shortly. So consumers searching in Google Shopping typically have an idea of what they're looking to buy. The reviews give them some extra direction and context to their decision-making all in one place. As we covered, the criteria for Google Shopping is actually very similar to the product review criteria in that you need to have at least 50 reviews across your product catalog and to have product reviews showing in Google Shopping you also need to have at least three product reviews per product.

### Review snippets

[Review Snippets are an additional line of information](https://uk.business.trustpilot.com/reviews/get-seen-in-search/google-rich-snippet-update-what-it-means-for-businesses) in organic results we had a look at a second ago. The great thing about our Trustpilot profile pages is the amount of authority we have in organic search results. So due to the sheer level of traffic we have, the amount of content we have by way of reviews, it means that all of those factors coming together enable our profile pages to rank very highly in organic search results. A great benefit of having us rank that highly means that your brand can be visible from a third party perspective as in your profile page, and each profile page can also have gold stars showing underneath them. So these are gold stars in organic results, and these stars relate to your service reviews, not your product reviews, so it's a great way to have gold star showing in search results for your brand that relate to your service reviews that you've collected. Those link directly through to your Trustpilot profile page, where customers can actually read some of that review content.

Organic results can be tricky to stand out in. Consumers are always looking for the most relevant results based on what they're looking for. The great thing about review snippets with product reviews is we do the heavy lifting in that they're super easy to integrate on your website and those gold stars can start showing pretty quickly. Then when it comes to review snippets on your profile pages, those are actually already set up when you sign up with us, so there's absolutely no development work or integration work for you to do on your side.

You can have review snippet to show in organic results for specific product pages, as we've mentioned. This is really useful for consumers who are doing product specific searches. Then the other place that we've just covered where you can get review snippets is on your Trustpilot profile page. So two really powerful places to have those gold stars appear for the products that you're selling and for your brand in particular.

### Why reviews in search can help you convert more

Did you know that review stars in search can improve your click through rate by up to 35%? Imagine the kind of impact that could have on product specific pages where you're showing review snippets, and also for allowing consumers to read service review content on your profile pages, by having the Trustpilot service review snippets visible there as well. It's a pretty impressive uptake in traffic.

The purchase likelihood for a product with five reviews is 270% greater than the purchase likelihood of a product with no reviews. Just bear in mind this isn't just about having five star reviews and having loads of them, this is just about collecting some product reviews. So just by starting to collect product reviews, and service reviews, even when you've collected a few, you're going to see the impact kicking in pretty quickly.

Let's have a quick look at social proof. So you've probably seen that there are a lot of brands using Trustpilot in their advertising now, and we do get asked quite often, why are so many companies doing this and does it really have an impact? Well, the short answer is yes, it does. We decided to do some social proof research ourselves and what we found was according to customers, the three most effective trust signals when making a purchase were positive star ratings and reviews, positive star ratings alone and positive customer testimonials. Those being the top three, you can see the importance that sits in having review content and ratings across your customer's buying journey and especially within social marketing as well.

Another stat for you here, 66% of customers said that the presence of social proof in particular, increased their likelihood to purchase a product. Here's an example of it in action. So Monzo tweeted this and you can see, it's just an image of their current rating, the number of reviews they have and their overall four and a half star rating. It's just a great way to, and a very simple way to showcase their Trustpilot star rating and how many reviews they have and for them to show that they're proud of what their rating is.

### To sum up...

It's important to make it easy for people to find your reviews. You can do that in multiple ways, through having review snippets displaying organic results, through collecting reviews to achieve Google seller ratings, as well as collecting reviews and having your profile page on Trustpilot to start with. 

If you were to acquire the Google seller rating stars, you can improve your AdWords performance as a really valuable byproduct. Ultimately, by having these star showing in both paid and organic results, you're going to get more traffic from Google, which obviously is going to be of value.

If you'd like to learn more about reviews and SEO, book a free demo and speak to one of our experts. It's quick and easy, just click the link below.

Reviews and Google: How do they work together?

Trustpilot in 2 minutes demo video

Whether you’re looking to improve sales conversions, catch the right eyes in search results, or better understand your customers, reviews can help get you there — and Trustpilot is a great place to start.

Whether you’re looking to improve sales conversions, catch the right eyes in search results, or better understand your customers, reviews can help get you there — and Trustpilot is a great place to start.

## What can Trustpilot do for you?

Trustpilot gives you a credible way to show the world that you love your customers, and they love you right back. 

