Perception of your business will have a strong influence over whether a potential customer makes a purchase or not. It also plays a part in turning a first-time customer into a loyal fan of your brand.

One of the best ways to build and boost your reputation online is through Google business reviews.

Although Google isn’t the only place you can receive this kind of feedback, it’s undeniably the most commonly-used tool for finding information online. This means it should always be your first port of call when building your reputation or managing your online reviews!

Google Reviews For Business

Google reviews are left by customers on your Google Business Profile.

You, as the business owner, then have the option to respond to this feedback. Doing so is a fantastic way to demonstrate that you’re engaged with your audience and that their feedback is valuable to you.

These reviews are important for a number of reasons, which we’ll explore further later!

Giving a Google Business Review

To leave a Google business review, a customer must give a star rating out of five—with five being the highest mark and one being the lowest.

Based on this, Google allocates an overall star rating to your business, which is then visible alongside your Google Business Profile (GBP) listing. The more stars you have, the more confidence potential customers will have in your business.

While giving a review, users also have the option to write in detail about their experience and to add photos:

Photos added during a review of your business will automatically feature in your GBP listing. You won’t have any control over which photos get shown, or in which order they appear, but you can flag a photo for removal if you feel it violates the Google Photo Guidelines.

Once a review is submitted by a customer, it’ll become visible on your business listing. Each review will feature the name and profile photo of the person who wrote it, which helps potential customers assess the legitimacy of each recommendation.

Anyone can click through to a user’s profile and read all of the reviews they’ve left on GBP listings. Being able to check previous reviews can help a user trust in the validity of a person’s experience. 

Google Local Guides

As well as getting reviews from regular users, you may also get them from Google Local Guides. Involvement in the Google Local Guides program requires contributors to submit reviews and photos of local businesses, as well as to make edits to business information, answer questions, and check facts on Google Maps.

Guides are rewarded for their contributions with special perks and badges—read more about Google Local Guides here.

If you’re a Local Guide, Google may ask you to expand on your business review with what is sometimes referred to as ‘sub-review’ content. Additional prompts (seen below) might focus on specific products purchased or ask you about local business facilities.

These are then displayed on the published business review to provide helpful snapshots for other users.

Where do Google reviews for businesses appear online?

The Local Pack

When a user searches for a local business in Google, they’ll usually be presented with the best three results at the top of the page. These three results are separate from the additional organic listings, and this section is known as the Local Pack.

Within the Local Pack, the average star rating from reviews will be shown within the listing:

Google Maps

When a user is searching for local businesses in Google Maps, the reviews will appear within each result as a star rating:

When a user makes a specific search for a particular business within Google Maps, they’ll be presented with comprehensive information from the GBP listing to the left of the map.

Users can scroll down through this area to find the review summary with an overall star rating, followed by photos and snippets from reviews. These reviews can be filtered by keywords, or sorted according to relevance, recency, and rating: 

Review Justifications

When a searcher provides specific intent for a local search, such as ‘vegetarian cafe’, then Google will take information from reviews to provide the most relevant results.

As you can see in the image below,  part of the search term appears in bold where mentioned—these results are known as review justifications:

Encouraging your customers to use specific keywords when leaving reviews can help you to improve your search visibility for relevant terms.

Your Website

As well as appearing in various places in Google Search and Maps, Google reviews can also feature directly on your business website. You’ll definitely want to show yours off so that prospective customers can better understand the benefits and value of your business.

Our Showcase Reviews widget is an easy-to-use tool that enables you to display your Google reviews on your website. This tool also allows you to showcase your customer feedback from more than 80 other review sites!

Why are Google reviews for businesses important?

As many as 96% of consumers will read responses to their reviews, with many expecting a prompt reply as standard. This expectation means that responding to reviews has become a normal aspect of good customer service. 

Earning a consistent stream of positive reviews from past and present customers will encourage others to have trust in your business. Amplifying your online reputation through reviews is a free way to increase sales and grow your future profits. 

What’s more, research has determined review responses to be a Google ranking signal, meaning you can easily give your brand a boost by simply taking the time to reply.

How to Set Up Google Reviews For Your Business

If you don’t have a Google Business Profile for your business, then you’ll need to set one up before you can start collecting reviews. Read our step-by-step guide on setting up a GBP listing to get started.

Once your listing is set up, you should spend some time optimizing it before you move on to thinking about reviews. For full details on how to optimize GBP, check out our Google Business Profile Learning Hub.

In Google Business Profile, managers of single listings now manage their profiles—and their reviews—directly within Google Search and Google Maps. 

Simply type the name of your business into the search bar, and you’ll bring up the GBP control panel. From here, you can navigate to the ‘Customers’ section, where you’ll find the ‘Reviews’ area. Here you can view and reply to customer feedback:

How to Get More Google Reviews For Your Business

Requesting feedback from your customers might not always be as easy as it sounds.

Check out Brian Barwig’s guide to asking for reviews for some simple tips on getting started, as well as an expansion on the many benefits of getting more reviews.

For more in-depth guidance on getting reviews specifically on Google, check out this dedicated guide.

How to Respond to Google Business Reviews

Responding to your customer feedback is essential for building and maintaining an amazing reputation.

You’ll be notified by Google whenever a customer leaves you a new review—making the monitoring process practically effortless. However, once you receive a notification email, you shouldn’t put off providing a response.

Types of reviews can be broken down into three categories:

• Positive
• Negative
• Fake

Regardless of the sentiment or legitimacy of a review, it’s still important that you respond!

Always responding in a timely and professional way can be tricky. Fortunately, we’ve taken the hard work out of it for you with these review response templates.

How to Respond to Positive Google Reviews For Your Business

You’ve received a positive review—great! You now have an opportunity to build upon your relationship with the reviewer and hopefully turn them into a repeat customer.

Begin by thanking the customer (by name) for taking the time to leave their comments. You should then address the feedback in a personable way. Make sure to reference any specific points that they have raised to avoid a ‘cookie cutter’-sounding response.

It’s a good idea to always end your reply by inviting the customer to visit your business again soon.

How to Respond to Negative Google Reviews For Your Business

Negative reviews are not only disheartening, but can also be damaging to your reputation.

Whenever you receive negative feedback, avoid the urge to immediately reply. Instead, take some time to absorb this feedback and to craft an appropriate response. You may have an opportunity to turn this situation around, and to repair the relationship with the unhappy customer.

A negative review response should still begin by thanking the customer for sharing their thoughts. Continue by apologizing for the negative experience, and invite the customer to share further feedback on what went wrong.

Make sure you supply contact details should they wish to discuss the matter further. You should also always make it clear that you’d like the opportunity to put things right.

How to Respond to Fake Google Business Reviews

Fake reviews can be just as harmful to your reputation as negative ones…and even more frustrating to deal with. 

If you receive a review and you believe it to be fake, then stay calm and refrain from responding immediately. Take some time to figure out if the feedback has come from a genuine customer or not. If you think it’s fake, then politely respond by asking the customer to get in touch directly. You can then decide if you want to report the incident to Google or not.

Google has created a tool specifically for requesting the removal of fake reviews which also helps business owners to track and manage the escalation process. Getting to grips with this tool will help you to understand how to delete Google business reviews. 

A BrightLocal study revealed that a shocking 82% of consumers will have read a fake review in the last year, demonstrating just how prevalent this problem is.

Trust in Online Reviews

Word-of-mouth advertising has long been recognized as one of the most powerful methods of marketing, and this is still true today.

For example, we know that 92% of consumers would trust a product or service recommendation from someone they know over any other type of advertising. 

In the digital age, online reviews are effectively word-of-mouth recommendations between strangers. Although these reviews don’t have the same personal touch as those from friends or family, they are generally perceived as a trusted source of information by consumers. 

Research has shown that 84% of people trust online recommendations just as much as they trust those from their peers. This highlights the importance of establishing and maintaining a positive reputation online.

This can be achieved through:

• impeccable customer service;
• high quality products/services; and
• responding to every review you earn.

Conquered Google Business Reviews?

When you’ve conquered the process of getting Google business reviews, responding to them, and using them to your business advantage, you’ll be asking yourself “what’s next?”

Depending on the size of your to-do list, you’ll be pleased to know there are many other places online that you can source customer feedback and enhance your reputation.

Ready to discover the next steps in your customer satisfaction journey? Let’s go!

What’s more, the tactics used to leave good or bad feedback for interactions that never really happened can differ from platform to platform. A red flag that helps identify a fake review on Google may not raise suspicions when you’re searching for fake Yelp reviews. 

So, why are fake reviews a problem? The reality is that fake reviews aren’t just a frustration or inconvenience. They have a real bottom-line effect that no local business can afford to ignore. The reputational damage inflicted by unjustified poor reviews can be costly in itself, but it becomes more pronounced if low-star ratings impact on consumer decision-making.

Fake reviews don’t just erode consumer trust in a local business though. Whether it’s via Google, Amazon, Yelp or Facebook, negative reviews could cause your local search ratings to suffer, costing you search visibility and putting you at a disadvantage against competitors. They also undermine your efforts to build a strong review profile – something that could have taken years to achieve. 

Tips for identifying fake reviews

With our review research confirming that 62% of people believe they have seen a fake review in the last 12 months, it pays to know what to look out for so you can take swift action against bogus feedback left for your local business. Here are our tips for spotting a fake review, regardless of the platform.

1. Look for clusters of reviews posted simultaneously 

Multiple reviews appearing at the same time could be a sign that something is amiss. If the timing for several reviews matches, it may be that the business has purchased feedback, paid for five-star listings, or offered incentives such as cash or free products to customers in exchange for their rating.

If you’re a local business that has been subjected to a series of poor reviews in quick succession, checking if the time of the submissions is roughly the same could be an indication that they are fake. If that’s the case, it may be that a competitor is trying to drive down your star ratings. 

2. Be wary of over-the-top descriptions 

Receiving complimentary feedback about your business, your team, and your services is a bonus of being proactive about building your review profile. 

However, comments that seem incredibly over-the-top, enthusiastic, and effusive could be suspicious. If the language seems to be very exaggerated in its praise, it may be that the reviewer isn’t genuine. This type of fake feedback will often be littered with exclamation points, too.

3. Look for specific details 

A lack of detail and specific information also gives food for thought when it comes to deciding if a rating is genuine or not. While most of us will admit to leaving just a star rating and perhaps a word or two when we’re pushed for time, a lack of detail can also indicate the person writing the review doesn’t have first-hand experience with that product or service. 

4. Be alert for words such as refund or discount 

Another warning sign that a competitor could be manipulating their review profile to artificially boost their local business is the use of words suggesting monetary payment or free products. Be alert for words such as gift code, voucher, discount, and refund which may suggest that the reviewer has been paid or coerced into leaving a positive rating. Incentivizing reviews is against most platform guidelines. 

