About 35 percent of the world’s population uses the internet. It may not seem like a high percentage, but when one considers that only 14 percent of the world’s population are classed as living in ‘highly developed countries’ (according to the Human Development Index) it’s quite a lot, really. Put into figures, it’s over two billion people worldwide; twenty-four million of whom are online Downunder.
Stand Out and Be Credible: Rate Yourself
If you’re online as a business that sells goods or services over the internet, or just to show that you exist (read: The internet as a marketing tool), make yourself stand out; establish yourself as an authority in your field: use a ratings system, like Google Ratings or Bizrate Insights.
Google Rating stars are ratings that appear on your website and are shown in Google search results. There are plenty of plugins for WordPress and other platforms that will add widgets to your posts so people can rate them, generally on a scale of one-to-five stars.
Of course, a person liking your blog post and clicking on a star to reflect that is one thing; if you’re a business selling merchandise online, you want ratings that are trusted and quantifiable. You want your customers to know that the ratings on your website are from actual customers, not just your mum, dad, aunt, uncle and anyone else you can rally together to rate your services favourably.
Bizrate Insights are derived from actual online transactions, real customers that have dealt with you, reviewing your business. But more than that, Bizrate also collects quantifiable data so you can improve your business, a sort of Nielsen Ratings for online businesses, large and small.
And with every favorable, quantifiable rating and review, the more chance that business has of increasing its click through rate (CTR), ultimately helping to ramp up revenue and profits, too.
A Bit About Bizrate…
Part of the Shopzilla stable, Bizrate Insights began in 1996 as an 80-page business school assignment by founder and then-MBA student Farhad Mohit; ironically, it got a marked unfavourably with a D. Nevertheless, Bizrate was eventually (and officially) launched in 1998 and has since become the trusted online customer rating system for thousands of companies, including Dell and Ticketmaster.
Mohit, though aware he was onto a good thing, needed to make some changes, improvements — like all start-ups. With Google Ratings or Bizrate Insights, you’re also opening yourself up to the kind of valuable feedback needed to make your business a success.
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Don’t hide your business on the internet; show it to the world and show the world what you do best. In doing so, you’ll not only increase your chances of a click through from a Google search, but you’re also increasing the chances of growing your profits and revenue. Find out how other business owners and entrepreneurs have vastly increased their profitability online and how you can do the same as part of our Small Business Management Course.
