In this competitive digital world, information is easily available with just a click. Even before digital advertising and marketing, word of mouth and customer reviews played an important part. The only difference is that now it is available online in just a few clicks. This online reputation makes or breaks your brand’s reputation. 94% of local businesses that have used reputation management software or management tools have seen an increase in ROI. 

Google reviews are an example of the new way of giving reviews or feedback. 49% of customers trust online reviews as much as a recommendation from a family. 

The quantity and quality of online reviews impact your SEO and Local Search Ranking. According to research, 99.9% of customers read reviews while making a purchase online. Thus by adopting an effective online reputation management strategy, you can boost your local SEO.

In this blog, we will learn why reviews and feedback are important, their connection with SEO, how online reviews impact SEO and local search, and much more!

Why are online reviews and feedback important 

Online reviews play a crucial role in determining your local SEO success. Customers depend on reviews while making an online purchase. This is an area that you can never ignore. For customers, 3.3 stars out of 5 is the bare minimum acceptable category that a brand should have. Also 91% of users from the age of 18 to 34 trust online reviews as much as a suggestion by a family member or friend. Thus monitoring and managing online reviews should be the top priority of the brand. 

Especially if your business has a lot of local customers then optimizing your local SEO is a must. Local SEO ensures that your visibility has been increased in the local searches. You must use strong keywords that are dominant in local searches. For example, whenever a person searches for the best restaurant or bakery near me, then in local search your business should be given top rank in the SERP. This will increase traffic to your website or store and eventually increase your click-through rate and sales. 

Search engines like Yahoo, Google, and Bing try to give the best and most relevant answers to user’s queries. They have an algorithm that ranks all the websites. One of the important factors while considering the rank of the website is online reputation. The online reputation of the business is linked with online reviews and customer feedback. When people search for any product or service, they read its reviews. When your brand has positive reviews, it builds trust, and credibility in the customers and establishes authority in the market. Not only this it helps search engines in recognizing which business is genuine, trustworthy, and reputable. Businesses with strong online reputations tend to rank higher, resulting in higher traffic and conversion. In addition to this, reviews also strengthen your social media presence, enhance user experience, and build trust. Reviews also increase your chances of getting land in the local pack that comes in a box next to the Google map. 

How do online reviews impact SEO and local search ranking?

Google ranks search engines by evaluating various factors so that it provides its users with the most relevant and high-quality web pages. Google analyzes the relevancy by analyzing content quality, keyword usage, and user intent. Keyword stuffing is discouraged although you must use relevant keywords in your content, title, and meta tags. Google also considers user engagement like click rate and dwell time etc to check the quality of the website. Apart from websites, these conditions apply to online listings as well. Google gives more importance to their online listing platform, Google My Business so it’s a suggestion that every business should create a Google business profile. To learn more about the strategies related to Google My Business, check our review management software.  

Online reviews affect your search engine ranking, this is why reviews are important for SEO and local SEO. Google has an algorithm that ranks every website. Online reviews are also one of the important factors that this algorithm considers. The more positive reviews you have, the higher your website’s rank will be on the search engine results page. 

Whenever a person searches for a local business on Google, it displays the list of results based on relevance and proximity. 

Google considers three types of reviews which are, google reviews, third-party review site and first-party reviews on your website. 

There are multiple factors that impact your seo and ranking such as 

• Recency: Does the reviews are of recent date or old. It is advised that your reviews should be recent as it indicates the relevance of your business. 
• Diversity: A variety of reviews from different sources can enhance your ranking. 
• Sentiment: Positive reviews can enhance your ranking while negative reviews will hamper your ranking and reputation. 
• Velocity: A consistent pattern of reviews can enhance your reviews as it indicates the genuinity and authenticity of your business. Whereas a sudden influx of reviews can raise flags. 
• Quantity: A large amount of reviews can improve your ranking but the quality of the review matters more. 
• Quality: Reviews that are from genuine users and are well written helps in higher ranking whereas fake reviews can harm it. 
• Review platform: Reviews on authentic platforms such as yahoo, Google My Business, Facebook etc can improve your ranking. 
• Review response: Responding to the reviews can enhance your ranking as it increases your engagement rate. 
• Review keyword: Having relevant keywords in your review helps in ranking. 
• Authority: Review from a reputed source or professional is valued more than a random user. 
• Proximity: Google presents those results that are relevant to you, so it displays results that are physically closer to you. 

