We live in the digital world where almost anything can be purchased online, and we have more choice in products and services than could have been imagined in the past. From grocery shopping to gaming, there are so many transactions to be made but not all websites offer the same level of experience. If you haven’t used a website before then you cannot be certain what the quality of their products or services are or how efficient their customer service team is. This is where review and comparison sites come in, they enable us to share our experiences with other consumers and get trustworthy feedback about a website. Whether positive or negative, a review can tell you a lot of useful information and help you to make an informed decision about whether to make a purchase.
Review sites are critical in competitive industries
You can find review sites relevant to almost every industry, however they are particularly important in industries that are very competitive. The online casino gaming industry is a good experience of this. There are now thousands of online casinos to choose from offering similar games and experiences for players.
Online reviews for these casinos, such as this 888 casino review, outline what the website has to offer, how user friendly it is and any special promotions and bonus offers that they might be running. A casino review might also spell out important information such as the different types of payment methods that the website accepts, as well as the security and reliability of the site and how good their customer support response times are. Also a casino may have both an in-browser and an app version so a review might evaluate and compare both of these.
Another competitive industry is of course retail, with hundreds upon thousands of online retail businesses now on the net. Reviews of these may discuss the price of products, their quality and their delivery timescales. Service based businesses are also competitive. You might want to check out the reviews of a food delivery outlet before placing your order. Or, you might be booking a holiday online and want to ensure the travel agent is reliable and helpful if you need their assistance while abroad.
There are lots of review websites out there and some are better than others. Here are a few ways you can ensure a review website is up to scratch:
Having lots of user friendly content
Reviews contain lots of information and can take a while to read and process, therefore it is extremely helpful to the user if the site uses layouts that are user friendly and easy to follow. User friendly content can include items such as product comparison charts, and a user should expect to see user generated content from ratings and written reviews.
Visual content such as high quality photographs, videos and screenshots where relevant should be highly encouraged as these can help to break up text heavy content. Text can also be broken down with the use of headings, subheadings and bullet points with concise information.
Accessibility is an important consideration, and websites should be created in a way that enables screen reading software to process them for those with limited sight. For example, all images should be labelled with alt tags.
It is essential that reviews are unbiased
The quality and reliability of reviews is very important on review sites, as the user must be able to trust the content. To ensure that all reviews posted are completely unbiased, the website must confirm the identities of its reviews to ensure they are genuine customers that have used the product or service in question.
Also, the reviewer must give an honest account of their experience, even if they are being incentivised by the website to post their review. The incentive should not be dependent on them just only positive feedback about their experience for instance. If all reviews about a particular site are positive, it can make the reader question whether they are truly unbiased.
Reviews should be as detailed as possible
Lastly, a review should be very comprehensive and describe the experience the user has had from start to finish. This might include details such as browsing the website, creating an account, speaking to customer support or placing an order, if relevant.
All those added details such as the date they used the site, screenshots of the parts they accessed and even video feedback are all helpful to a consumer. However, it is also important that no sensitive personal details are shared in order to protect the reviewer’s identity, such as their address or financial information. They may choose to share some information, such as their name, approximate location and a profile image if they like to help add credibility.