5. Look for very similar reviews

If a local business has several reviews, but many of them are worded in much the same way, it’s likely you’re looking at a series of fakes. Genuine customers sharing their genuine experience of a business will naturally write in different ways, and use different styles of language and varied vocabulary. Fake reviews are often created and posted in bulk so are little more than duplicates. 

What does a fake review look like? 

In 2020 alone, Google removed 55 million fake reviews and terminated more than three million fake Google Business profiles. Its hard stance on inauthentic reviews saw it remove almost one million reviews reported by Google Maps users, too. 

However, buying and selling fake reviews is big business. So much so that Amazon has launched legal action in both Europe and America targeting more than 11,000 websites selling fake reviews.

With bad actors getting ever more inventive when churning out fake reviews to deceive consumers and artificially inflate (or drive down) business profiles, it pays to know what a fake review really looks like. As a small business owner, being able to identify malicious or phony feedback is the first step to taking remedial action – such as flagging it to the review platform and requesting removal. 

• Use of all caps: This review title is all in caps, which instantly raises a red flag. All of the other reviews on this product page have a lowercase, descriptive but not over-the-top title:

• Poor grammar: While it’s entirely possible this person is a non-native speaker, the poor grammar and unnatural use of language both indicate this is a fake review. 
• Excessive multimedia: The consumer group Which? says that many sellers who use incentives to gather reviews require pictures and videos to be included. This review stands out because it includes both a video and two images, which could be considered excessive for earphones in a box. 
• Overly favorable: The use of “the best” in the title in caps raises a red flag.
• Keyword stuffed: The word ‘the best’ is repeated twice in the short review. The text also notes the price is “only” £3.99 and ends with “highly recommend”. The overall impression is that the text has been written for an algorithm, not a genuine consumer. 
• Lack of profile information: This user has no profile information at all. Few details could signal this is a fake account created for review spam. 
• All positive reviews: This reviewer has posted a very small number of reviews, but they all follow a similar format with poor grammar, spelling mistakes, over-the-top praise, and a call to action for the reader to buy the relevant product.

Spotting fake reviews on Google

Your Google review profile is one of your most valuable online assets as a local business, and we’ve gone into detail about the benefits of reviews before. Not only is it known to be a local SEO ranking factor, it also directly impacts consumer decision-making. That means it can influence whether you make a sale, receive a booking, make a reservation, or lose out to a competitor. 

Knowing how to spot a fake Google review can therefore help your business to weed out unscrupulous feedback and protect your lucrative online reputation. 

Check the reviewer’s Google profile 

Most inauthentic ratings come from accounts that are set up specifically for that purpose. That means they won’t have posted many other reviews. Whether excessively good or incredibly poor, if you suspect a bad actor, it’s easy to see how active that profile is on Google. You’ll see the number of Google reviews they have posted displayed as a numerical figure under the account holder’s username. A very small number of reviews could be evidence of fakery at work. 

Check the reviewer’s activity 

In addition to seeing the number of reviews a user has posted, you can also see the reviews themselves. This is a great tip for local business owners who are keen to learn how to spot a fake Google review. A glance at previous reviews left by that person can quickly reveal whether they are a genuine user or not. 

Check if the places reviewed are within the same local area. If most places are in entirely different locations, such as different states on the other side of the country, it could well be a bad actor at work.

If images have been uploaded with reviews, browse through those to get a sense of whether that reviewer has images in places they have reviewed. Fake reviews won’t be accompanied by genuine, related images. 

Look at timings

From the user profile, you can also check the frequency of review postings. Has the reviewer your suspect to be a fake posted clusters of reviews at the same time or are they sporadic? A flurry of reviews posted at the same time suggests that the ratings are not authentic. 

Cross-reference with your sales logs

Google will often display a reviewer’s name above their review. If that’s the case, it’s possible to perform a cross-reference of your own records. Compare your sales logs with the name of the person leaving the review to determine if they are a genuine customer. 

Does the reviewer have a profile picture?

Fake reviewers often won’t share too much personal information on the profiles they create. Along with other red flags, the lack of a profile picture raises suspicions. Likewise, very generic or cartoon images can also indicate that the reviewer is attempting to hide who they are. 

Does the comment reference specific aspects of your business? 

Genuine reviews will often provide specific details about the user’s experience so, part of knowing how to spot a fake Google review is being able to check for those factual inclusions. Are specific team members mentioned for example? Are the names right if so? Are service details factual or, does the review refer to services or products that you don’t offer? Inaccuracies are a tell-tale sign that the review has been created by someone without first-hand experience of your local business.

How to spot fake Facebook reviews

With 75% of users said to visit a local business Page at least once per week, it’s essential that local business owners know how to spot a fake review on Facebook. 

Is the text vague? 

A very vague piece of text may suggest that the person writing the Recommendation hasn’t truly interacted with that local business. 

Genuine reviewers will often pick out specific aspects of their experience, whether good or bad, to explain why they Recommend (or not) that business. Very brief, vague comments can be one clue that the Recommendation is fake. 

Is the Recommendation too complimentary? 

Using language that’s way over the top is another clue that the Recommendation has been created to artificially boost ratings. Descriptions that sound too good to be true, with lots of superlatives that really oversell things are a tell-tale sign that you’re looking at a fake review. 

Does the user have a profile image? 

Much like with Google reviews, the lack of a profile picture or the use of a cartoon image instead is another warning sign that the reviewer isn’t genuine. You’ll be able to see the profile picture for the account holder sharing the review to the left of the review itself. 

Does the reviewer have Facebook Friends? 

Another clue that you may be looking at a fake Facebook review comes from the reviewer’s profile. Clicking on their profile picture will take you to the profile page. How many friends are on their friends list? If the profile doesn’t have any Facebook friends, or only very few, you have another indication that the review is fake. 

Spotting fake reviews in specific industries 

While all consumer reviews matter, in some industries, being able to trust the content of a review is even more important. For professions such as lawyers, healthcare workers, real estate brokers, and so on, dishonest reviews could have serious consequences including financial loss. 

How to spot fake hotel reviews 

Hotels rely heavily on reviews to attract new guests, but how can you tell if the ratings are genuine? 

• Be wary of all 5-star reviews: It’s not realistic to expect that a property will have only five-star feedback. While you’d expect to see a good portion of five-star reviews for a great destination, a natural review profile will also have its share of other star ratings too. 
• Look at the most recent reviews: Some review platforms will sort by the top-rated or most useful reviews. Sort by most recent to get a true picture of what guests are actually experiencing right now and then look for comments that stand out as being very different from the general consensus. 
• Compare with other review platforms: Looking at reviews across two or more platforms is a good way to get a sense of the overall feedback about the hotel. You’re then better placed to pick out those reviews that seem wildly different in their experience than the majority of other guests. 

How to spot fake reviews in real estate 

With intense competition and huge commissions at stake, it’s no secret that real estate can be a cutthroat business. If you suspect a competitor may be inflating their profiles with fake reviews, here are a few things to look out for: 

• Look at the language: If the language used in the review is littered with acronyms or uses an abundance of industry jargon, it could be a fake. 
• Does the review talk about the property? A genuine reviewer is likely to make reference to the property they have just bought or rented. If the review contains no references to the property at all, it may be that the person writing the review hasn’t really used that realtor’s services. 
• Does the review mention any challenges or issues? Buying a house is seldom straightforward. If a realtor’s profile is packed with reviews that claim the whole process went smoothly, something could well be amiss. You should expect to see some comments about challenges, issues, or delays encountered in at least some of the reviews. 

How to spot fake reviews for healthcare professionals

Fake reviews are especially concerning in the healthcare industry, where patient health could be put at risk by unscrupulous rivals. 

• Is the description of the service provided realistic? Consider the language of the review and the tone of the reviewer when describing their experiences. Does it align with the service provided? For example, it’s unlikely that anyone will wax lyrical about teeth cleaning at the dentist so a review that is extremely complementary with excessive use of superlatives should raise a red flag. 
• Are other healthcare provider names or brands mentioned? If the reviewer compares one experience with a named local competitor, it may be that the reviewer has been paid to paint the rival in a bad light. Likewise, reviews that mention certain branded products multiple times should be treated with a degree of suspicion. 

Tools to detect fake reviews

Bad actors are increasingly sophisticated and constantly evolving new techniques to avoid detection. This can make manually checking for fake reviews a time-consuming process – the good news is that there are a number of helpful tools available which can do most of the heavy lifting for you. 

Fakespot

Fakespot is a specialist tool for detecting fake reviews. It’s compatible with a range of platforms, including Amazon and eBay. Powered by AI, it sniffs out bots and fake accounts and flags up fake reviews. 

Transparency

Transparency‘s Machine Learning algorithms use metrics such as profile data and review content to detect fake reviews. 

Bazaarvoice

Bazaarvoice uses fraud detection techniques to assess whether the reviews it collects for brands are genuine. It will flag up reviews it suspects are counterfeit. 

ReviewMeta

Designed specifically for those who want to know how to spot fake Amazon reviews, ReviewMeta applies a series of tests to review text to determine if the review is genuine. Reviews that are trying to game the system get removed or are given less weight, so they don’t artificially impact the product rating. 

What to do when you spot fake reviews

So, you know how to spot a fake Yelp review or fake Facebook review, but what steps should you take next to ensure your rivals aren’t gaining an unfair advantage? 

Each platform has its own specific procedure that you’ll need to follow if you suspect a review is fake – whether that’s a review that impacts your own profile or is benefiting a competitor.

Methods for each platform:

• Our guide to Google reviews contains helpful information on how to deal with fake Google reviews.
• Our guide to Yelp reviews has everything you need to know about dealing with fake reviews on that platform.
• Found a fake Facebook review? We’ve covered how to deal with fake Facebook reviews in our guide. 

What is a review management system?

A review management system is a tool that helps you to manage your online reputation. 

You can use a review management system to request reviews from consumers, monitor for new reviews, respond to reviews, and showcase the best reviews on your website and other owned media channels. 

How do you manage reviews?

Online review management covers four core areas:

1. Generating reviews
2. Monitoring reviews
3. Responding to reviews
4. Showcasing reviews  

For effective review management, you’ll need to have a plan in place to tackle a range of tasks. Within that plan, you should have processes in place to:

• deploy online review management tools and software to easily solicit reviews from customers and distribute them to popular online review sites;
• add review schema markup to your website;
• be proactive about asking customers to leave online reviews for your business (68% of consumers will leave a local business review when asked to do so);
• respond to both positive and negative reviews to either thank the customer for their great feedback or address the concern they’ve raised; and
• promote your positive reviews to draw attention to your customer feedback (such as sharing on social media, posting on websites, creating banners, including in e-newsletters, paid ads, etc.).

