What is the purpose of SEO? SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of optimizing a business’ web presence to improve its chances of showing up as a result for a particular search. SEO is beneficial for increasing website visitors, in-store traffic or leads, and sales, while also strengthening your brand and reputation.

Local SEO further narrows that down by focusing on businesses with a physical presence in the offline world. These businesses are looking to target prospective customers only in the local vicinity of their storefront or service area. Local SEO and national SEO are generally quite similar, but they do have their differences. For example, locally-focused online business reviews play a particularly critical role in local SEO.

How Online Business Reviews Can Improve Local SEO

Local business reviews are a far more democratic ranking signal than other factors in SEO like inbound links, or even citations. Search engines pay particular attention to reviews because they are the most accurate means by which search engines can measure a business’ popularity. According to Moz’s 2018 Local Search Ranking Factors study, online business reviews are the third most important ranking signal for showing up in Google’s Local Pack (three featured listings provided in local search results). 

Review score, review quantity, review velocity, review site diversity, and the actual text of the reviews are considered as part of the ranking algorithm — as well as the reputation of the reviewers themselves. 

• Review content: Google gets smarter every year, and it’s beginning to use more than just keywords to guide its ranking algorithm. Google can semantically analyze reviews by looking for adjectives like “great,” “best,” “average,” and “okay,” measuring them to get a general idea of how customers feel about your business. This also plays a role in Google’s growing sentiment analysis capabilities. Right now Google’s AI can only determine whether a reviewer’s attitude is generally positive or negative, but it will likely get more specific in the future. In time, words may become even more powerful in SEO than links.
• Review quantity: Generally speaking, popular businesses serve more customers than less popular ones. Google uses that assumption to gauge a business’ offline popularity by the number of online business reviews it has. Similar to how you want to know a product is tried and true by the masses, Google too, wants to see that trust.
• Review diversity: Google My Business (GMB) is important, but it’s not the only source of reviews that Google looks at. Google takes into account reviews from many different third-party websites to help determine your business’ reputation, size, and location.
• Review velocity: Review velocity, or frequency, is how often customers leave reviews. According to BrightLocal, 73% of consumers tend to ignore reviews older than three months. Fortunately, Google’s “expiration date” for reviews seems to be more lenient, which is good news for industries that receive fewer reviews. Businesses that have a steady stream of new reviews are likely to rank better than those sitting on a pile of old reviews, or businesses that get reviews in surges.
• Review score: A business’ actual numeral or star rating doesn’t weigh as heavily in Google’s algorithm than you may expect it to. Ratings are likely to play a more significant role in consumer choice, as according to the same BrightLocal survey referenced earlier, most consumers prioritize rating above other review factors.
• Reviewer reputation: There is some evidence to suggest that some reviewers carry more weight than others in terms of how their review affects a business’ rank. It’s likely that reviews from members of the GMB Local Guides Program have more clout.

How Many Reviews Do You Need?

Evidently, if you want to improve local SEO, then you need local business reviews. Preferably, as many as your leading competitors have. According to a survey, people want to see an average of 40 online business reviews in a business’ profile before they’ll trust its star rating.

But as we mentioned earlier, you also need a continuous stream of new reviews. In order to get a steady stream of reviews, you need to “prime the pump.” Businesses with lots of local reviews and high ratings tend to get more traffic, which means more reviews, which leads to more traffic and more reviews, etc.

How to Get More Online Business Reviews

Every good local SEO strategy needs a plan to get more reviews (and before you ask — no, simply waiting for people to leave reviews does not count as a review acquisition strategy). Here are a couple of ground rules to keep in mind:

• No buying fake reviews: It’s misleading to consumers and will eventually lead to decreased trust in your business, rather than increased trust. 
• No incentivizing reviews: Google particularly dislikes incentivized reviews. So although giving out a coupon in exchange for a review seems like a good idea, don’t do it.

Here’s what to do instead:

Simply ask them to leave a review. Only 1 in 10 customers will leave a review out of the goodness of their heart. If you want local reviews from the other nine, you will have to ask them for it. Fortunately it’s not as awkward of a proposition as you may fear — most people will at least consider leaving a review if asked.

