How To Discover And Manage Online Reviews For Your Jewelry Store

The internet has revolutionized consumer behavior in several ways, such as many people now research products online before they make purchasing decisions. Part of the reason for this paradigm change is expensive gas prices have forced people to find alternatives to driving around from store to store, so that they can preserve their cash for items they want. Another reason is that it's easy to research choices when it's at your fingertips on desktops and mobile devices. Research shows that people prefer to research different stores and products before making the trip. Therefore, you need to manage online reviews to protect your reputation.

How Reviews Affect Sales

Reviews are what now drive online sales, even more than advertising. According to digital marketing research from Vendasta, 92% of  consumers use online reviews to help with their shopping. Furthermore, 68% of respondents trust local businesses more after reading positive reviews. While this is valuable information that can help your sales, the flip side is that negative reviews can hurt your business and cause customers to quickly click over to competing websites. That's why it's critical for you to manage online reviews.

Managing Your Online Reputation

One of the most important ways to manage online reviews is to offer and publish them on your website. Put them in a place that's easy to find from your home page. Publishing reviews can help your search rankings since search engines favor them, which is another reason for you to manage online reviews. Interactive blogs particularly play a key role in boosting search rankings.

While you ideally want as many positive reviews as possible, you also want to guard against all glowing reviews, which may cause many people to become skeptical of their authenticity. So don't be afraid of occasional negative comments, but definitely remove comments if they are overtly unfair or offensive to your community. Our blog article on How to Handle a Bad Review on Yelp gives some advice. Video testimonials of your customers can help your cause a lot, as well as these strategies for you to manage online reviews:

• encourage reviews on your site and review sites such as Facebook and Google
• Google search your company name + "reviews" to find out what comes up
• Ask GemFind about our Reviews/Ratings tracking tool
• use reputation management tools to find out what people are saying about you on social media
• respond positively to negative message

Conclusion

Staying on top of what people are saying about your jewelry website is an essential part of success. Let GemFind give you a free consultation about improving your interactivity and engagement with customers so that they will spread positive feedback about your business.