How to Generate Reviews

When it comes to online reviews, the recency of reviews matters as much as the quantity to consumers and search engine algorithms alike.

The best way to boost your review count — and ensure you have a steady stream of new reviews — is simply to ask.

One easy way to do this is to set up an automated email that goes to consumers soon after their purchase or visit. Your request should thank the customer for their business and request that they leave a review to share their experience. Be sure to include a link to your review platform (or platforms) of choice. 

If your favored review platform offers a widget, you can install this small piece of code on your site to display a button inviting visitors to review your business. 

How to Monitor Online Reviews

If you don’t have reputation management software, general review sites along with niche review platforms will need to be monitored manually. This could mean you need to set up a Google Alert, conduct brand searches on Google, physically visit your key review platforms regularly, or use a social listening tool — such as Hootsuite — to keep an eye on what people are saying about you online.

To monitor performance and find out about new reviews, it’s often much easier, quicker, and more effective to use an online reputation management tool like BrightLocal’s Reputation Manager. This is especially true if your business is present on lots of review sites or you’re managing multiple locations.

When it comes to reputation management, online review frequency matters, so you’ll also want to be as creative as possible to generate the maximum number of reviews. 

Adding a link to the bottom of your email signature, so it’s easy for all email recipients to review your business, can be an effective way of boosting your review profile. It also pays to regularly request reviews via social media posts. 

If you have a physical brick-and-mortar store, you could hand out cards requesting a review be left for you at the register, or have a tablet set up by the exit with your preferred review platform loaded up. This will encourage customers to leave a review right then and there. 

For restaurants, hotels, and bars, you can use printed flyers or cards to invite guests to leave a review. Tripadvisor has a library of items that you can order to help prompt consumers to review your business, including stickers, cards, and check inserts. 

How to Respond to Online Reviews

It’s no secret that today’s consumers use reviews to make a choice when selecting a local business. What may be surprising, is that consumers increasingly make a point of reading business responses to reviews. 89% of consumers are highly or fairly likely to use a business that responds to reviews, so this simple act can have a direct impact on your bottom line.

Left unanswered, negative reviews can be hugely detrimental to your online reputation. So, you’ll want to reply promptly to address concerns raised and attempt to restore confidence in your business (you can find our tips for responding to negative reviews here). 

Replying to reviews can be as simple as creating a few different templates to thank each customer for their feedback. Make sure each response is personalized to reference the reviewer’s name and refer to specific points they raised in their review. As a starting point try: 

• Thanks so much for your feedback [name of reviewer]. We’re delighted to hear we were able to help! 
• Hi [reviewer name] — we’re happy to hear that you enjoyed your visit and look forward to welcoming you back again soon! 
• Hello [reviewer name] it’s great to hear that you enjoyed the [service or product]. Thank you for sharing your feedback! 
• Hi [reviewer name] thank you for your kind review and detailed feedback. We’re glad to hear you appreciated [insert points from review]. Your comments help us to improve and we hope to see you again soon.

How to Showcase Online Reviews

Because reviews are so important in aiding consumer decision-making, you’ll want to showcase five-star reviews on your own site. This will serve as a conversion optimization tool and provide social proof. 

Many review platforms offer widgets that you can install on your site to showcase your most recent reviews. This is a piece of code you’ll copy from the review platform and paste onto any page on your site (such as your homepage or service pages). This will then show your reviews. 

A tool like Reputation Manager can be used to automate the process of sharing your best reviews with your site visitors.

A final option is to manually add your favorite reviews to your website. However, this process is the least efficient, as you’ll need to regularly set time aside to update the reviews you showcase. 

How do you manage online reviews?

Now that you can answer the question, “What is online review management?”, you can embark upon the process of managing online reviews. 

An effective strategy will allow you to consistently work through each of these four core elements of review management. This means you’ll have a process in place to generate reviews, consistently monitor the content of those reviews so you can pinpoint problems before they escalate, have a process for responding to reviews, and make great use of this social proof by showcasing your strongest, most recent reviews on your site.

Reputation management and online reviews are not the same thing. 

While review management and reputation management are often used interchangeably — and do overlap in some areas — reputation management is a distinct area of expertise in its own right. It’s often dealt with by public relations consultants or agencies rather than a local SEO specialist.  

While review management is vital for local businesses who want to grow their search visibility and win more local custom, reputation management is wider in its scope and encompasses the entirety of a business’ reputation. Reputation management involves everything from social media posts to brand coverage in media outlets, while also working to favorably position the business with positive reviews, high-profile endorsements, and useful content and resources. 

What is online reputation management?

Online reputation management (sometimes known as online presence management) is the broader overall strategy that sets out how each facet of building a positive online reputation will be conducted and directed. 

A reputation management strategy will consider how to conduct the brand messaging, how to amplify reviews, how to secure positive media mentions, and include plans for dealing with a PR crisis arising from negative publicity. Each activity within the strategy will be executed in line with how the organization wishes to be perceived.

Why is online reputation management important?

Your reputation is your most valuable asset. If you’re only taking care of it when a blow has been delivered, then your reputation is already at risk.

We live in the Information Age. Details about a business, its products, its personnel, its culture, its ethics, and how it treats its customers are available on-demand, online, and in any location. 

Your online reputation is created from a range of sources — comments, shares, recommendations, reviews, endorsements, news articles, and so on. New publishers, platforms, and apps are continually springing up, making online reputation a living, breathing entity that needs to be carefully monitored and managed. 

Your brand is shaped by these sources, as well as what is being said and shared online by others. A consumer’s perception of this information tells them what they can expect from you. 

With 81% of consumers seeking out their own information before making a decision, taking a proactive approach to managing your online reputation is essential. Doing so means that those consumers are more likely to find information that paints your business in a positive light, rather than details which send them in search of a competitor. Online reputation management recognizes this fact and brings clarity to the chaos in the form of a documented global strategy — one that unites and controls the wealth of channels.

Reputation is Important to Businesses Big and Small

Whether you’re the head of a large national business, or you run a ‘mom-and-pop’ convenience store, a bed and breakfast, or a local veterinary surgery, what people say and think about your brand and business matters. Their online opinions have a direct impact on whether other people want to spend their money with you, or if they feel they’d be better off with a competitor.

Online reputation management isn’t just for big businesses. It’s just as vital for local businesses to embrace this discipline and to have a strategy in place to amplify the good and deal with the bad.

As a local business owner, the task of online reputation management doesn’t have to weigh heavily on you. There are a multitude of affordable tools out there which can do some of the heavy lifting.

You can set up a free Google Alert, for example, to notify you of any online mentions of your brand. ResponseSource or HARO can deliver journalist requests directly to your inbox to scour PR opportunities, while BrightLocal’s own small business solutions can help you grow your customer reviews.

Ratings and Reviews are Embedded in the Path to Purchase

Online ratings and reviews are now a pivotal stop on the path to purchase. They’re used at each stage of the buyer journey, from initial research, through the consideration phase, and play a key role in the final decision to purchase or not. 

The power of reviews isn’t restricted to review platforms. A cohesive online reputation management strategy will allow you to repurpose and leverage your reviews to their fullest across a range of channels to amplify their impact. This could mean sharing reviews on social media, posting them on your website, creating case studies with them, or showcasing them in a TV ad.

Trust Matters

Consumer trust is the heartbeat of your organization. Without it, your local business simply isn’t sustainable.

Today, consumer trust is harder to win and more important to hold onto than ever before. The 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report: In Brands We Trust? discovered that being able to trust a brand is a major factor in deciding to purchase for 81% of consumers.

With three quarters of the report respondents saying they actively tried to avoid advertising by using tools like ad blockers, online reputation management can help you to demonstrate trustworthiness and create a positive brand perception. This can be done using a range of channels (reviews, social media, PR, and local search) in a joined-up, cohesive, and consistent manner.

Online Reputation Management Gives You a Rounded View of Your Business

At its most basic level, taking proactive measures to establish a positive online reputation simply makes good business sense.

Through the course of online reputation management, you’ll have opportunities to study how consumers perceive your brand, what they loved about your business, where the niggles and disappointments were, and how you stack up against your competitors.

This is not just a chance to see your business through the eyes of your customers or clients, but an opportunity to gather intel and data, which could help you make improvements and refine your offering.

Your Online Reputation is Important for Recruitment

Your business is only as good as its people. To recruit the best people, you need a stellar reputation.

Research by Indeed — the online jobs board — revealed that just 23% of job seekers would be able to overlook a negative reputation when researching a prospective employer. For local businesses, this is especially important. LinkedIn reports that a strong brand can help to lower the cost of recruitment, attract better candidates, and speed up the time taken to fill vacancies.

What does online reputation management include?

Online reputation management includes a range of tactics to emphasize favorable content and opinions about your brand. This includes carrying out public relations campaigns, social media marketing, content marketing, review management, SEO, customer engagement, and crisis management. 

How to Build an Online Reputation Management Strategy

Developing a reputation management strategy doesn’t need to be intimidating! Think of it as a fact-finding mission followed by the creation of a plan to focus your efforts on the things that matter most to you.

Step 1: Research Your Current Online Reputation

Your first task is to understand where you stand right now. What are people saying about you? How are they rating your products and services? What is their perception of your business?

Assembling all of this information can be daunting, but you don’t have to do it manually. There are numerous tools available to automate and speed up this process.

• You could use Hootsuite or a similar social media tool to track social media brand mentions. 
• BrightLocal can help you track reviews. 
• There are numerous free and paid tools to track brand mentions as a result of PR activity and media mentions. 
• You can use Awario to keep up to date with any mention of your brand across the web including in forums, blogs, and news reports.

For this data to be useful, you’ll need to assign context and sentiment, so try to quantify them. A simple system such as ‘positive, negative, neutral’ is an easy place to start.

For small amounts of data, take a sample of statements from across these channels to get a general idea of how people are feeling about your brand. Be sure not to let your unconscious bias lead to you pick only very good or very bad comments. Cast a broad net.

Step 2: Send an NPS Survey

NPS (Net Promoter Score) is a scale which runs from -100 to 100. You ask a series of questions and then apply the scale to measure how willing your customers are to recommend your local business.

NPS helps you to understand loyalty and sentiment. This is useful when developing your online reputation management strategy as it shows you what you’re working with, highlights any reputation problems to address, and indicates where your focus should be.

You can use a tool such as Reputation Manager to ask your customers to give you feedback or reviews, and then apply the NPS scale to determine how they feel.

If you don’t want to survey your customers, you could add an NPS pop-up to your site. Many popular CMS systems, including WordPress, have NPS plugins that you can simply download and activate.

