There are various aspects of the Google Business Profile that significantly affect how you rank on search engines. Different categories have varying levels of impact, including the business name, primary business category, reviews!!!, predefined services by Google, and opening hours, among others. Today, as we know well at Localboss, we are here to talk about reviews and what you can do as a business owner to optimize them.
The Effect of Reviews
First, it’s important to understand that reviews affect your online positioning in two ways:
- Directly: According to the Local Search Ranking Factors Survey, reviews influence several key factors in Google, such as:
- High star ratings (between 4 and 5): ranked 6th in importance
- High number of reviews: ranked 8th
- Consistent reviews over time
- Recent reviews
- Indirectly: Google also evaluates the engagement with your brand and your Google Business Profile to determine your ranking. This means that reviews become an indirect factor for your online positioning. The more and better quality reviews you have, the longer users will spend reading them. If Google detects that people spend a lot of time looking at your profile, it will rank you higher in the search engines.
How to Leverage This Effect
To make the most of reviews, you need to:
- Consistently get more reviews
- Improve the quality of your reviews, whether by encouraging customers to include comments, photos, or specific details.
It is crucial to understand that incentives for reviews should be given to employees, not customers. Google strictly prohibits the latter as it wants to ensure the legitimacy and authenticity of reviews on its platform. At Localboss, we have already discussed employee incentives when requesting reviews in our blog.
Overall, the key strategies are:
- Ask for reviews from your satisfied customers
- Respond to all your reviews, both positive and negative
- Follow up with your customers by sending them personalized review requests, which is also available within the app.
Reviews not only improve your ranking on Google but are also a powerful tool to strengthen customer trust and loyalty. Implement these strategies and watch your business grow. You can also learn how to better manage your Google reviews with the Localboss app.