Whether you’re a startup or a Fortune 500 company, you’ll get real customer feedback that helps you get seen, get sold, and get better.

Here’s how it works:

### Get reviews.

Our simple, one-time setup options can have your reviews rolling in in just minutes.

We’ve helped more than three hundred thousand companies get reviews from customers who would have otherwise stayed silent.

### Get sold.

Make all your [marketing more effective](https://business.trustpilot.com/reviews/build-trusted-brand/what-is-social-proof-and-why-is-it-important-for-marketing) by showcasing Trustpilot ratings and reviews.

Research shows that [87% of consumers](https://uk.business.trustpilot.com/reviews/why-87-of-consumers-find-ads-more-trustworthy-with-trustpilot) find ads with Trustpilot more trustworthy than the same ads without. 

Trustpilot enhances your own website, too. You can add widgets to your site in just a few clicks, and increase your [conversion rate up to 150%](https://business.trustpilot.com/customer-stories/ecommerce/id-wholesaler-leverages-customer-reviews-to-turn-more-browsers-into-buyers). 

### Get seen.

When trying to cut through all the noise online — reviews matter. 

Your Trustpilot profile is a neutral, 3rd party source of information that will quickly rank for key search terms.

Adding stars to your search listings can improve [click-through rates up to 35%](https://business.trustpilot.com/reviews/how-homebridge-establishes-customer-satisfaction-as-a-key-differentiator?utm_source=guru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=sales_outreach_case-studies).

And according to Google, stars on your paid ads improve [click-through rates by 10%](https://business.trustpilot.com/reviews/how-to-calculate-google-seller-ratings-effect-on-adwords) on average. 

Our social media sharing features put eye catching customer testimonials in your social streams with the click of a button.

### Get better.

Trustpilot helps you gain insights from the people who matter most — your customers. 

Our suite of powerful dashboards help you see your performance at a glance, and our AI-driven Insights engine identifies trends and patterns in your feedback, so you can create a better experience for all your customers.

See for yourself why Trustpilot is the world’s most powerful review platform. 

Claim your business profile page on Trustpilot and get started today for free.

Here's what Trustpilot reviews can do for you

Trustpilot in 2 Minutes demo video

Collecting customer reviews with Trustpilot

Why engaging in consumer conversations can help you build a trusted brand

In this webinar, we’ll take a deep dive into the importance of conversational intelligence, and why it could be the best way for your brand to stand out from the competition as we continue to move to a more customer-centric world.

If you'd like to discuss the importance of consumer conversations with one of our review experts, why not request a free Trustpilot demo? It's quick and easy, just click the link below.

How to engage in consumer conversations to build trust

Creating User Generated Content. What Gen Z Really Want.

Join Trustpilot, Miappi and Voxburner as we take a look at User-Generated Content and its relationship with Gen Z consumers.

In this webinar, you’ll learn:  

- What value UGC can bring to your brand
- UGC vs. original branded content - what does Gen Z trust the most?
- Which brands are doing it well, and which aren’t doing it as well?
- How you can improve your user-generated content?

Ready to get started? Create your free Trustpilot account today!

Creating user-generated content: what Gen Z really want

Bad Reviews Happen - how to respond

Reviews Happen - how to respond

In this Trustpilot webinar, we discuss the importance of responding to all reviews, good or bad. If you’d like to learn all the best practices, tips, and tricks for responding to reviews, watch the recording.

If you don’t have one, facing a barrage of customer feedback can be overwhelming. 
 
It doesn’t need to be. We simply have one main tip: respond to your negative reviews. Respond now. 

If you’d like to learn all the best practices, tips, and tricks for responding to bad reviews, watch our webinar recording below.

## Bad reviews: how to handle them and why they're better than you think

So firstly, an introduction to Trustpilot. Trustpilot is a leading online reviews platform. It was launched in Denmark in 2007 and launched in the UK and the US in 2013. In that time we've become the top 1% of most visited websites globally. We get over 4 billion brand impressions every month, and we currently sit in on 100 million customer reviews!

We aim to be a universal symbol of trust and for a trust symbol to be trusted, you should work for both companies and consumers and be independent of both. That's really important because our vision has always been to help companies and consumers, not one or the other. And that's what separates us from other review sites. They are about reviews as an eCommerce tool, we're about that too, but it's about trust and open collaboration that creates trust.

The three pillars of the business through our powerful customer feedback software are get seen, get better and get sold. That's our value proposition, and it's pretty simple. 

### Negative reviews happen

I think the first thing to say is essentially, I'm sure we all know this as either just being a consumer or working for different businesses that no business is perfect.