Step 3: Find Out What Matters to Your Customers and What Helps Them Build Trust

Trust is subjective. What gives one person peace of mind may not matter at all to another.

Research suggests that one in three consumers consider ‘trust in brand’ as one of their top three reasons for choosing any given business. But that trust has many facets; brands need to be authentic, responsive to feedback, transparent, dependable, consistent, offer good customer service, maintain a high product or service quality, consider sustainability, have an ethical supply chain, and so on.

The purpose of this step is to find out what your customers expect from you.

Are they likely to forgive slow shipping if your customer service and product quality is top notch?

Do they expect a highly personalized service or do they appreciate more straightforward communications?

A crucial part of this stage of the process is determining which platforms, forums, apps, and websites your audience uses. Which social networks does your demographic favor? Which newspapers do they read? Which forums are they active on? Which review platforms do they gravitate towards when they want to read online reviews or leave them?

The purpose of asking these questions is to narrow down where it’s most important to build and manage your reputation. Referring back to the research conducted in step one should give you the answers to these questions.

Step 4: Set Online Reputation Management Goals

For the time you invest in your online reputation management strategy to really pay dividends, your actions must be both measurable and accountable. The goals you set will directly influence the tactics you adopt to manage your reputation. These goals will also help you gauge whether or not your approach is effective.

Ask yourself what you want to achieve. For example, if the results of your NPS survey were disappointing, do you want to see that improve by the end of this project? How are you going to go about that? Does your poor online reputation stem from a genuinely poor customer experience? If so, you’ll need to start by resolving that.

If you get great reviews, perhaps you want to put a process in place for regular review monitoring to ensure they stay that way.

If you’ve determined that your audience reads a certain website but you fail to feed their writers positive stories of your achievements, maybe you want to raise your profile there.

You could well find that you need to add to or adjust your goals as you begin to execute your chosen reputation management tactics — and that’s fine. Don’t be afraid to adjust them as you get to work so that they continue to help you measure the success (or otherwise) of your efforts.

Step 5: Decide on Your Tactics

Deciding on the tactics you’ll use is the final piece of the strategic puzzle. From review generation to social media monitoring, you’ll need to choose the activities that help you meet your reputation goals. 

Overview of Reputation Management Tactics

Review Generation and Monitoring

Requesting reviews from your clients is crucial for online reputation management. It’s known that today’s consumers crowdsource information via reviews to help with the decision-making process.

There are many benefits to online reviews, offering compelling reasons to take a proactive approach to generate as many new reviews as you can:

• the more new reviews you can obtain, the better your local SEO rankings are likely to be;
• they are trusted by consumers;
• they help to generate sales; and
• they give you helpful insights that you can use to improve your business.

Just 3% of consumers will use a business with two-star reviews or lower. This makes a poor reputation extremely costly.

Asking for reviews can be done in a number of ways, including with a review tool such as BrightLocal, via an email template, in person, via SMS, or as a website link.

In addition to gathering reviews, you’ll also need to factor in the time needed to respond to reviews. Your responses are read by consumers searching for your business online, but they also indicate that you value feedback.

To really make the most of your reviews and further move your reputation marketing forwards, you’ll need to showcase your best reviews on your website. You can also share positive reviews in your blog and article content, in your PR activity, and on social media.

Google My Business Monitoring

Consumers naturally turn to Google when they want to find a local business or share their experience of using a local business. To be in the loop, you’ll need to monitor your Google My Business (GMB) listing for new reviews. 

In addition to the reviews function, GMB has lots of other useful features for online reputation management, such as the option to share news and offers via Posts and respond to questions in the Q&A section.

If you haven’t claimed your GMB listing yet, it’s free to do so. Our guide here has step-by-step instructions.

Social Media Monitoring

Today’s consumers don’t just use social media to catch up with friends — it’s increasingly a place to discover new brands and products, aid in decision making, and connect with local businesses. Instagram data confirms that 70% of its user base looks to the social network for their next purchase. 

Adding a social media monitoring tool to your arsenal means you can keep abreast of what’s being said about your local business on social media. Popular options include HubSpot, Hootsuite, Buffer, and Sprout Social.

Broadly speaking, you can segment your social media listening into two parts:

• Part 1 is the monitoring itself, which flags up mentions of your brand (either manually or using a tool).
• Part 2 is taking stock of those mentions, understanding the sentiment, and then taking the appropriate action, such as taking part in the conversation, thanking the social media user for their feedback, or directing them to a relevant resource.

Monitoring Brand Mentions on the Web

Opinions and comments about your local business aren’t just restricted to review platforms and social media; they can appear anywhere — from local newspapers and trade press to industry forums and blogs.

This means you need to monitor the web to stay up to date with positive and negative comments about your business, and ensure you’re able to react to them accordingly as part of the process of managing your online reputation

Keeping tabs on brand mentions online can be largely automated. Simply go to Google and set up a Google Alert for your business name.

It’s advisable to also set up alerts for your own name if you’re closely associated with the business, as well as any brands or products specific to you. If you have the budget, there are a number of dedicated tools available. Brandwatch, Awario, Mention, Meltwater and Brand24 are good starting points.

When you’re actively seeking out what people are saying about you, it’s inevitable that you’ll come across negative mentions at some point. That could be in the form of a disgruntled customer, a disparaging rival, or a less-than-glowing review on a blog.

The whole point of online reputation management is to find this information early so you can react quickly and minimize the damage.

Crisis Management

We’ve all heard the old saying that ‘failing to prepare is preparing to fail’. Crisis management is one area where it really does pay to be prepared. The last thing you want is to find yourself faced with a crisis and have no plan in place for minimizing the damage.

The easiest way to do this is to create a list of the worst-case scenarios you can think of. Divide them into levels of crisis, such as bad, very bad, and the worst, and then outline what to do in each instance.

You’ll also want to assign roles to specific people. This is so everyone knows what’s expected of them and who’s responsible for putting out a press statement or updating social media.

Crisis management is a big deal, so it’s worth doing your research. Mention has a 20-minute on-demand video sharing tips on how to respond to negative press, while Meltwater has a free crisis communications guide. The Chartered Institute of Public Relations also has a free library of webinars, podcasts, and skills guides dedicated to handling an online crisis.

A crisis management plan isn’t something to be afraid of. It’s something that can be a lifeline when you’re being pulled in a dozen different directions trying to save your business.

Even the biggest brands find themselves very publicly in the midst of a crisis from time to time, but you can turn a negative into a positive with the right approach!

If you need a little inspiration, take a look at examples of the best-managed PR crises from brands, such as KFC (running out of chicken), Starbucks (reacting to the actions of a racist employee) and Crockpot (ever seen This Is Us?).

Public Relations

Reputation marketing isn’t just about reacting to what people are already saying; it’s also about actively creating positivity around your business. Traditionally, this falls under the umbrella of public relations and generating positive press about your company.

Gone are the days when this meant you had to be well-connected to every editor on Fleet Street or have a direct line to the New York Times. It’s a myth to think you need a little black book of contacts to have any hope of getting your name in print. It’s entirely achievable for local businesses, so don’t be put off including this in your reputation marketing toolkit. All you need is a good story, a willingness to pick up the phone, and perseverance.

PR isn’t a quick fix. You can’t send out a press release one day and wake up to front page news the next. While that may happen in rare instances, in most cases it takes time to build momentum and secure coverage, so the ‘slow and steady’ approach wins the race.

With that in mind, you’ll need to incorporate other PR tactics, such as sponsoring local events or organizations and entering local business awards. Both of these are also good ways to build links back to your site from reputable, relevant local sources to help with your local SEO.

HubSpot has a series of free PR templates, along with examples and tips for creating a newsworthy press release to boost the chances of your news getting picked up by journalists.

A Final Definition of Online Reputation Management 

Online reputation management is a broad area of activity which seeks to cultivate a positive image of your business. This is achieved by emphasizing great feedback and mentions, while limiting the impact of negative experiences and comments.

Knowing how reputation management works means you’ll understand the need to be mindful of the broader strategy, goals, and performance required to master it. Using the strategy above and selecting the tactics that are right for your local business and current situation puts lots of benefits within reach.

These methods and this approach enable you to see your business through your customers’ eyes. Most importantly, online reputation management will help you bring your business and your customers closer together.

In an era where the internet has taken over the world, online reviews are bound to drive customers either towards or away from your business. Making customer satisfaction an essential part of your business strategy can only help your sales and profitability.

What are the benefits of online reviews?

The benefits of online reviews for local businesses span a number of different areas, but key to their usefulness is that they offer social proof, are used as a reference point for local consumers seeking trustworthy local businesses, and are a known local SEO ranking factor. 

Broadly speaking, these advantages can be split into two camps: increased visibility and increased sales. 

Why are reviews important for small businesses when it comes to winning more business?

In the modern digital landscape, there’s simply no getting away from online reviews. They’re woven into the fabric of online consumer behavior so deeply that consumers who don’t seek out, refer to, or use online reviews in their decision-making process are now in the minority.

Reviews Are Frequently Referenced by Consumers Searching for a Local Business

Small businesses are especially well-placed to benefit from a positive review profile. This is largely because 77% of local consumers always or regularly turn to reviews as a source of information when they’re researching a local business. 

This means that a strong review profile can help you to highlight your excellence, especially as consumers will see your reviews when they’re looking at your products or services. 

Reviews Help to Cultivate Trust

While reviews are just one part of the marketing mix, they’re a vital tool in establishing trust, which in itself is a prerequisite for beating the competition to sales, subscriptions, and reservations. 

For small businesses, establishing trust is a major challenge when going head-to-head with larger well-known brands, such as Amazon or Walmart. However, a lack of financial resources isn’t necessarily a hindrance, with research from Tripadvisor confirming that a positive review profile can take the place of a large ad budget. 

This research found that modern consumers are increasingly unlikely to be swayed into a purchase by an advert. However, over two-thirds will consult reviews before making a final purchase decision. 

Reviews are a Trusted Source of Information

BrightLocal research confirms that half of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations from friends and family, while 28% of consumers trust them as much as articles penned by subject-matter experts. Reviews are pieces of information that consumers feel confident believing in, which makes them a very useful business asset.

Review elements are known to give shoppers confidence when it comes to making a purchase, with average star rating, volume of reviews, detail offered in reviews, length of reviews, and recency all useful for enhancing confidence levels. 

Positive Reviews Lead to New Business

We’ve already seen that there’s a strong correlation between online reviews and building consumer trust. Trust is a currency — it’s a means of securing a sale, a reservation, or a booking. 

