What should a review page that really sells look like? Check out this overview based on data from a study of 1.5 million products from 1,200 brands.
Reviews play a key role in purchasing decisions
Almost every customer now thoroughly "researches" a product online before buying it - 77% of them specifically look for review sites. And it's not just about a quick glance at the stars, 68% of them want to read the full text of the review, 97% are also concerned with its age and 99% expect to find at least a few dozen reviews.
But it's not enough just to add reviews to the site. It also depends on how they 're organized, what filtering options visitors have, what they're ranked by, and overall how clear and trustworthy the site is.
In this article, we'll look at how to properly build a review page that's not just a collection of opinions, but a real conversion tool.
The mere presence of reviews on the product page increases conversions
The mere presence of reviews on a product page can increase conversion rates - by an average of 4%. They make customers perceive the brand as more trustworthy, give them the reassurance they need and often make them decide to at least explore the product more.
But the real breakthrough comes when the reviews get the visitor to interact in some form. According to current data, such a moment can bring up to a 102% increase in conversion.
What is actually meant by interaction? For example, it could be:
- vote on whether the review was useful,
- using the review search,
- view photos and videos from other customers in the gallery,
- or, for example, a comparison of positive and negative experiences using the so-called "duel of opinions".
Each of these elements works a little differently, but they all have one thing in common: they increase trust, increase engagement - and therefore increase the likelihood of purchase.
At first glance, Nike will only give you information about the number of ratings and the average number of stars. An arrow on the bottom right then encourages interaction, which sells...
Source : https://www.nike.com/cz/en/t/air-force-1-07-shoes-CFVMS0/CW2288-111
After interacting with the tab, you will see several reviews, the number of stars and two other interactive links - one is a CTA encouraging you to write a review, the other takes you to a page dedicated to reviews only.
Source : https://www.nike.com/cz/en/t/air-force-1-07-shoes-CFVMS0/CW2288-111
Voting on reviews increases conversions by several hundred percent
Not every review is of equal value. Some are clearer, have photos, answer common questions or mention specific situations. And those are the ones that deserve to be seen more than others. But how do you recognize them? The easiest solution is to engage site visitors - and let them vote.
You can find the classic thumbs up and down on almost every review page nowadays. And in terms of conversions, they are literally priceless - if a review gets a positive rating, it can lead to a400% increase in conversions, and even with a negative rating, the effect is noticeable - up to 270% increase.
If you're wondering why, it's important to remember that customers don't rate you, they rate the opinion of others - if a customer gets annoyed, it doesn't mean they won't buy the product.
Here's a great example of what voting for reviews can look like. The "Flag" button allows clients to easily report texts that look fake or contain offensive content.
Source : https://www.nike.com/cz/en/t/air-force-1-07-shoes-CFVMS0/CW2288-111
Review finder not to be missed
While most visitors require at least a hundred text reviews to make a decision, no one will read them all. Going through them manually looking for specific information is tedious and often discouraging.
Is the product effective on a certain type of stain? What is the noise level of the vacuum cleaner? And what about the shade of the paint in daylight? Just add a search and the answer can be found in seconds. Unsurprisingly, even this simple element delivers approximately 270% conversion lift.
In addition, search queries serve as a valuable source of data. What is the customer most interested in about the product? And what words do they use in their search? It is worthwhile to continue to work with this content and to continuously add more frequent search phrases to the descriptions or FAQs.
CTA in the footer
Even the most persistent reader will get to the bottom of the page at some point. And that's when you need to follow up well - subtly but effectively. There are several possibilities:
- Back to top button delivers up to 178% increase in conversions
- The "back" link helps with pagination and provides a 162% conversion lift
- The "next" button on a multi-page listing adds almost 100% increase
Even such small interaction elements can sell. Thanks to them, the reader can quickly find his way around the texts, check their quantity in a moment, and then nothing prevents him from buying.
Duel best vs worst reviews
This element will satisfy your customers on two fronts - they'll find out what you excel at and what you're not good at yet. Don't show the whole review, just a snippet. This is because your goal is to elicit customer interaction with the "view more" button. If they click like this on a positive review, it will be reflected in a roughly 130% conversion lift.
The effect is very high (118%) even when reading the negative review. This is because with negative reviews, customers are exploring whether they can live with a possible shortcoming, and since the answer will often be positive, the criticism may ironically lead them to buy.
Filter reviews and product tags
As we wrote above, even if buyers need a large volume of texts, it is not humanly possible to read them all. Manual searching will unnecessarily exhaust them and discourage them from buying. Therefore, other interactive elements that are worth deploying on a review page are word/star filters and product tags.
- Thanks to the filter, the customer can find the kind of texts that interest him with two clicks. The highest conversion lift comes from the top-rated (181%), youngest (171%) and oldest (134%) categories, which aptly reflects shoppers' concern to read recent texts. Conversion lift in the tens of percentages is then also offered by interactions with the most helpful, worst rated and image categories.
- A simple filter based on the number of stars can also bring about a quick change, resulting in almost 90% more conversions.
- In addition to the filters, there are product tags. These are product-relevant labels such as "comfortable", "work" or "durable". When a shopper clicks on the tag, they'll see all the reviews that have something to say about that attribute, increasing the brand's chances of getting a near 100% conversion lift.
Visuals play a key role in review marketing
One picture or video can often say more than a thousand words. Branded content is great, but it's usually shot under artificial light, in a studio or in a staged environment. It often lacks a point of view that would be really useful to the buyer. The photos and videos in the reviews neatly solve this problem.
The customer takes pictures of the product at home, in a real environment, in normal use. The result looks credible, authentic - and most importantly, it helps others to make decisions. Not surprisingly, visual content in reviews is targeted by more than three-quarters of users, and for strong brands, it makes up to a quarter of all links displayed by search engines.
What to take away from this?
Even though online shopping is commonplace, there will always be a small element of mistrust caused by not being able to try a product for the first time. Quality reviews can overcome this shortcoming in e-commerce. People trust reviews like advice from a friend, and it's no wonder that quality social proof affects conversions.
And what should definitely not be missing on the review page? Well, the reviews themselves. They're not easy to get, but that's exactly what we can help you with.
At Brand Testing Club, we connect brands with real users who test your products and share their experiences through reviews, photos, videos or social media posts. We take care of the entire process - from the selection of testers to the final output that you can use in your marketing.
Interested in more? Book a free consultation!