So naturally, by inviting people to leave feedback, you are going to get a few negative reviews in there, just by the very nature of being in business. But actually what you can see on here from these stats from the different research and studies that we've done, is that's not actually a bad thing. What consumers want in the UK in particular is they're looking for a real, authentic, good company that cares about their customers.

Most consumers now understand that it'll almost impossible for brands to have only five-star reviews. Being a real, authentic company, and just accepting that you are going to get few bad reviews in there, is the first step to success.

### How to handle negative feedback

Over a third of consumers expect a response to their bad reviews. If you think about it, you've asked them to leave a review, they've taken the time to do that. So the least you can do is respond to it.

When people leave feedback, they're not just having a rant online about their bad experience. They're leaving that door open, and want you to respond, engage, and start a dialogue with them. They're hoping you'll listen, help, and learn from it.

### What kind of response do people expect? 

64% of consumers would actually prefer to buy from a business that's responsive over one that just potentially seems superficially perfect. People want real responses. Everyone's human. They just want a real human on the other end of that business, responding to them and they just want you to be understanding, and helping. Consumers are actually three times more likely to buy from a company that has made a mistake if they responded to their review quickly, and tried to rectify their mistake.

So, if you think about your own business, what effect that could have on your bottom line? If more consumers are three times more likely to buy from you just because you're showing how much you care about their experiences by responding to all of their reviews, good or bad, you'll likely convert more, and get more repeat, loyal customers. 

You've got a few bad reviews, you've responded to them, in a real, honest, genuine way. That means 55% of people would actually shop with you again. 

And that's not it. One in four people would actually go out of their way and recommend the company if they took the time to fix the problem. So, even if the overall experience may not have been fantastic or seamless, just from being a real, genuine company that obviously cares about their customers, well, one in four would actually recommend the company. Isn't that fantastic?!

### Tips and tricks to respond to bad reviews

So, this just hits on more about the relationships with basically their consumers and companies or brands have now. And I think more and more, especially with obviously the rise of social media, 

- Consumers want the brand to be as human as possible. It's important that you're not just responding like it's an automated message, but taking the time to understand their issue and to them.
- Using their name and signing with yours is important too. 
- If you can personalize the message further, that's great.

Oasis Fashion is a great example of a brand which responds to every reviews. They just send their customers a very quick, very simple response, just thanking them for their great feedback, which is always great for the consumer to have. If they are to receive a negative review and they frame it up in a very professional, very swift, very effective manner. They do not engage in an argument with the consumer because from a new consumer's perspective, looking in, that's only going to come across as negative.

So, they front it up, they apologize and they offer to speak to the reviewer privately. And that's really important. And it's a really, really good example of how you can turn a negative into a positive and how you can learn from it from a business. And you can keep that customer.

### To sum up...

Just going to run through in summary now why it's important to keep your current customers happy for the lifetime value of these customers. So the four top tips, first things first, yes, you should respond to reviews. There's nothing worse than burying your head in the sand and expecting them to go away. It's crucial you respond to your reviews.

Your Trustpilot profile page is a valuable marketing asset for your brand. By responding to your reviews you can showcase excellent customer service, reward your customers for leaving back and encourage future interactions with your client base. So, positive, personal interactions with customers increase brand loyalty.

Secondly, online versus offline. So we recommend that you leave one response to every review, don't turn it into a chat thread. If you want to continue the conversation with the consumer, let them know you'll get in touch with them privately, or provide them with an email address or phone number to contact you.

Thirdly remain professional, keep it professional. I know it's really difficult if you've got a review that's completely bonkers, but if you lower yourself to using rude, hurt or offensive language, it's going to reflect really poorly on your brand. You should also avoid sharing too much personal information. Save that for the private correspondence.

Finally retain the relationship. So you view your response as an opportunity to acknowledge the reviewer and to save them as a customer. According to LinkedIn, it costs between four and 10 times more to acquire a new customer than it does to keep an existing one. So, strategically and financially it's best for your company to actively work on the upkeep of your existing customer relationships.

And by responding to reviews, warmly, and professionally, you could improve the buying experience. You can reaffirm your relationship with your customers and you can show the transparency of your brand. And that builds trust the Trustpilot way. 

If you'd like to learn more about Trustpilot reviews and how they can help you build trust with new customers, why not speak to one of our review experts? It's quick and easy, just click the link below.

Webinars en video's

Brand purpose and honesty in marketing – a candid discussion

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