Trusting a review isn’t a passive action and doesn’t happen in isolation. When consumers trust online reviews, they tend to do something. That action could cover anything from calling the store, visiting the location, buying online, or making a booking. These actions invariably lead to new business and help to grow your revenue. In fact, 40% of shoppers say that consumer reviews and photos make them more likely to buy a product from an advert.

Think of the relationship between positive reviews and new business as a revenue relationship, with the better your review profile, the more revenue you could potentially earn. 

To underline this potential, it’s worth noting that 97% of consumers will only use a local business that has more than two stars, while 40% say a business must have a minimum of four stars to win their custom. Therefore, having a range of good reviews gives you a head start in the race to secure that business over a competitor.

The correlation between online reviews and new business is really a culmination of the positive sentiment we have seen consumers exhibit when it comes to reviews.

When shopping or researching online, there’s no salesperson to turn to, so online reviews from peers provide valuable information about the company, product, or service. Consumers — especially digitally-native Millennials and Gen Z — are predisposed to trusting online reviews and take an almost crowdsourced approach to making decisions.

Feedback from peers, which comes in the form of online reviews, allows consumers to gather data, become aware of potential problems, find out what or who other people have had the best experiences with, and spend their money in line with the majority.

Responding to Reviews Gives Consumers an Insight Into Your Business

For many consumers, how you respond to reviews is very telling and can make or break the tentative impression they’re building of your brand through their research.

Almost 9 out of 10 (89%) consumers are highly or fairly likely to use a local business that responds to all reviews, both good and bad. This is one of the unexpected benefits of review management — it gives you a chance to interact with your customers, thank them for their business, learn from their experiences, and express your company culture to potential shoppers. How you handle negative reviews can also be a positive as you’re demonstrating that you take customer feedback seriously and are committed to offering the best possible levels of service.

Benefits of Reviews for Local SEO

We’ve established that consumers love reviews and, in many cases, use a good or bad review to validate their decision to do business with you. Search engines also take a similar stance.

It should come as no surprise that reviews and SEO are closely linked because they have much the same objective. A search engine wants to help its users find the right product, service, or information in the timeliest manner possible. Reviews serve to separate the good from the bad and help consumers find the best local business for their needs.

Think of reviews as crowdsourced recommendations — a four or five-star review tells a search engine that it can confidently show that business in a premium, high-visibility location.

Review Signals Play a Critical Role in Local Pack Visibility 

It’s hard to overstate the benefits of Google reviews when it comes to Local Pack visibility. Reviews play a vital role in the success or failure of local SEO strategies. Therefore, having a strong local SEO presence is non-negotiable if you want to ensure the long-term success of your business.

To be in with a chance of securing custom, you need to be highly visible to local search users, and for that, you need plenty of reviews. Review signals, including quantity, velocity, diversity, and star rating make up the second-most important Local Pack ranking factor. 

According to the Local Search Ranking Factors Survey, review signals make up 17% of the search engine decision-making process when it comes to Local Pack rankings. When factoring reviews into algorithms, experts say that metrics such as the number of reviews a business has, the velocity of reviews, and the diversity of reviews received are all taken into account. And, reviews are only growing in importance, having gone up from 12% in 2014 to 17% in 2021.

Having reviews on a number of review platforms, lots of positive sentiment within the reviews, and having product or service keywords within the text of reviews have also been identified as competitive difference-makers by a panel of local search experts.

Google also confirms that the star rating and frequency of the reviews your business receives makes a difference to your search position, saying, “High-quality, positive reviews from your customers can improve your business visibility.” 

Reviews Tick the Quality Box for Good SEO

Building better search rankings isn’t just a case of impressing the automated bots. Google also relies on its human quality control team. 

This makes strong reviews an even more valuable SEO tool. Search Quality Raters can consider review content when deciding whether a business meets the required standards of expertise, authority, and trust needed to rank well.

Why are ratings and reviews important?  

While you’ll inevitably gather online reviews for your brand if you take a hands-off approach, it likely won’t come anywhere near to the volume and freshness of reviews you need to enjoy the local SEO and business benefits outlined.

Regularly acquiring ratings and reviews has a direct impact on how successful your business can be.

Consumers Expect to Read a Lot of Reviews

First up, prioritizing the acquisition of online reviews means you’re much better placed to meet or exceed consumer expectations. The volume of reviews you have matters to today’s consumers, with 69% saying the number of reviews is an important factor. Also, 69% class the range of review sites used by your business as important.

We know that trust strongly impacts sales, so you need to have a large enough stock of reviews to get your prospective customers to feel they have enough information to put their trust in your business.

Consumers Value Quantity and Freshness

From a purely numbers-focused perspective, local consumers value quantity of reviews highly, but they also want to see fresh reviews, with recency of reviews important to 73% of consumers. 

Google Wants You to Have a Lot of Reviews, Too

It’s not just consumers who place importance on a large number of reviews — Google does, too. This is especially important if you’re a Google Ads advertiser because you’ll need at least 100 reviews to activate the seller ratings ad extension.

If you aren’t adding enough reviews on a regular basis, you run the risk of your potential customers moving onto the reviews of your nearest rival and seeing your local SEO rankings slip.

A Poor Reputation is Very Dangerous

We’ve seen all of the positives that come with prioritizing online review management — increased trust, a better reputation, more sales — but the flip side is that a poor reputation is just as impactful, but in a much more harmful way. Negative reviews can convince a consumer that your business can’t be trusted to deliver the standard of service or product quality that they expect. 

A poor review is also easily accessible via search engine results, and unless you successfully get it removed, it will show on the review platform itself, too. These are all potential routes to undermining every single consumers view of your business.

If you’re proactive about reputation management and regularly monitoring online reviews, you’ll be able to offset some of this damage by quickly (and appropriately) responding to negative reviews. You can find our step-by-step guide to replying to negative reviews here.

Customer Feedback Gives You Valuable Insights You Can Use to Improve Your Business

In essence, an online review is simply a description of an experience. It’s one consumer explaining to others how they found your business, the quality of the product or service they received, and how it was to deal with you.

Online reviews are inherently valuable because they put you in your customer’s shoes. This gives you real-world insights into how your business can better serve those it relies on for survival. While they’re the reviews that all business owners dread, negative reviews can actually be the most useful of all.

If you run a hotel and guest reviews routinely mention ‘slow check-in’, for example, you have a heads-up that your process likely needs fine-tuning to ensure a more positive first impression.

What are the advantages of online review sites?

Reviews will happen whether or not you make them a priority for your business. We live in an age where consumers treat online reviews as the norm, rely on them to make purchase decisions, and create an impression of new businesses.

Online reviews are the modern equivalent of a word-of-mouth recommendation and, as such, are incredibly valuable assets that you can leverage by being proactive. 

Online review sites provide a dedicated home for your customer ratings and feedback, along with a range of tools to manage your online review profile. Review platforms, such as Facebook, Google, Yelp, and Tripadvisor are well-known to consumers, and these platforms enable you to gather feedback that you may otherwise not have access to.

There’s no doubt that consumer expectations are high in this area, and that can be daunting for any local business owner or marketer. You need a constant influx of reviews, a high quantity of reviews, new reviews added daily to compensate for older reviews losing value, and even available resources for responding to reviews.

Review platforms make some of those tasks easier by providing a dedicated ecosystem to collect, publicly respond to, and manage your online reviews. 

Yelp is a treasure trove of user-generated content—the holy grail of content marketing. With Yelp, your customers can post reviews of your business that potential customers can see when looking for services like yours, and this is just one of many reasons to use Yelp.

Who is Yelp for?

There’s a lot of money to be made in the service industry, with Americans typically spending upwards of $300 a month on eating out. To that end, Yelp can be especially helpful for restaurants, clubs, entertainment venues, bars, and shopping centers, and also for contractors, such as plumbers and electricians.

If you’re opening your own service-based company, you’ll want to look into Yelp right after you start an LLC. But you’re not just going to toss your business listing up on the site and start reaping the rewards. There’s a lot more to it than that.

You’ll first need to add or claim your business on Yelp and begin earning reviews. It also helps to utilize paid advertising and other notable features that Yelp has added within the last few years. In this article, we’re going to teach you how to do all of that and more.

Read on to learn how you can propel yourself into the world of user-generated content to get the most out of Yelp for your business. 

Claiming Your Business on Yelp

The first step to succeeding at Yelp is to get your business listed on the website. Before you go ahead and add your business, you should check if it’s already there. There’s a number of reasons why your business might already be listed on Yelp, so don’t neglect this step. 

You can easily check this by searching for your business on the ‘Manage my free listing’ page.

Once you’ve determined if your business listing already exists, then you’re ready to get rolling on Yelp. We recently published a full guide on how to add or claim a Yelp listing, so we’re not going to go into a lot of detail here.

But the gist of it is:

• Create a Yelp business account;
• Add your information, like business phone number, address, website, and category;
• Verify your business, either by phone or email;
• Add images and descriptions; and
• Add additional locations.

For a full step-by-step breakdown with visual aids, check out our in-depth guide. To ensure you don’t miss anything, jot down each step in the process and create a workflow that you can follow.

How to Optimize Your Yelp Business Page

Much like your website, your Yelp business page is going to need some serious optimization if you want to maximize results.

The first step of Yelp optimization is to make sure that you have all your information filled out. This includes your business name, address, phone number, email address, etc. If you leave any information out, you’re presenting an incomplete profile to the masses, and no one wants that.

Believe it or not, Yelp is actually a search engine, and it works a lot like Google when it comes to optimization. To appease the Yelp algorithm, you have to give it as much information as possible.

Use Relevant Keywords

For best results, you’ll want to enhance your Yelp content with relevant keywords. These keywords will be the terms and phrases that you’d like to rank for.

For example, if you’re a Chinese restaurant, you’ll obviously want to rank for the search term ‘Chinese food’ in your area. Or, if you’re a plumber who operates 24-hours a day, you can shoot for ’24-hour plumber’.

Generate Backlinks

In keeping with the SEO-side of things, you’re also going to want to generate backlinks to your Yelp page.

Yelp has a ‘check-in’ feature that allows people to mark that they visited a business—and you should encourage customers to use it. That’s a backlink every time someone clicks.

Add Photos

It’s important to add photos of your business to Yelp because people enjoy visual aids. This also helps to showcase your products or services, which can encourage people to visit your business.

Source: Business 2 Community

Video content also works wonders. Just make sure that you have stellar editing software so that you can create professional-looking clips.

Assess Your Strategy

Finally, the best way to truly optimize your Yelp page is to constantly revisit this task. That means regularly examining your results and changing your strategy accordingly. Assess what’s working for you and what’s not going so well.

If you think you’re not getting enough traffic, then it’s a good idea to update your categories periodically. You can experiment with this to see which category brings the most customers to your listing.

