The digital marketplace has become really crowded over the last decade, and things will just get worse in the coming days. It is already nearly impossible to do anything that stands out from that crowd if you have a tight budget. There are more than 1.5 million apps in the Google Play Store and over 1 million in the Apple Play Store, so it is hard to be visible with your product. Above others, ratings and reviews can help the most: Review volume is a key metric when we talk about discoverability.
How do reviews help decision-making?
Nowadays, people use their social network not only to keep in touch with friends, family members, and colleagues but also to get recommendations about nearly everything they use or buy online. Whenever you write a review or give a rating about something, it helps others in their decisions.
When Apple changed the algorithm of the App Store search four years ago, reviews and ratings became more significant in ranking the applications. While neither of the two tech giants have revealed specifics about how they come up with rankings, we can say that the general list goes something like this:
- Quantity of reviews and ratings (The more the better)
- Quality of reviews and ratings (The higher the better)
- Number of downloads (It shows the actual use)
- Engagements (Amount of time people spend using the app or service)
- Uninstalls (Number of customers who weren’t satisfied)
- Growth (The change in the number of downloads over time)
- SEO of the landing page (Keyword density)
How important is the quantity of reviews?
As we mentioned earlier, there is a great possibility that the quantity of reviews is crucial in the ranking system. And it is also the same case for customers. When people see an app with three 5-star ratings with great reviews next to one with hundreds of 3, 4, and 5-star ratings with various reviews, they tend to choose the latter because they know that every product owner can ask three friends to give them great ratings and reviews.
Having just one more review than others makes a difference, but imagine having even more on your site. Also, it might not seem like much, but outranking your competitor even by a single rank can make all the difference.
How does review volume and ratings correlate with number of orders?
According to latest analysis, the volume of reviews, even with an average rating, is a significant factor in online conversion. The increase of review volume and ratings can have positive results on the sales of products and applications. The analysis also showed that the volume of reviews tends to impact more in the early stages of volume growth.
Summary
All in all, we can conclude that the importance of review volume is one of the top factors when we talk about conversions and number of sales. It must be a priority for every product owner and retailer to have as many reviews and ratings on their sites as possible. Plenty of best practices can be found all over the Internet that help you to gain as many consumer reviews as you can.
