Company reviews are one of the most powerful tools in your marketing stack. Real customer feedback builds credibility, supports decision-making, and drives growth - especially when it’s visible across key touchpoints.
In this guide, we’ll break down:
And so much more!
Let’s start with the basics.
A review is a critical appraisal of a product or business based on real customer experience. It typically includes:
There are two main types - company and product reviews.
A company review assesses the overall business, covering aspects like customer service, shipping, and order experience. These often appear as:
Service-based and DTC brands benefit most from high-quality company reviews, especially when they're displayed in search results or ad extensions. They help shape brand trust at a glance.
A product review is a critique of an individual item or set of items, and is seller-agnostic. Elements included in product reviews may include price, size, fit, description, ease of use, quality, longevity or suitability. These are typically left after a customer has had time to use the product.
Product reviews might be shown in Google Shopping adverts, on a company’s individual product page, or as a Rich Snippet in Google’s organic search results.
They’re especially powerful for increasing conversions at the point of purchase.
Now we’ve got the basics of what a review is, the types of reviews available and where reviews are shown, let’s move on to the importance of collecting reviews.
The importance of Reviews cannot be overstated. They are the single most important informational resource in the eyes of consumers when deciding to make a purchase online.
In a REVIEWS.io survey, over 83% of consumers stated that the presence of reviews is the critical influencer in their decision making process. Over two-thirds of consumers trust online reviews over the opinions of family or friends.
They offer a snapshot of overall customer satisfaction - highlighting service quality, expertise, and brand advocacy. Featuring review scores on your website reinforces trust and helps convert visitors into buyers.
Today’s customers do their homework. Whether focused on price, quality, or use case, they want reassurance from real experiences. Showcasing reviews directly on product pages helps answer last-minute questions, giving potential customers the confidence to complete their purchase.
Company reviews appear everywhere online. Businesses are reviewed on Google, Facebook, Amazon, eBay, Triadvisor and third-party independent review platforms such as REVIEWS.io every day.
Over time, these reviews are added to an ever-growing pile of user-generated content, which starts to improve rankings in search engines. The chances of a customer stumbling upon or actively seeking a review on your business from any number of these sources are therefore very likely.
The impact of a surge in positive reviews online, and a steady stream thereafter, on your online reputation is critical. A flow of positive reviews will soon increase your overall review score on each of the platforms listed above, and in turn, improve your online reputation.
Reputation is a difficult concept to quantify, but an aggregated review score from a range of sources is as good a place as any to start. Collecting reviews can quickly improve your overall online reputation by diluting any negative feedback which may exist across a range of review platforms.
The more reviews you collect across a wide range of platforms, the better your online reputation will be.
Reviews don’t just live on your website - they’re spread across the internet. Platforms like Amazon and Facebook host valuable feedback that influences buyer decisions and impacts your visibility in search results.
For example, Facebook reviews appear directly on your business page and are pulled into Google search listings. Amazon, meanwhile, prioritizes individual product reviews in organic results, which helps consumers evaluate identical items from different sellers.
Managing all this feedback can be complex - but that’s where REVIEWS.io’s Reputation Manager comes in. It gives you a single dashboard to monitor and control reviews across platforms, helping you maintain a consistent online reputation.
Collecting and managing reviews in the right places doesn’t just build trust - it boosts your visibility, enhances your listings, and strengthens your brand’s credibility.
When consumers browse for products and services online, everything starts with search.
Whether a shopper is looking for a product or a service, you can be sure that they’ll find reviews about a wide range of companies online in their research. Consumers will be heavily influenced by the presence or absence of reviews.
Some reviews will be easy to spot, some will be harder to find. Google offers a way for your organic and paid search results to stand out by displaying Seller Ratings (company reviews) next to and below your results in the SERPS.
What this means for you is that if you collect Company reviews and become eligible for seller ratings you are far more likely to have your PPC ad clicked on. In fact, your click-through-rates can increase by 17% by displaying Seller Ratings. This leads to higher Ads scores, lower cost-per-click and increased conversions.
To quote from Google:-
"Seller ratings are an automated extension type that showcases advertisers with high ratings. Google gathers seller ratings from reputable sources that aggregate Company reviews. Showing below text ads, seller ratings help people searching on Google to find businesses that offer quality service. Seller ratings can help advertisers improve ad performance and earn more qualified leads."
In essence, Google collects reviews from across the web and aggregates them into a score out of 5. If your business fulfills the criteria outlined by Google it will in most cases display this star rating across its search results.
Stars can appear in organic results (as Rich Snippets) and underneath Ads Search adverts.