One way to ask for reviews is simply to share links to your reviews page(s) with your followers on social media. This reminds your fans to leave feedback, and encourages lurkers to visit your location, too.

Another way to get more reviews is to train your employees on how to do it. People really value having a personal connection to a business, so when a person asks them for a review rather than just a screen or a slip of paper, they’re more likely to do it. However, your employees are likely to feel awkward about asking for reviews on their own, so it’s a good idea to provide some training to show them how to do it in a natural and friendly way.

Of course, in some cases you can’t ask your customers to leave a review — specifically, on Yelp. Yelp lumps these reviews in with incentivized reviews, so whether or not you agree with their stance, it’s best not to ask people to leave you a review on Yelp.

Make sure your customers know where they can leave reviews. There are many places that you can turn into an opportunity to direct customers to your review platforms: 

• Business cards
• Thank-you notes
• Receipts and e-receipts
• Email signatures
• Email campaigns 
• Social media profiles
• Social media posts
• Dedicated page on website

Which Websites Should I Use to Collect Business Reviews?

Google My Business: GMB is one of the most important places for you to gather online business reviews and improve local SEO rankings, since it’s directly tied to Google’s ranking algorithm. 6 out of 10 customers check Google reviews.

Your first step is making sure you have a GMB listing. If you don’t think you have one, check. Sometimes Google auto-generates business listings from existing information on the web, but that doesn’t mean it’s accurate or optimized for local SEO. 

To find out if you have an auto-generated listing, Google your location and industry. For example, if you’re an Italian restaurant in Minneapolis, MN, search “italian restaurants Minneapolis”. If you find a listing, click the “Claim This Listing” button so you can start uploading photos, replying to your GMB reviews, and more.

If you don’t have an auto-generated listing, go to Google My Business to get started and start collecting those valuable Google reviews.

Yelp: Yelp For Business populates the review stars on Apple Maps. It’s practically a household name for reading local business reviews, and you can bet that prospective customers are likely to look at your profile on Yelp before visiting.

There’s just one problem: managing your Yelp reviews can be a bit of a challenge. Yelp For Business has a notoriously aggressive review filter, and aside from prohibiting review solicitation, they have a long history of accidentally removing real reviews while leaving the fake ones.

The good news is that Yelp is making an effort to clean up their reputation and fight local business review fraud more effectively. One of the ways that they plan to do this is by checking the IP addresses of users who are leaving reviews. If they review a business that is nowhere near their location, then the account gets marked as suspicious and may be deleted.

Bottom line: Don’t ignore Yelp.

Facebook: If you have a Facebook page for your business, you may be tempted to ignore it because you don’t have many followers. Social media isn’t usually associated with SEO. But it’s not about the followers, it’s about the visibility. And there’s evidence that Facebook reviews may improve local SEO. Facebook has become a MAJOR platform for both online and local business reviews. 69 percent of American adults use Facebook, which means that there’s a good chance your target market is waiting for you there. 

Many businesses make the mistake of hiding their reviews page on Facebook because they discount Facebook as a review platform. If you’re one of them, don’t worry — it’s pretty easy to enable reviews. Here’s how to do it on desktop:

• Click “Settings” at the top of your Page
• Go to “Templates and Tabs” in the left-hand column
• Scroll down to the “Add a Tab” button
• Find “Recommendations” or “Reviews”
• Click the “Settings” button next to it
• Click the toggle for “Show Reviews” from “Off” to “On”
• Click “Save”

Industry-Specific Review Sites: There are a variety of industry-specific online business review sites. These sites are important because they are where your customers go when they may not know your name yet, but they’re looking for your product/service. Make sure to have well-optimized listings on the ones relevant to you.

• Automotive: AutoMD, RepairPal, SureCritic
• Car Dealerships: Car Gurus, Cars.com, Edmunds
• Healthcare: Doctor.com, Healthline, WebMD
• Home: Angie’s List, Home Advisor, Houzz, Porch, Thumbtack
• Hospitality: Booking.com, Expedia, Hotels.com
• Legal: Avvo, FindLaw, Lawyers.com
• Real Estate: Realtor.com, Trulia, Zillow
• Restaurants: Eater.com, TripAdvisor, Zagat
• Weddings: The Knot, Wedding Bee, Wedding Wire

You can see the full list of top industry-specific business review sites here.

