In today’s face paced digital world, a business online presence is key to its growth and development but even more important is the online customer Reviews a business gets. A business online reputation is not what a business can create on its own but what a lot factors such as positive or negative reviews determine online customer reviews emphasize the various aspects of a small business, including products, customer support and so on.
Since 2004 when it was founded Yelp, has grown to be a leading global force in local commerce, with over a hundred and eighty six million people globally taking advantage of this site on different devices to publish around 150 million business reviews monthly and this figure is expected to grow over the years. At present, Yelp is a multibillion-dollar business engineered on digital communication between buyers and local businesses.
Yelp’s growth hasn’t come without the many controversies associated businesses of its kind, some are of the opinion that it’s unreasonable to put small businesses’ reputations on online. But the fact is Yelp didn’t initially build the platform that made it possible for daily online surfers to come up with content and share it with other business prospects. What Yelp simply did was that it took advantage of the changes in consumer behavior and established the perfect marketing channel in recent history for local companies.
Now, lots of other consumer review sites have joined yelp in this worthy task of helping shoppers find great businesses in their neighborhood. As long as they are managed properly, these websites are a plus to small businesses.
These days it appears that the major thing businesses must do to draw new customers is to consistently manage their online review scores on websites like Yelp and TripAdvisor as modern technology has moved the traditional small business storefront to the online space. Small business owners must never forget that reputation management is central to the success of their businesses.
Mobile Is Getting Local
Small business owner must be aware that accessibility to real-time information these days has reached an unprecedented height. Online usage globally has more than doubled over the past few years in the U.S. alone internet users have risen to 300 million since 2001 and smartphone penetration has risen to over 69%. This rapid internet penetration has transformed almost everything and has become a game changer for small businesses.
This has also resulted in huge changes in consumer behavior. Roughly 90% of international sales still take place in brick and mortar stores, but 97% of consumers make use of the internet to find nearby stores and most people make use of their smartphones to carry out the search.
Foot traffic to businesses is consistently on the decline during the past few years; however, the worth of each visit has tripled. For small businesses, this clearly suggests that the iconic physical storefront is gradually substituted by digital ones. People are employing the internet to determine where they desire to spend money before they go there, and their visits are even more influenced by genuine buying intention.
