Social proof is ever so important for e-commerce retailers, as a “feel-good” barrier stands tall between your site and the folks at the other end of the keyboard. Your offer may look tempting and you may have designed your site perfectly well, with a logical progression, your calls to action and your friendly checkout process. First-time buyers still face an urge to find out a little more, so that they feel they are doing the right thing and discover if others have found success. Incorporating testimonials and reviews within your site makes a great deal of sense.

You should try and incorporate a system to help gather and promote reviews on your site. Don’t make this haphazard or trust that people will just do it, as with the best will in the world, everyone is time strapped these days and it’ll just slip their mind. Consider these six steps to help you set up a system to gather reviews automatically.

1. Once you have committed to sending e-mails to buyers, you need to set up your autoresponder system to send out a mail asking for a review within a certain timeframe. There are a number of different ideas here but we recommend between five and 10 days after purchase. You obviously need to give a little bit of time for them to enjoy and to form an opinion about your product or service, but don’t leave it too long in case they forget.

2. Try and give the recipient an incentive of some kind in return for their response. It always helps to prompt them, so that they will spend their time filling out the details and you could consider a discount against a future purchase or entrance into a draw for an object of value. You never know, if you include the discount against a future purchase, they may even use this incentive right away and put additional money into your coffers right there and then.

3. It is very important to be crystal clear about the purpose of your e-mail. Always include the keyword “review” in your subject line and maybe mention the incentive as well. Unless you are clear here, the mail will be seen as just another promotional piece and may be discarded.

4. Don’t assume too much. In other words remind the mail recipient that they purchased product or service “X” from you, including a graphic or photographs relating to the item to jog their memory. You may be quite clear about the purpose of the e-mail, but don’t leave any questions in their minds, as your goal is to get a good conversion rate here. Have a clear call to action with a prominent link to the review landing page.

5. Landing pages should be self explanatory, not require them to jump through too many hoops and be simple to interact with. Do not put any obstacles in their path by keeping the number of boxes to check or to fill in as low as possible.

6. Consider what you would like your reviewers to say. If you want more detailed feedback, referring to particular facets of your service or features of your product, then you could prompt accordingly. Remember that you do not want to make this process too cumbersome or time-consuming and try not to make any assumptions here, either.

Do not underestimate the power of reviews. Consider including some elements of constructive criticism within your published reviews, as this adds an element of realism that your prospective buyers may well appreciate.

Do you respond to requests for reviews?

Matthew Toren

Many people are being lured to the world of Internet marketing as our new age unfolds before us. People are now becoming multidimensional and looking for multiple streams of income, once only touted by those late-night infomercial gurus. But is there room for everybody in the Internet world? Will this process of jumping on the Internet bandwagon lead to oversaturation and the headlong rush into something else? Of course this is highly unlikely if not impossible as we see the growth of the Internet and the explosion of social media platforms, only seeking to solidify the online experience for thousands of people, who are discovering the phenomenon on a daily basis.

The question still remains in many minds however – how is it possible to make money through Internet marketing? The short answer is that you should select a product or service as something of a compromise, bearing in mind that you should ideally be passionate about what you do but also be fully aware that there is a market out there to enable you to sell whatever that product or service should be.

Experts, such as Matt Cutts of Google, advocate that you should always be passionate about your Internet endeavors. This will enable you to keep at it, maintaining enthusiasm for those daily blog posts or those regular site updates, the creative content provision necessary to ensure that your presence is relevant and welcomed. It is reasonably argued that without an element of passion for your work, you may not be able to maintain it over the long term or worse still, the lack of passion will come across in your creativity.

Coupled with this passion for what you do, the Internet entrepreneur must ensure that there is an adequate market for his or her wares. It is true to say that we are all passionate about something and most of us have more than just a passing interest in many different spheres. Does this translate into a good business plan? This is where adequate research comes in prior to launching a project and the selection of expertly targeted keywords to ensure that your research provides you with information which is totally relevant to your concept. If you can see that large numbers of people are often searching for information on your subject and that the market is not overly saturated by other individuals or companies, then you are off to the races.

There are many ways of earning money online, through e-commerce, affiliate marketing, service provision, various advertising platforms. Whichever approach you choose, create value or you’ll never earn the income you desire. For instance, it is no good creating a website around a keyword with the sole intention of driving people immediately away from that website to a revenue earning alternate. This approach is sometimes known as “made for Adsense,” as these webpages are composed of nothing but adverts provided by the Google advertising company. There’s nothing of value on the pages and the visitor has little choice but to click one of the ads to move forward. When the click is made, the site owner earns a commission.

There is no longevity in “made for Adsense” sites and they are not recommended. Whatever your niche, make sure that you create your own value. As long as you have something different to say you have a good chance and will, over time, build your presence, creating your role as niche expert and making long-term money through having supplied something of value.

Have you found your niche?

Matthew Toren