How to get more reviews

Now that we have learned how reviews affect our local ranking and seo, but at the same time getting the reviews on the right platform matters the most. You should target those platforms that are authentic and carry value, such as Google My Business, social media, website, local business directories, industry specific review sites, and other reviews platforms. Let us now learn some of the ways to get more reviews: 

• Email Campaign: Send follow up emails to your customers. Encourage them to leave a review or feedback on your website. 
• Ask: Ask your customers to give you reviews on your website, social media platforms etc. Directly asking your customers is the simplest way to collect reviews. 
• Respond to reviews: Respond to your customers’ reviews on time and respond to them in a polite and professional manner. Give equal attention and respect to negative reviews, try to resolve their issues and apologize for the inconvenience. Turn these negative reviews into positive feedback. Also, Add an element of personalization to your response. 
• Give offers: Give incentives and offers to your customers whenever they leave a review. You can give a discount coupon or a freebie as well. This encourages customers to leave reviews. 
• Review management software: Get professional help for managing, monitoring and getting more reviews by employing a review management software. Lumia 360 review management software guarantees lead generation, high ranking and smooth customer experience. It monitors your Google My Business profile and optimizes it according to your goals and requirements. 94% of local businesses that have employed review management tools or software have witnessed an increase in ROI. 
• Share reviews on social media: Share your reviews on your social media accounts. It acts like a social proof but also encourages your customers to leave a review. 
• Customer service: Enhance your customer service, respond to the queries frequently and on time. Be gentle and show concern to your customers. Happy customers tend to give a positive review. 
• Make the process of reviews easy: Make the process of receiving the reviews easy. Reduce the steps and make the process quick and simple. Ask only important information and avoid asking private information. 
• Video reviews: Video reviews are gaining popularity nowadays. Encourage customers to leave a video review. It enhances your engagement rate and establishes authority. 
• Review schema markup: You can add a review schema markup to your website. This helps in adding structured information to your website. So that search engines can display review snippets, ratings and counts. This not only increases your engagement rate but also encourages other customers to leave reviews. 
• Get reviews on diverse channels: Try to collect reviews on diverse channels and platforms such as Yahoo, Yelp, Facebook, X, Instagram etc. 
• Integrate reviews on your website: Highlight reviews in your website as it helps in building trust in your brand. Also it shows that you care about your customers’ opinion. This encourages customers to leave more such reviews. 

Online reviews enhance the seo of local and small-medium enterprises. 43% of consumers consider a product with more than 100 reviews. The field and scope of online reviews and local seo is expected to evolve in future with the introduction of emerging technologies. With the emergence of voice search optimization, it is advisable for businesses to optimize their reviews for voice search queries. Artificial intelligence and sentiment analysis can help businesses in monitoring and managing their reviews. Review platforms integrating with other platforms such as ecommerce platforms can give a smooth customer experience, enhance local seo and increase engagement rate. Also as users are becoming more aware and smart, they will prefer websites that use ethical practices and protect their data and other information. 

Thus, in conclusion online reviews are extremely important for your business. They increase your visibility, sales, engagement rate. By following the best practices such as responding to reviews, integrating reviews on websites, making the process of reviewing simple, using user generated content, improving your customer service, etc can improve your review quantity and quality, this will further improve your seo and local ranking. The future of online reviews and local seo will continue to grow, to stay ahead in the game you must stay updated and stay ahead of the competition. By accepting and adopting to such emerging trends and technologies, businesses will continue to benefit from online reviews and optimize local seo and fulfill long term seo goals. 

Read Also: Email Marketing Automation for Customer Retention

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