![Online Customer Reviews' Effect On Local Businesses, 2010-2015 [CHART]](https://trends.e-strategyblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/195426.gif "Chart - Online Customer Reviews' Effect On Local Businesses")
Customer reviews have gotten more important for local businesses over the years, according to research. And that means positive reviews appear to be having a bigger effect than in the past.
Based on 2015 polling from local search marketing firm BrightLocal, more than two-thirds of US internet users trust businesses more because of positive online reviews. While that’s down slightly from 2014, it still represents a significant increase over 2010 levels of trust in positive reviews. Five years ago, 45% of respondents said they either didn’t pay attention to online reviews at all, or didn’t let reviews influence them. This year, that share is down to 32%.
The increasing import of reviews has gone hand in hand with consumer likelihood to search for information about local businesses. In 2010, just 7% of internet users surveyed by BrightLocal said they searched for local business information “almost every day.” By 2014, that share had more than doubled to 15%, and remains at 14% in 2015. In the same timeframe, the share of respondents who searched weekly also almost doubled, from 9% in 2010 to 17% in 2015. Read the rest at eMarketer.
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