For certain categories, Google also displays relevant Critic Reviews from well-known editorial sites. Businesses with good Critic Reviews may rank better than businesses without. 

How To Respond to Online Business Reviews

Local business reviews are like planting flowers. You can’t just put them on your front lawn and expect them to make your home look pretty for the rest of the summer — you need to take care of them. Flowers need water, and reviews need responses.

It may be tempting to automate these responses or create a cookie-cutter response that you copy and paste every time, but remember — people like to have personal interactions with businesses. And despite your best efforts, they will be able to discern whether you’re using an automated response or if you’re being genuine. Positive personal interactions are an opportunity to create brand ambassadors and loyalists, even if it’s just a “Thanks for your review!” Automated replies are how you drive people away.

Responding to reviews in a timely manner (in other words, ASAP), can be done in one of two ways: you can either monitor review sites by yourself or you can purchase professional review monitoring software.

If you monitor your local reviews by yourself, you will be able to save some money, but between GMB reviews, Yelp reviews, Facebook reviews, etc. — it’s easy to drop the ball. Keep a list of the review sites that your business is listed on so you don’t miss one in your daily sweep. 

You generally have to pay for review monitoring software, but it can be very helpful when you don’t have a lot of time on your hands, have multiple locations, or have a lot of different review sites to keep track of. Software automatically checks for new local reviews every day and sends you an alert when it finds one.

It’s also a good idea to check social media for mentions of your business, particularly your ads. Customers don’t always leave reviews on a review site — sometimes they prefer to leave them as comments on your ads or posts. Make sure to address these quickly in order to show both followers and the rest of your audience that you care about your customers.

Finally, setting up Google Alerts to monitor your brand is helpful to discover when anyone on the internet is referencing your brand, regardless of whether it’s in a review or not.

Is a Bad Review the End of the World?

Congratulations! Your first negative review as a business is a real milestone. It makes you real. And as you work to get more reviews, negative reviews are going to be inevitable. Most people don’t expect businesses and products to be perfect. In fact, studies have shown that most purchases have a rating between 4.2 and 4.5 out of 5. When you don’t have any bad reviews, it starts to look suspicious.

There are three main types of negative reviews:

• Competitors trying to drag you down
• Customers who didn’t have a good experience with your business
• Spammers

Negative reviews are an opportunity to show the world what your business is really made of. They can also be an invaluable method of letting you know about your business’ weak points and where you can improve. 

Responding to reviews is always important, but responding to bad reviews is especially important. Most sites allow for you to respond to bad reviews, so you can connect with the displeased customer on a personal level and potentially resolve the issue entirely. The simple act of addressing a bad review makes it more likely that customer will work with your business again.

One important thing to keep in mind is that the real audience for that response is just this one particular customer. You are in the spotlight on a stage in front of countless prospective customers who will judge you by your reaction.

First, don’t get defensive. Before you think about replying to the comment — no matter how wrong they may be — take a minute to calm down. You can’t think clearly when you’re riled up. Then, once you’re calm, put your best customer service hat on and reply with the intent of resolving the issue.

Once you’ve calmed down, you may be tempted not to respond to the review. But the problem here is that by not responding, you have still made a response. Silence tells your customer that you care so little about them that you won’t even acknowledge them. 

If you’re being attacked by a competitor who is trying to drag you down, determine whether you can delete the review. If that’s not an option, write a polite response to the complaint and invite them to contact you to resolve the issue. They probably won’t contact you, but the response will make you look good in front of your audience. At the very least, you can attempt to report the review to the website.

What if the comment is a troll or spammer? Well, they’re a special case, but ideally the review can be flagged for moderation by the review website to investigate. 

Conclusion

Online business reviews do more than just improve local SEO — they also provide real-time social proof that your business is just as awesome as you know it is. Reviews have more of an impact on sales than social media likes or followers. For example, businesses that use Yelp see a 5-9% increase in revenue over those that do not.

As you can see, there’s no reason not to have a local business review acquisition strategy. It’s just a win-win all around!