By giving your attention to all of these actions, you can turn your Yelp business page into a hotspot of online activity, and one that’ll continue to produce valuable user-generated content.

Ask Customers to Review Your Business (Without Asking Them)

The best way to get customers to review your business on Yelp would logically be to ask them to do so. There’s only one problem with that. Yelp doesn’t want you to specifically solicit reviews from your customers, and it actually goes against the Yelp guidelines.

Yelp extensively covers this policy in a 2017 blog post:

“Asking for reviews at all, even if the business breaks norms and attempts to ask more than just their happy customers, can create a bias away from organically motivated reviews.

“When some businesses ask for reviews and others don’t, it becomes difficult for users to compare reviews across businesses. Not only does solicitation lead to bias, it’s a bad experience for customers, too.”

So, how can you encourage Yelp reviews without actually asking people?

Your Business Website and Marketing Channels

You can mention that you’re on Yelp without directly asking anyone to leave a review. Include links on your website that simply say, ‘Check us out on Yelp.’ Experiment with different call-to-actions (CTA) on these links, and see what yields the best results.

You can also include these CTA links in social media posts, such as on Facebook and Twitter.

Instagram is a fantastic place to promote your business, but it doesn’t allow clickable links in posts. You can get around this by making a post with a graphic that reads, ‘Check us out on Yelp. Link in bio’. Then include a link to Yelp in your Instagram bio—there are many bio link tools to help you with that. Also, all Instagram users now have the option to add links to Stories, so this is definitely a great tactic to employ. 

Additionally, if you’re running any lead generation campaigns, such as through email marketing, then you can add the Yelp page links in the emails.

Responding to Reviews

You should always be responding to the reviews you receive, both positive and negative.

When you get a negative review, your response says a lot about your business. If you’re defensive or quick to anger, it’s going to make you and your business look bad. But apologizing for whatever caused the bad experience—and publicly attempting to make it right—can go a long way in the eyes of your reviewers.

If people see that you’re happy to respond to reviews, they’re more likely to leave them.

Advertise on Yelp

Another way to promote your Yelp listing is to use paid advertising on the platform.

By paying Yelp directly, you’re able to push your business page out in front of your target audience. This is all done through pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, similar to Google Ads.

Basically, you’re targeting specific people and paying every time they click on your ad. You can set your own budget when advertising on Yelp, with a minimum spend of $5 per day. Businesses will typically spend anywhere from $300 to $1,000 per month on Yelp ads.

If you don’t know much about advertising, then you can hire a freelance marketer on a contract basis to do the work for you. When you work with freelancers, it’s a good idea to specify your requirements in a contract using built-in contract templates. This helps everyone to stay on the same page regarding expectations, targets, and deadlines.

Latest Notable Yelp Features

If you want to keep Yelp as a viable profit generator for years to come, you’re going to have to stay on top of updates to the system. Technology is rapidly changing, and if you don’t keep your ear to the ground, you’re not going to be able to keep up with your competitors.

The following are notable features Yelp has added within the last few years. Get familiar with these features and use them to your advantage in 2022.

Request a Quote

While this feature has been around since 2016, it’s something that really helps small quote-based businesses and, therefore, still deserves some recognition.

Yelp’s ‘Request a Quote’ function was launched as an update to its already successful messaging feature. Listings under event planning, automotive, home services, financial services, professional services, and local services categories, will have a ‘Request a Quote’ button attached to them.

You can see these boxes highlighted in the image below, along with information on how long the business usually takes to respond:

In the example above, customers can see that the first plumber listed typically replies in ten minutes, while the second usually takes 20 minutes.

‘Request a Quote’ has been a huge success, prompting a 250% increase in message response rates from business owners. Thanks to this service, you’re likely to get more quote requests and more opportunities to interact directly with potential customers.

Custom Search Filters

Yelp launched custom search filters in 2021, and this feature has already changed the way that consumers search for businesses.

Search queries now have new filters that can be applied, such as businesses that give virtual consultations, or even the fastest-responding businesses. This is ideal for service industry businesses, as it can showcase your exceptional response times and the additional benefits of choosing you.

Covid-19 Updates

The coronavirus pandemic has negatively impacted countless businesses across the planet. With pandemic-related issues shifting on a near constant basis, it can be difficult to communicate recent changes to your customers.

Yelp is a huge help with this thanks to its ‘Covid-19 Updates’ feature. Businesses are able to instantly list any changes to their hours. What’s more, they can ease worried customers’ minds by sharing Covid-19 policies through customizable banner alerts.

Source: Yelp

Custom Location Targeting

This advertising feature allows businesses to choose the specific geographic area where they want their ads to run.

Before the rollout of custom location targeting, businesses were only able to choose a target radius that surrounded the business location. However, you’re now able to choose the specific geographic location where you want your ads to run, regardless of your physical location.

Customizable Calls-to-Action

In 2021, Yelp started allowing businesses to customize the CTAs that appear on their posts with whatever text they wanted to use. According to Yelp, this feature prompted a 40% increase in post engagement after only one month.

Ad Text Guidance

Businesses have always been able to customize the text that appears on their Yelp ads. However, business owners who don’t have copywriting expertise are now getting a helping hand in the form of ad text guidance.

Yelp provides example text that will help business owners create the best ad copy possible and level the playing field for all.

Source: Yelp

Minority-Owned Business Finder

If you’re a business owner who belongs to a minority group, Yelp allows you to list this information directly on your listing. This helps those who are looking to support minority-owned businesses to find you more easily.

In the wake of this change, review mentions for Black-owned businesses were up 165% in 2021.

Yelp took this a step further during February 2022, when it highlighted standout Black-owned businesses as part of Black History Month.

An Incredible Marketing Tool

The bottom line is that Yelp can be an incredible marketing tool for your business or a colossal waste of your time. It all depends on how you use it.

Much like a hammer can either be used to hang a painting or put a hole in a wall, Yelp can be a huge asset if you know what you’re doing and you put the time in.

Yelp provides excellent exposure, offers a platform for user-generated content, and it’s totally free to join. However, when you do use Yelp, you’re also naturally inviting the possibility of negative reviews, and the cost of Yelp advertising can add up to a big expense.

Ultimately, it’s up to you to decide if you’ll use Yelp to support your marketing efforts and boost your business!

Data confirms that consumers overwhelmingly turn to Facebook to research products and services more than any other platform. In fact, 51% of consumers say they use Facebook most for that purpose, with just 30% preferring YouTube instead. 

Source: Lucid Software

Why do Facebook Recommendations matter?

Facebook Recommendations provide a simple way for potential customers to judge whether a local business could be a good fit for them. As with other review platforms, Recommendations on Facebook allow consumers to share their experiences of local businesses with their peers. This is something that many local consumers value as a key part of their decision-making process when choosing a local business. 

The latest Consumer Review Survey confirms that more consumers are reading online reviews than ever before, with 77% ‘always’ or ‘regularly’ reading reviews when researching a local business. 

While this is a powerful statistic in its own right, it becomes even more compelling when combined with the fact that local consumers turn to Facebook more than any other social network for business and product information. These two behaviors clearly illustrate the potential power of a positive review profile on Facebook.

Over the last four years, Facebook has made Recommendations more important for Pages and made them a more prominent feature. It’s made it even more essential to claim your Facebook Page.

One of the interesting things about this new emphasis on Recommendations, is that social media is primarily a peer-to-peer space. This lends itself perfectly to reviews and the influence of reviews on Facebook, especially given how many people put as much trust in online reviews as they do personal recommendations. As a local business, knowing how to get Recommendations on Facebook can allow you to tap into the benefits on both sides of that coin. 

How do Facebook Recommendations work?

Previously known as reviews, there are two types of Recommendations on Facebook. The first is where users can take to their feed and ask for someone to recommend a product or service (such as a local handyman, date venue, or removal service). Other Facebook users can then respond with suggestions of local solutions that fit the bill. 

The second type is where Facebook asks if a consumer recommends a business that they’ve used, with the local consumer able to select simply yes or no. 

After making their choice, there’s the option to provide a more detailed text-based review, giving more context to the feedback. 

The Page visitor will see a points-based score out of five. 

Reviews gathered prior to the switch to Recommendations will still be displayed on the reviews tab, but it doesn’t appear that the additional information offered by reviewers choosing from the ‘yes’ or ‘no’ options is currently published. Facebook is in the process of making changes to how its review system works, so this may change and we’ll update this information to reflect any new developments as they happen. 

How do I find Recommendations on Facebook?

Locating your Recommendations on Facebook is easy. Simply log into your Facebook account, pull up your Facebook Page, and look for the ‘reviews’ tab along the top of your screen (just below your cover image). 

How to Get Recommendations on Facebook 

Growing your positive Recommendations on Facebook isn’t as daunting as you might think. 

Check That Your Reviews Tab Is Enabled

The very first thing to do before devising a strategy for requesting Recommendations on Facebook, is to ensure that you’ve enabled the reviews tab. If you’ve previously received reviews, Recommendations will also be enabled unless you’ve turned them off. 

To check, you’ll need to log into Facebook and have your Page open. You’ll see a ‘Manage Page’ menu on the left side of your screen. Scroll down to the ‘Settings’ option. 

Next, click ‘Template and Tabs.’ 

Now you can turn reviews on or off with the toggle. 

Devise Your Review Request Strategy 

If you’re already in the habit of requesting reviews for other platforms, such as Google Business Profile (formerly known as Google My Business), you can use many of those same techniques to get more reviews on Facebook. 

• Email: You may already be sending out emails to customers after you’ve successfully delivered the purchased product or service. Your email review request template can easily be adapted to include Facebook as an option for those who are happy to leave a review of your business. Include a link to your Facebook Page and a brief outline of how to locate the reviews tab. 
  
• SMS: SMS is a tried-and-tested method of growing your review profile and can work just as well for Facebook as other mediums. Just be sure to include your Facebook Page link in your SMS review request to get the full benefit of the incredibly high SMS open rates.

• Share a post on your Page: If you already have a respectable follower count on Facebook (or other social networks) share posts on a regular basis inviting your followers to leave a review. The standard rules of requesting a review apply here — be polite, thank your followers for their time, keep your message brief, and provide clear instructions for how to do so. Given the creative freedom you have on social media, you could even include a video or graphic with your post to demonstrate how to leave a review.

Requesting reviews on social media, finding reviews and feedback, and sharing those reviews with your social audiences isn’t quite as straightforward as you may expect. The reason? Many social reviews take the form of user-generated content rather than formal star ratings or recommendations.

Mastering this aspect of your reputation management can yield rich rewards, thanks to social media’s increasingly important role in the decision-making process.

Handling user reviews on social platforms works a little differently than your standard review management. So we’re going to give you tips to get back to basics.

