For whom is this blog:
For founders and managers in software development companies with teams from 3 to 30 people
For service companies that start their marketing
You will find here:
What are rate & review platforms?
Why you should care about rate & review platforms?
Data showing why you should care about rate & review platforms.
Let's start ...
Think about it – who do you think customers trust the most when making a purchase decision; you (the seller) or another customer who bought and used your software or service?
Well, the answer is obvious.
It is the same with you when purchasing software online – you will first want to check out what others are saying about it. You don’t just key in your billing details blindly, do you?
The bottom line is that any software company ought to understand that customers buy from people they trust. A positive review from a customer can go miles in enhancing trust and company credibility online. A negative review can also ruin your company’s reputation and hinder growth.
From a Dixa report conducted in 2022, 93% of customers read online reviews before making a purchase decision. That’s a huge number right there. In the same report, 92% of customers said they hesitate to purchase from a company without reviews.
In another research, customer reviews can boost sales by about 18%. That means you need reviews to grow your company in the digital space. From my experience, new companies just starting out on these review platforms get a higher increase in sales.
You should also respond to reviews, whether they are positive or negative. In fact, based on research, 53% of customers expect you to respond to negative reviews to mend your reputation and trust in them.
Review platforms allow clients to rate and review software development services or your software product based on their experience while working with you or using the tool. The higher you rank on these platforms, the better it is for your leads and growth. Most software companies haven’t taken full advantage of these platforms, though.
Let’s see some of the top B2B review platforms
There are several review platforms for software development companies. Some of them are quite popular among SaaS owners, while others are pretty new.
Rate & review platforms for Software services
Rate & review platforms for Software products and SaaS
There are others, but these are the most popular. You may have even encountered some of these while searching for software companies online. They pretty much rank for most software-related keywords.
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Book a meeting with GrowMy.Tech, to check how you can get new clients globally and improve positioning in B2B rate and review platforms.
How do these platforms work?
Well, the end goal is to simplify the customer decision-making process. Hence, they allow customers to read software or development services reviews and provide an alternative comparison in the same niche.
Here is a little demonstration to make it easier for you to understand.
For example, when I search for ‘SQL Developers’ on Clutch and set the location to Warsaw, Poland, the following results popped up 👇👇👇
As you can see, customers can get a wide range of choices based on reviews, leaders matrix, and location, among other factors.
The platforms are beneficial to both the consumer and the software companies; the former can have a wide range of choices to make a profitable decision, while the software company can get leads and a positive reputation from reviews left by clients.
The platforms rate sites based on peer evaluation, from simple ratings to a whole set of sophisticated algorithms. While some sites choose to rank purely based on user-generated content, others have chosen the short path of hiring SEO experts to help beat the competitors.
You may ignore rate and review platforms, but they are essential marketing tools for B2B software firms. They can help connect more authentically with customers, get feedback about their products, and optimize them for an enhanced user experience.
It all begins with the search intent of the software consumer
What do first-time (but not only) software service buyers want?
Did you say software services? Well, I know it is mainly software development, but they will first need information on the software development process, the best software development companies list, what is to work with those companies, their team and pricing, and many more. They simply want full information before making a move.
And guess what?
They will ask Google about all that information. Software deelopment companies that fashion their efforts into fulfilling the search intent of their customers always rise to the top of the file.
So, where do review platforms come in?
Well, they also fulfill that search intent and rank number one for most keywords related to what the end customer might be searching.
Let me give you an example.
James is the founder of a highly-profitable logistics firm and wants custom software to ease logistics operations in the company. Just like everyone, James will also perform a quick search on Google to get more information regarding software companies to select.
He might simply type ‘best software developers in Poland’ and hit ‘enter.’
Here are the results 👇👇👇
Or check it for Instanbul in Turkey… 👇👇👇
Clutch, one of the rate and review platforms, comes up organically in the number one position – leave the ads alone because they are sponsored.
And based on research, 90% of customers never go past the first page of Google when searching for information. That means they will click on the link and land on Clutch platform.
There, they will get more information about software firms based on the reviews and other factors, compare the sites, and finally land on the website of one of the companies.
See?
Instead of competing against these platforms, you can leverage them for growth. Some of these platforms have been there since 1999. That means they have a higher DA (domain authority) than most other sites – the age of the domain is one of the factors search engines consider when ranking a site.
And if you have noticed, Good Firms and other review platforms follow suit ‘best software developers in [add city or country of your interest]’.
They also have high-quality content that users like. And if a web visitor spends quality time on them, Google assumes that the content is solving the problem that the users had and hence rank the platform high on search results.
Check out this screenshot of the top-rated keywords that GoodFirms ranks for. The results are narrow for the US market and keywords with traffic over 1000 searches monthly and high keyword difficulty. 👇👇👇
That’s a whole lot of valuable traffic. Remember, these are not merely strayed web visitors; they are people with commercial search intent and in need of services that your software company can offer.