There are two steps to getting Seller Ratings to appear in Google. Firstly, you need to implement a review collection strategy. Secondly, you’ll need to send your reviews to Google in the form of a Merchant Review Feed.
The Merchant feed is a file uploaded to Google on a regular basis. It works in a similar way to a Google Shopping feed, and it contains details such as the username, the time and date of the review, the title, content and review ratings, and additional fields such as pros and cons of the product or service.
REVIEWS.io automatically generates this file for you from the reviews you have collected and sends it to Google regularly, so you don’t need to get bogged down in technical details.
Google will display stars below your paid PPC Ads ads once you have collected a minimum of 100 reviews at an average rating of 3.5 stars and above.
To quote from Google:-
“Product Ratings show star ratings on both Shopping ads and the Google Shopping property. These ratings help shoppers with their purchase decisions, driving more qualified shoppers to your product pages.“
Product ratings differ from Seller ratings in that they illustrate the aggregated review score of an individual product. Product ratings will appear on Google Shopping PLA search results. They may also appear in organic results as a rich snippet against an individual retailer’s product listing page.
The presence of stars in search results will make your brand more appealing, gathering more clicks from online shoppers. Stars make your business stand out and offer your potential customers a quick and simple way to see overall trust levels in your brand.
Stars will appear under your PPC ads, both in the form of Ads (for text ads) and Google Shopping (for product listing ads).
Text ads will display your overall Seller Ratings.
Organic Rich Snippets may show either a company rating or a product rating, depending on the content of the page.
Google Shopping ads can display a combination of Product and Seller Ratings, depending on the listing format - for example, whether it appears as a compact or detailed listing.
For a comprehensive overview of where reviews can appear across Google surfaces, refer to our Ultimate Guide to Google Reviews.
It’s a fact that your customers aren’t always going to take your word for how wonderful you are.
Only 9% of shoppers buy based on brand alone, so you can be sure they’ll be looking for third-party sources of information about your company before deciding to buy.
While “trust” is an arbitrary concept, it is possible to measure it by using an aggregated score of all your reviews. Couple this with your Net Promoter Score and you’ll have a good indication of how your customers feel about you.
New customers are going to want to see elements of this on your site, so adding widgets and a Trust Badge (displaying your overall Review score) is the best way to quickly show that your brand consistently gets good reviews.
All brands will get negative reviews from time to time, it’s a fact of life. How you respond to these reviews is just as important as getting good reviews.
REVIEWS.io offers all companies the opportunity to respond to customer reviews, which will be publicly visible. Solving and responding to customer problems is the best way to show prospective customers that you are approachable in cases where things go wrong.
To make this process easier, you can use AI-powered replies to craft thoughtful, consistent responses at scale - saving time while maintaining a human touch.
Your responses to reviews will be visible on your public reviews page. Engaging with your customers in these ways is a proven way to increase trust in your brand.
Company reviews lead to an increase in click through rates, but this is only the first step in increasing sales.
Once the user lands on your website (usually your product page in the case of an eCommerce site), they’ll be looking for information in order to make an informed choice.
There are many eCommerce sites out there that sell the same products, and in the vast majority of cases the information supplied is fairly standard and taken directly from the manufacturer. If the seller isn’t the manufacturer, they can help their customer by providing more information than is available on other sites.
This information is usually in the form of user generated content such as reviews. Reading reviews is a great way for consumers to check if the product matches up to their requirements. Having other users of the product give an account of its suitability is worth more than just the manufacturer’s specifications alone.
To make the review process even more impactful (and less overwhelming), our AI Review Summary condenses key feedback into a quick, digestible overview - tailored to your categories. No more digging through dozens of reviews. Customers see what matters most, faster. The result? Increased confidence and faster conversions.
Each step of the buying process, from search, to click, to landing page, to checkout, represents another reason for a customer to leave, unless they find exactly what they want at the correct time. Displaying consumer reviews on product pages could be enough to give your customers the information they require to make a purchase.
Read this blog post about 4 ways reviews influence the customer journey for more information.
Company reviews are very important to your overall marketing mix, and produce measurable changes in traffic, quality, conversions and sales once a company reviews collection strategy is implemented. Keeping an eye on your overall review reputation, not just in Google but across third party sites like Facebook, Tripadvisor, Amazon, Yelp, Houzz and more, is important.
With REVIEWS.io, you can collect authentic reviews from your customers which we will feed into Google. These will give you eligibility for Google Seller Ratings and stars in search results.
REVIEWS.io also allows you to direct a percentage of your review invitation emails to third party sites, allowing your customer to write reviews for your business across a wide range of places.
Book a demo today to discover the benefits REVIEWS.io for your business growth