What are Social Media Reviews?

In its simplest form, a social media review is feedback given about a particular business, product, or service posted on a social media platform.

However, that isn’t quite the full picture. One of the challenging characteristics of social media reviews for local business owners is the wide range of formats this feedback can take.

Some sites have a specific review option where users can rate or recommend a business or local service provider. One familiar example of this is the Facebook Reviews and Recommendations tab on Business Pages. Other popular sites, such as Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and LinkedIn don’t offer this clear review functionality.

That doesn’t mean that users don’t share reviews via their favorite social channels. Instead, it means reviews are shared in the formats they do have available to them. This could include detailing their experiences in a comment, sharing multimedia such as images or tagging local business profiles. 

How do reviews on social media differ from reviews on traditional review sites?

If you’ve been handling review management for any period of time, you’ll be familiar with how traditional review sites work and how to ask for reviews in a traditional manner. There’s a set structure and format which often takes the form of a star rating plus comment system. That’s not the case when dealing with many reviews on social media.

Only a very small number of the major social media networks have formal review structures in place (Facebook and YouTube which has a thumbs up/thumbs down system are the two notable exceptions). 

Due to this lack of infrastructure, most consumers share reviews in the same way they share their regular content on social media. That means reviews may take the form of comments, status updates, or tags.

The result is consumer feedback on local businesses that’s not always clearly marked as a review. This makes life difficult for local businesses asking for reviews on social media or seeking out consumer feedback which their clients are organically leaving independently across their preferred social networks.

You may find reviews for local businesses shared as:

• A status update posted on an individual consumer’s own profile or feed
• A comment left on a third-party post (such as a post by a friend asking a question or requesting recommendations from their network)
• A comment or reply left in response to an update from the business itself on their official page
• A picture or gallery of pictures, in a feed or as a temporary story
• A video
• A tag
• A retweet or reshare
• A thumbs up or down or star rating on a network which enables more traditional reviews
•  In the form of a direct message to the business via one of their official social profiles

That’s a lot, and often people won’t even tag you, so you could miss valuable information or feedback.

How do you find social media reviews?

Social media reviews can be particularly powerful. That’s because globally, online consumers spend 2.28 hours per day on social media.

Finding inspiration for things like products and services is among the top 10 reasons consumers spend so much time each day scrolling their social feeds. Pinterest, for example, is used by people to find ideas they particularly like the look of, including travel itineraries, local restaurants, or ways to improve their homes. Likewise, finding similar information is the second most common reason Instagram users log on. It’s a similar story on LinkedIn, Reddit, and Twitter.

Local business owners simply can’t afford not to know what their customers are saying about them socially.

The bad news is finding social media reviews isn’t as straightforward as monitoring traditional review platforms. Predominantly taking the form of user-generated content (UGC), sniffing out reviews across the social media ecosystem requires some manual research and a platform-specific approach in certain cases.

So let’s have a look at how to do it across different social platforms.

Finding reviews on Facebook

Finding reviews on Facebook is more straightforward than on many other social networks thanks to the star rating and recommendations system. If you’re already in the habit of asking for reviews on social media, you may already have a series of ratings and recommendations stored up. Finding them is easy. Just go to the Reviews tab at the top of your Page. You’ll see an overall star rating and then comments left by consumers who have opted to add a comment alongside their recommendation.

It’s important to keep in mind that not all consumers will leave a comment when recommending your business. Some may offer feedback and reviews on your main page rather than via the Reviews tab. There are a couple of ways this can be done.

A local consumer could comment on a recent post you shared and provide feedback about their experience, for example. You should already be regularly reading and responding to comments left by followers on your Page. If not, you’ll need to get into the habit of reviewing comments so you can pull out any review content.

A second way that a Facebook user may review your business would be to write a post on their own profile and tag your business Page. When your Page is tagged in a post, you’ll see an alert appear on the Notifications bell. Review these regularly so you don’t miss any reviews.

Many people may share a photo on their own feed and write something without tagging your business. Unfortunately, these can be nearly impossible to find. You may be able to come across them with some searches, but it may not be worth the time and effort.

Finding reviews on Instagram

Unlike Facebook, Instagram doesn’t have a formal review or ratings system for local businesses. That means you’re most likely to find customer feedback in the form of comments on your posts, tags in Stories or Reels, via direct message, or as comments made during live streams.

Instagram users also have the option of posting images, videos or captions to their own page and then tagging your business. When your profile is tagged, you’ll receive a notification via the alert icon.

Instagram content discovery is heavily dependent on hashtags. Some users may not @tag your profile when sharing their experiences of your local business but will use your brand name as a hashtag. You can manually search for brand-related hashtags using the search bar within the Instagram app. 

In some instances, if users have uploaded a Story or post about your business, they may tag the location instead of the Instagram account. These physical locations won’t be connected to your account and you won’t receive a notification.

You can, however, still view all the posts from a location tag by searching your business name in the search bar and clicking on the pin. You’ll then be able to select a particular location from the list and view all the media uploaded that tagged that location.

Finding reviews on TikTok

Similar to Instagram, the process of finding reviews made on TikTok requires some research.

With no formalized review or ratings system (though the testing of one has been rumored), you’re left to find customer feedback in the form of comments on your posts (including any livestreams you may do), videos tagged with your location, and mentions/tags of your business account in video captions. You should be notified of any tags of your business, so keep an eye on your notifications. 

Like Instagram, TikTok has a certain reliance on hashtags. It’s worthwhile to take the time to check the hashtags related to your brand. You will have to search this manually in the app as there’s no way to follow hashtags. 

However, you can add a hashtag to your favorites, which can then be accessed by going to the saved icon on your profile and scrolling to the far right to hashtags, creating a shortcut to all the hashtags you may want to keep an eye on. 

Finding reviews on Twitter

Posting reviews on social media isn’t always straightforward for consumers, who’ll often find there is no formal mechanism for sharing their feedback with local businesses. Twitter is one of those platforms.

With no structured public rating and review system in place, you’ll instead need to monitor the platform for Tweets that mention or tag your business. Typing your business name into the search box enables you to see posts, photos, or images which talk about your business, even when the original poster hasn’t tagged your profile. 

Finding reviews on Pinterest

Pinterest is a top destination for local consumers in search of products and services. That means it’s an important one to consider when searching for reviews on social media.

You’ll need to manually search for comments and imagery about your business on Pinterest as there’s no means of tagging other profiles or pages. Once you’ve entered your business name as the search term, you’ll need to click on each image to view any associated comments. From here, you can also click through to any linked third-party content such as blog posts or magazine articles for additional context.

General tips for finding reviews on social media

Don’t forget that users can send direct messages via social media. These can be a treasure trove of review content, especially if your clients prefer social channels for customer service.

Get into the habit of checking your notifications and alerts regularly for each of your social profiles. This will ensure you don’t miss new comments, DMs, posts to your pages, or tags.

If you find monitoring your social media profiles manually is too overwhelming or time-consuming, a social media marketing tool such as Hootsuite or Sprout Social can be used to automate the task. Our top social media tools resource is a great starting point. 

Tips for Responding to Reviews on Social Media

Because social media is a popular source of product discovery and business information, reviews on social media can be particularly helpful for local consumers. Research suggests that recommendations and product reviews are incredibly impactful and can turn browsers into buyers.

Your own responses to those reviews can add additional value and help to turn a negative review into a more positive customer experience.

With 98% of consumers in total reading online reviews for local businesses, feedback shared via social networks is something you can’t afford to ignore.

Knowing how to respond to online reviews is a core skill for any local business owner. Luckily, many of the tips you’re already familiar with as a result of your existing review management strategy are transferable to social media.

1. Respond as promptly as you can

Speed matters when responding to reviews. A fast response clearly demonstrates that consumer feedback is important to your business and something that you value.

Responses that take days or weeks to materialize signal to the original reviewer (and anyone reading the review later) that the customer experience isn’t a priority for your business. To speed up your response timeframe, try one of our handy review response templates.

2. Personalize your response

A personalized response shows that you have taken the feedback on board and appreciate the effort made by that local consumer.

Use the poster’s name or social media handle where possible and try to reference some aspect of their review in your reply. This shows both the original reviewer and other readers that you’ve taken time to digest the feedback and value your clients. 

3. Be authentic

Your review responses should read as if they came from a person, are genuine, and are authentic. If necessary, edit your review response template so the content is more in line with your own brand identity and tone of voice.

4. Recognize that engagement is key to social media success

Engagement and interaction matter to social media users. More and more, today’s consumers expect to receive a response when reaching out to brands via their social channels. 18% of US consumers say they expect a brand to respond to a comment within an hour while 76% expect engagement from that business within 24 hours. Taking the time to like, share and respond to comments, both good and bad, can help your business to meet consumer expectations and forge stronger connections with prospects.  

5. Have a plan to deal with negative reviews

There’s no getting away from the fact that sooner or later, you’ll have to respond to negative reviews.

Having a plan in place to deal with those reviews can make the experience less stressful and anxiety-inducing while also ensuring that you remain professional, polite, and offer a productive response.

When dealing with negative reviews, it’s even more important that you acknowledge the review quickly. Begin by thanking the customer for their feedback, apologize for their experience, and where possible, outline a suggested course of action to resolve the issue.

Those leaving a negative review may be tempted to continue the conversation in the public domain. Don’t be afraid to take the conversation offline after your initial response by inviting the reviewer to get in touch via phone, email, or direct message. Be sure to share the appropriate customer service telephone number or contact information to demonstrate your willingness to speak further in a more private setting.

Generating Reviews on Social Media

If you know how to ask for reviews on social media, you can gather valuable comments and opinions about your business from a range of new sources. What’s more, generating reviews socially means your Facebook, Instagram, and other social platforms can begin to play a direct role in conversions.

Develop platform-specific posts

An easy way to begin requesting reviews on social media is to develop a few platform-specific posts inviting your customers to share their experiences in the comments.

Image requirements, caption lengths, and the use of hashtags can vary considerably from platform to platform. It’s always advisable to tailor your review request post to suit each network’s recommended dimensions and format to get the best possible response.  

With your chosen platform’s guidelines in hand, you’ll need to select an eye-catching image and create a clear caption inviting previous customers to share their feedback. Don’t forget to add relevant hashtags where appropriate. To make life easier, you could also request that your audience uses a specific hashtag in their review – this will help you find those comments later if your page isn’t tagged.

On Facebook, provide instructions for locating the Reviews tab at the top of the page. For other social media networks, you’ll need to ask for replies to be left in the comments or for users to tag you in their feedback posts.

If you’re a Twitter for Business user, you can request feedback from consumers directly after they interact with you via a Customer Feedback prompt. 

