Believe it or not, what you don’t know can hurt you!

Especially when it comes to online customer reviews and business reputation.

Not having a solid reputation marketing strategy is one of the biggest mistakes business owners and marketing managers make today.

And no, I am NOT talking about reputation management.

What I am talking about in this episode of #AskArkLady is how customer reviews and testimonials are now an essential part of organic ranking.

Known as ranking factors, they impact how you show up in organic search (non-paid search) AND on whether or not you convert those online consumers into customers.

What is the impact on your bottom line from this?

Two studies indicate that just a 1/2 star review increase equates to as low as 9 percent in low tech areas and 19 percent in tech centric areas–meaning more urban.

Consumer are going to mobile and search in local areas to do business–so the conversions are FAST.

They tend to call or show up in short amounts of times–so if you are not found OR don’t have as good of ratings when compared to similar businesses–you’ll LOSE new business.

Go check it out, do a search–you are going to see star ratings in not only organic but also in paid results.

You’ll also notice reviews are now getting syndicated all around the web–good if you have a 5 Star Story but a nightmare if you don’t.

Now if you haven’t been utilizing customer reviews, I’d like to know why.

If you have, I’d like to know if you have more then ten on each essential platform–because that is what it takes to convince and convert someone.

Don’t know what I am talking about? Get on my email list and jump into the next customer review challenge when we activate it.

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