New Local Consumer Review Survey now live!

[rosie.brightlocal]

Hi everyone, happy Friday!

You may already be aware of our Local Consumer Review Survey - we've been running it since 2010 to track trends in online reviews for local businesses over time, and I've just released the latest report here: Local Consumer Review Survey | Online Reviews Statistics & Trends

There are some incredibly interesting findings this year - I chose to look into differences between age groupings for the first time to see what's important for people within different demographics. Some of the key findings include:

• 27% of consumers looked online daily for a local business in 2018 – more than double the proportion in 2017
• 86% of consumers read reviews for local businesses - with just 5% of 18-34s never reading reviews
• 50% of consumers visit local businesses’ websites after reading positive reviews (including 69% of people aged 55+)
• 91% of 18-34-year-olds trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations
• 57% of consumers won’t use a business that has fewer than 4 stars (up from 48% in 2017)
• Consumers require an average 40 online reviews before believing a business’s star rating is accurate (up from 34 in 2017)
• Consumers read an average 10 reviews before trusting a business (up from 7 in 2017)
• 85% of consumers think that online reviews older than 3 months aren’t relevant
• 40% of consumers only care about reviews submitted within the last two weeks (18% last year)
• 89% of consumers read local businesses’ responses to reviews
• 80% of 18-34-year-olds have left businesses reviews

I really hope this comes in useful!

All the best,
Rosie