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A Step-by-Step Guide on How to Add Reviews on Shopify to Build Trust and Make Sales

how to add reviews on shopify

If you think customer reviews are a side issue for your eCommerce website, think again.

According to a recent survey, 90% of customers read reviews before making an online purchase. In other words, if you don’t offer reviews on your website, you could be leaving a lot of money on the table. 

If you use Shopify for your online store, the good news is that adding reviews to your website is simple. To help guide you through the process, we’ve put together this step-by-step look at how to add reviews on Shopify. 

Do You Need Reviews on Your Shopify Store? 

Maybe you have a fantastic product and sell it at an irresistible price. If so, you might wonder whether you need reviews for your products. Arent reviews more useful for things like hotels and restaurants? 

The truth is reviews are critical to any business nowadays.

Technological advances (like Shopify) mean that creating an online business has never been this straightforward. The downside is that it has made low barriers to entry – which means you face more competition. 

You must find a way to stand out to gain an edge over other commercial businesses in your niche. And that’s where a good Shopify review comes in handy. 

Reviews will give your e-commerce business lots of advantages. Here are a few examples: 

A trusted brand: When visitors see that other people have bought from you, they’ll see you as a trusted and reputable brand

Free advertising: If a customer shares their review on a third-party website or social media, that’s the best form of free advertising. 

More sales conversions: Positive reviews lead to higher conversions, as they persuade those potential customers who are still sitting on the proverbial fence.

Reviews boost SEO: Are you trying to rank for a competitive keyword? Then listing a product page with a five-star review gives you the ultimate advantage on that search result page. 

Reviews set expectations: Reviews often give people valuable and practical information about the product before they buy (such as the size or material) and will help you avoid customer returns. 

Now you understand why you need reviews, let’s examine the how. 

How to Add Reviews on Shopify

Luckily, adding Shopify review functionality to your store is relatively easy and doesn’t require a coding background. Here is a step-by-step guide. 

What Are Shopify Apps?

Before tackling Shopify reviews, it’s worth understanding the apps side of the platform. 

Apps are small, separate features built by third-party developers that you connect to your website via the Shopify dashboard. 

And that’s where you will find the review functionality. You’ll need to start your search in the Shopify App Store. Head there and type in a relevant keyword, such as “customer reviews.” 

Set a Budget 

When you search, consider your budget and what you can afford to spend on an app. Without a firm budget, you’ll feel tempted by convincing sales pages and might pay more than you can afford. 

There are often free apps and free pricing plans on paid apps. You’ll typically pay a monthly subscription fee for the more premium apps. 

There is no correct answer regarding how much you spend on an app, but your current monthly revenue is worth considering. 

Perhaps a basic free app is best if you’re just starting as a solo entrepreneur with a shoestring budget. You can always upgrade later. 

However, suppose you’re already making money and getting lots of traffic. In that case, a premium review app could positively impact your conversion rates and offer an excellent investment return. 

Compare and Contrast App Features

Once you have a budget, you can narrow your shortlist of apps. 

At this point, it’s worth making a spreadsheet to compare features across different apps. It also allows you to rank apps according to your personal preferences. 

Some business owners may prefer an app that looks beautiful or trendy on your website. Others will favor apps that offer marketing features to help you contact customers to ask for a review. 

Select an App

Now it’s time to review your shortlist and choose your preferred app.

Remember that you can always upgrade, cancel and switch apps later on in your business life, so don’t worry too much about whether you’ve picked the perfect app. 

Install the App

Now it’s time to install the app on your Shopify setup. You’ll need to be inside your admin dashboard to do this. Navigate to the customize your store section and head to the App Store.

Find your chosen app and click on it to see a green button to add that app. Click that, and voila – you’ve completed the first stage of your installation! 

Configure the App

You’ll have the review app code for your store at this stage, but you aren’t quite ready to use it. For most apps, you’ll need to configure (or customize) the settings to get the reviews working how you want on your store. 

These settings will vary depending on the app you choose, but here are a few pointers: 

Ask for Help

If you aren’t technical and find the options confusing, keep it simple by sticking to the default options or hiring a freelancer to do the configuration. Don’t forget that many apps have excellent technical support services, as does Shopify. 

Location

Think about where you want to add reviews to your site. If you are a one-product store, you might want to include headline reviews on your homepage, as this will be a big selling point for new visitors.

Adding product reviews to each product description page makes more sense if you sell multiple products.

However, even when you sell multiple products, you may ask customers to review you as a store rather than review individual products. Using this as an advertising tool prominently on your homepage is a good idea. 

Design

Some apps will allow you to add custom branding to your reviews. You might want to get a designer to mock this up on screen before you customize the settings so that the final effect looks professional. 

Review Detail

Most apps will give you the choice of displaying a headline review score (usually a star rating) or detailed worded reviews. Headlines work best for a business-level review to show that you are a trusted brand.

However, detailed, written reviews work better on product pages because potential buyers find them informative and helpful. 

Create a Review Process 

The final step for your Shopify store is to ensure that you get high-quality reviews for your website.

Though a review app will give customers the technical functionality to create a review, you’ll find that, in most cases, you need to actively ask customers for reviews to get a meaningful set of testimonials for your website. So here is how to do that. 

The first thing to remember is that email is your most powerful asset when getting reviews. So you’ll want to create an email sequence to send to recent customers asking them to leave a review. 

The best time to ask for a review is once you’ve delivered the product to the customer, ideally no later than 24 hours after you’ve had the delivery confirmation. 

Given the importance of Shopify reviews, don’t be afraid to send reminders too. You can send a reminder one day after the first email and another reminder between 3 to 7 days after the first email. 

Secondly, provide an incentive. Offering an ethical bribe, like a discount on a future purchase, will get you more reviews and incentivize happy customers to continue shopping at your store. 

Finally, take your time to write some friendly and persuasive email copy when asking for reviews. Make it fun.

People always get requests in emails, so if you can provide an authentic, honest, and even humorous message, you’re more likely to get customers to take action. 

Test, Test, Test

You might think that you’re all set to launch your store reviews now. But you have one more step to take – and this one is critical – you must test your functionality on the store. 

That means testing how the reviews look on a desktop browser and mobile and how the reviews look on other pages (such as your product pages).

You’ll also want to test the review creation steps to see if customers can easily add their reviews to the right product. 

Test your email setup to ensure review requests go to the right people at the right time. And test the admin side of your review app, too, to ensure it works and that you know how to manage it. 

Taking Your eCommerce Site to the Next Level 

Isn’t it time you took your eCommerce business to the next level? Customers do plenty of research when buying, so be sure to use this guide on adding reviews on Shopify to ensure your website is up to date. 

And if you need help getting traffic to your website, look at how our content writing services can help you get more visitors from Google. 

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