Local consumer review report now available

The "Local Consumer Review Survey 2022" has been released by BrightLocal.com, a company that specializes in local SEO strategies.

In the introduction, the report says, "Every year, the 'Local Consumer Review Survey' explores the ways in which consumers use online reviews to choose, trust, and understand businesses offering services in their local area.

"Since its inception in 2010, the report has aimed to help local businesses, consumers, and marketers understand the impact customer reviews can have on consumers, and see which trends change each year.

"While 2020’s survey saw a big focus on how COVID impacted consumer behavior towards reading and writing reviews, this time we’ve asked more questions around fake reviews. This is to see if the reputation of the main review sites is as clean as they’d like to think it is."

If you'd like to see the full report, here is the link.

Here are some of the highlights from the report:

• More consumers are reading online reviews than ever before. In 2021, 77% 'always' or 'regularly' read them when browsing for local businesses (up from 60% in 2020).
• 67% will consider leaving a review for a positive experience, while 40% will consider leaving a review for a negative experience.
• 89% of consumers are 'highly' or 'fairly' likely to use a business that responds to all of its online reviews.
• 57% say they would be 'not very' or 'not at all' likely to use a business that doesn't respond to reviews at all.
• More consumers use Google to evaluate local businesses than ever before. In 2021, 81% did, but the year before that, just 63% did.
• The top sources of fake reviews, according to consumers: 1) Amazon; 2) Google; 3) Facebook.
• Only 7% of consumers say they're 'not at all' suspicious of reviews on Facebook.