Let’s check similar research for Clutch… 👇👇👇
When you check the phrase 'web development company' for the US market. You see the whole bunch of rate & reviews positioning for that strong keyword. 👇👇👇
And when on the product review platforms, Capterra ranks for most of the keywords. Let's see how they rank for ‘CRM software’ and ‘email marketing software’ in the US. 👇👇👇
or 'email marketing software' on the same market. 👇👇👇
As you can see in the examples above, rate & review platforms rank for keywords related to software developers, mobile app, blockchain and NFT development, and a whole lot of other keywords, your work is to merely get in and position yourself here to tap into all that traffic for qualified leads and grow your company.
Why should you consider positioning your software company on these platforms?
Here are some of the reasons:
Search intent
Search or user intent is simply the intention of performing a search. Most of the time, your clients want information about a software development company and the service it offers. The type of keywords or queries they input into the search bar can determine the position they are in the customer journey.
You can categorize their search intent based on four categories.👇👇👇
Information intent: These are clients who just want information about a topic. They are not yet ready to purchase your service.
Navigational: These are searching for a specific website. If someone searches for ‘goodfirms,’ they want that specific website.
Transactional intent: These are clients who already know the service they want and the company they intent to buy from. Thus, they input a keyword like ‘Clutch pricing’ or ‘SEMrush packages.’
Commercial investigating intent: These are not ready to buy, but they will do so in the near future. Some of the searches can be ‘G2 review,’ ‘best video editing platform’ and others.
customer journey
As you can see, each of these clients is in a different stage in the customer journey. They can be in any of these four main stages 👇👇👇
Awareness
Consideration
Purchase
Retention
Advocacy (happens after conversion)
Before any lead converts to a customer, he has to go through the four stages. Thus, it’s essential that you understand the position of your client in the customer journey and fulfill their search intent. You can do that through SEO and content marketing.
Importance of search intent and customer journey
By understanding the search intent of your clients, you can optimize your content for the keywords and hence attract them to your website. In addition, if you know the position of your clients in the customer journey, you can optimize your service and products to lure them.
For example, a client in the awareness stage would likely prefer a clearly outlined services page, in-depth blog posts, or a compelling landing page to flag him down your sales pipeline; whereas, the one in the purchase stage would prefer several payment processors or a discount.
So, if understand this, you will optimize every stage of your customer journey to boost conversions.
You may ask why I do this theoretical intro to these concepts... but most of the clients who land on review platforms, such as Clutch, have a transaction and commercial intent; they are considering purchasing a service from the software companies listed there.
That means if you position yourself here, you are tapping into clients who don’t need a lot of convincing to purchase your service.
Customer reviews are essential for business growth
To spur business growth, you should incorporate customer feedback into your holistic marketing strategy. It is an essential business aspect.
You see, business communication should be two-way between you and the customers. Customers might not talk to you directly, but they will surely speak to their friends about their experience with your product.
The easiest way to get that customer experience is to read reviews. Even though you may be dealing with negative reviews most of the time, the essential thing is to get that feedback and use it to improve your software to enhance the customer’s experience.
Sites like Capterra act as effective platforms to get feedback loops and engage with your target audience while improving the product’s functionality and overall customer experience.
Brand recognition and awareness
It is easier to get noticed on these platforms than going the long way of building your and waiting for months before getting significant amounts of traffic through SEO and content marketing.
Sites such as GoodFirms and Clutch get traffic hell of traffic on monthly basis. Check out this comparison. 👇👇👇
That means the moment you are on the platform, people will locate your brand easily. And if you have limited competition, you can move to the top of the file faster.
Check a software company like Yalantis in the first example, it is ranking as ‘SQL development company’ in Clutch.
Even though the algorithm might change sometimes, people are already aware of the company and might have clicked to order their services.
The thing is, you should get in there and list your company rather than compete for the same keywords that they are already ranking for.
They offer a great source of inbound traffic
After landing on the platform, the user will browse and check out the top-ranking sites based on several factors. But remember, the end goal isn’t to stay on the platform but to click on the outbound links to the listed sites.
So, the platform visitor might decide to click on a few outbound links and finally select one after considering its reviews, the pricing, and sometimes the level of support or general experience.
Higher rankings on SERP
The thing about search engines is they consider the number of backlinks your site has when determining where you rank on SERP.
That means the more quality backlinks you have, the easier it is for your site to appear on the first page of Google or any other search engine.
Positioning your website on platforms like Clutch or G2 will greatly impact your SERP because the platforms have a high DA. 👇👇👇
If you check out the screenshot above, the site has a domain authority of 77. It takes time to move to that position. However, with time, you can. Positioning your site here is one move you should consider.
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Book a meeting with GrowMy.Tech, to check how you can get new clients globally and improve positioning in B2B rate and review platforms.
Conclusion
Rate and review platforms are essential for a company’s growth. As long as you are in the B2B niche, you should not ignore the potential these platforms harbor.
Don’t compete because it might take time before you even begin getting a third of the traffic they are currently getting. The best way is to position yourself here and tap into their traffic for leads and sales.