Experiment with formats 

The nice thing about asking for reviews on social media is that you have plenty of scope to be creative. In addition to standard in-feed posts, consider what other post formats your chosen network offers. 

On Instagram, try sharing your review requests as a Story or creating a Reel. On Facebook, you could create an image carousel of previous reviews and invite your Page fans to share their own experiences. For LinkedIn, you may want to keep things more professional and share a link to a feedback form or invite your followers to share their thoughts in the comments below.

Send an email or SMS

Most consumers are happy to leave a review when asked to do so. The issue is that not all businesses know how to ask for reviews. This prevents them from following up with their clients after a store visit or purchase to request feedback.

53% of local consumers say that they would be ‘highly’ or ‘very likely’ to leave a review for a local business if they received an email or SMS request.  Try these tips for using email to request reviews and this advice for sending review requests via SMS.  

Don’t offer incentives for reviews

Don’t be tempted to offer incentives for reviews, such as discount codes, free samples, or competition entries. Incentivized reviews can be looked on unfavorably by local consumers, who may suspect whether a review is genuine or has been created for financial benefit.

Read more: Review Gating and Risky Review Schemes to Avoid

How to Showcase Your Reviews on Social Media

79% of consumers trust reviews as much as personal recommendations, recommendations made by influencers, and articles written by topic experts. It makes sense then, to showcase your best reviews as much as possible across your social media channels. You can showcase all your reviews on social media, not just those originating on Facebook, Instagram, and similar.

Share to your Stories

You can share a stream of your best new reviews in real-time via Stories (available on both Instagram and Facebook). You can either take screenshots of the review, clip the review box, or use a tool such as Canva to create a custom graphic. Sharing via Stories means that your post will only be visible for a temporary period, so you’ll need to combine this method with other options. The benefit of sharing to Stories is that this content format has higher levels of engagement and interaction.

Create a Highlight

Create a Highlight spot on your Instagram feed dedicated to reviews. Each time you’ve shared a new review to Stories, just click to add it to your Highlight. Over time, you’ll build up a store of reviews, easily accessible in one location directly from your profile.

Upload a carousel post

Many social media platforms allow you to upload multiple images and videos as a single post. Viewers can then cycle through your slides, without having to scroll through multiple different posts. With research showing that these carousel-style posts tend to generate more engagement and reach than a single image, this can be an effective way to draw attention to your most glowing reviews.

Repost and reshare

Research has found that 85% of people consider user-generated content to be more influential than content created by brands directly. That makes positive images, posts, and experiences shared by consumers inherently valuable on social media.

When you come across images, videos, comments, and posts from consumers, you can repost and reshare that UGC to your own feed. This is easy to do on most platforms and allows you to fill up your content calendar without having to create new posts yourself. 

Pin to the top of your feed

When posting customer reviews on social media, you may find they quickly slip down the feed as new content is shared. You can ensure that your most valuable reviews remain at the top and highly visible by pinning them. Several platforms offer this feature, including Instagram and Twitter. Once pinned, that post will stay at the very top of the feed until unpinned.

Apple Reviews

Having been overhauled with the launch of iOS 15, Apple Maps provides a wealth of useful features for those seeking navigation, including 3D city views in select cities, immersive walking directions, and route planning. 

For local consumers, there’s also handy place cards which make it easy to find local businesses and source helpful information, such as opening times and contact details. Apple Maps also has a search filter, so a user can search for a nearby local business type and pull up information, such as review rating and images, all within Apple Maps.

Apple reviews are primarily pulled from a range of other places, such as Yelp. The Apple Maps user is presented with an average star rating and can see selected detailed reviews directly within the Maps app. 

It’s also possible for the user to upload their own images, give a thumbs up or down rating, add to favorites, and report an issue. 

While Apple Maps isn’t as popular as Google Maps, it’s the default navigation app on all Apple-powered devices, including iPhones and iPads, and therefore has a large potential audience. With such an extensive reach and the continual addition of new features, it’s well worth adding Apple Maps to your review management activity.

Bing Places for Business

Microsoft’s alternative to GBP — Bing Places for Business — is another source of reviews and business information for local businesses and consumers alike. 

Local business owners can claim their Bing Places profile and provide useful information, such as contact information, opening hours, photos, and services offered. This information populates local search results on Bing and is also used to return local business information by Alexa (Amazon’s voice assistant). 

Bing Places pulls consumer reviews from a range of third-party review platforms, including Tripadvisor, Booking.com, FourSquare, Yelp, TopRatedLocal, and Angi. 

Depending on the source of the reviews, Bing Search users may see either an average star rating or a review counter at the top of the knowledge card.

To see review details, local consumers must scroll past the business information details to see a selection of reviews from relevant sites.

Although users need to scroll, Bing Places does provide local search users — along with Alexa voice assistant users — a notable amount of review content from a wide range of sources. This means that you’ll need to adopt a similar strategy to strengthen your Bing Places listing and also focus on building a strong review profile on a number of relevant platforms.

Yelp

More than 90 million people visit Yelp each month in search of local businesses and services. Yelp says that, “97% of users spend money with a business they found on Yelp within a week”, and as we’ve seen, a number of other platforms pull review information from Yelp to show on their own listings. 

As with GBP and Bing Places, you can claim your free business listing on Yelp to control how Yelp users view your business. 

An average star rating is displayed at the top of the business listing followed by review highlights. Additionally, those viewing your business listing are shown recommended reviews, which are often reviews left by prolific review writers and will include images.

Business owners can respond to reviews publicly with a comment, as well as via direct message to the reviewer. There’s also a ‘Thank’ button within the listing dashboard that enables business owners to quickly send a message of thanks for a positive four or five-star rating. 

One thing to know about Yelp, is that it discourages businesses from asking for reviews. It says proactively requesting reviews can hurt your Yelp rating. 

Facebook

Facebook uses the term ‘Recommendations’ to describe the reviews that users can leave on business Pages. You must opt-in to Recommendations for them to be displayed on your Page and you’ll also need to meet a minimum quantity threshold before a rating is assigned. 

Facebook users have additional controls over the Recommendations they provide for local businesses, as they can choose to have their Recommendations show only to their Facebook friends or to be displayed publicly. Only public Recommendations count towards your Page’s rating. 

Those leaving a review will see an option to recommend (positive) or not recommend (negative). They can then share additional comments and upload relevant imagery. 

While it’s no secret that responding to consumer reviews is important for local SEO, Facebook takes it a step further and says responding can increase engagement and improve EdgeRank performance (the algorithm that decides what content shows up on a user’s News Feed).  

Unlike Yelp, Facebook doesn’t have any rules against asking for Recommendations from local consumers. 

Nextdoor 

Almost one in three US households use Nextdoor to connect with local neighborhoods, businesses, and organizations. The platform currently hosts more than 55 million business recommendations, making it a useful source of local information for consumers in your local area. 

Similar to GBP, local businesses can claim their free business listing to share business information. They can also share Posts to announce updates and publicize offers and events. 

Neighbors can like a local business or leave a recommendation to help others searching for a similar business. Because the Nextdoor platform is built around physical neighborhoods, recommendations are hyper-local, making it useful for those wishing to drive more footfall to their brick-and-mortar location or grow their service-area business.

Better Business Bureau

The Better Business Bureau (BBB) website attracts over 140 million visitors every year. It sets standards for lawful business practices, with businesses able to apply for accreditation to further enhance their reputation and standing.

It’s free to create a BBB Business Profile, with customers then able to leave a star rating and text review, and publicly register complaints. 

The Better Business Bureau promises to help consumers find businesses they can trust, making it a useful platform for small businesses keen to develop a strong local reputation. As users can leave reviews and publicly lodge complaints, it’s important that the business profile is regularly monitored and any issues swiftly resolved. 

Yellow Pages

As one of the original sources of local business information, Yellow Pages predates the Internet era and is therefore a known and trusted brand for many consumers.

Business profiles contain a wealth of useful information, including a general business introduction, contact information, images, reviews, services, accepted payment methods, and opening times.

Local consumers can leave a star rating and then back up their rating with additional text describing their experience. In addition to Yellow Pages’ own reviews, some reviews are displayed from other sources, such as City Search.

Industry-Specific Review Platforms 

While the likes of Nextdoor reviews and Apple reviews are important for building an overall business profile, businesses in certain industries can also leverage industry-specific sites to grow their reputation within their area of operation. 

Tripadvisor

For those in the hospitality sector, such as hotel businesses, tour operators, bars, and restaurants, Tripadvisor is an important review platform capable of building traveler trust, directing traffic, and increasing conversions. 

As with the other review platforms, listings are tied to the business profile. Keep in mind that travelers can create a listing for your business and begin leaving reviews, even if you haven’t taken the step of claiming your profile. If that’s the case, you’ll need to claim your profile before you can manage your listing and respond to reviews. 

Reviews on Tripadvisor can be extremely detailed and refer to many aspects of your business. In addition to sharing the reason for their visit, the date of their visit, a star rating, and a comment, consumers are invited to rate key features, such as cleanliness, service, and location. They can also include images with their review along with a personalized tip.

Business owners can reply to all reviews and report reviews that violate the guidelines in order to request their removal. 

Tripadvisor provides a range of tools to help grow your review profile on the platform, including widgets to display on your site and professionally printed inserts for checks, review cards, and QR codes. 

Angi

Founded in 2017, Angi is the new name for Angie’s List and HomeAdvisor. It connects homeowners and landlords with property professionals, such as pest control services, pool cleaners, and roofers. 

Reviews are extensive, with reviewers invited to provide a wealth of information. This includes star ratings for details such as responsiveness, professionalism, and punctuality, along with a description of work done, project cost, and images. Reviewers can also tag categories to describe the project and are asked whether they would or wouldn’t hire the business again.

The level of detail on offer makes Angi reviews useful for both the business and local consumers in search of property professionals. From a consumer perspective, this level of clear insight makes it much easier to assess whether a service provider fits the budget and can be trusted to do a good job. For the business owner, having such clearly defined ratings for key service aspects makes it a very useful tool for identifying where opportunities for improvement exist, as well as showcasing higher standards of service. 

What’s more, research shows that reviews can directly influence a shopper’s decision to purchase when displayed alongside product information — but, it’s not enough to simply have a lot of reviews. Consumers (and Google’s local SEO algorithm) look for specific elements within a review to aid them in their assessment of a local business. 

The Average Star Rating 

It should come as no surprise that a high star rating is one of the top three most important review factors for local consumers. 

The average star rating a local business has on a review platform is an important metric, as it speaks to the quality of the product or service being offered. 

Average ratings tend to appear very prominently at the top of a business profile, meaning it could be all too easy for a consumer to make a snap judgement about the quality of your local business if you have a low average rating. As review averages are based on a crowdsourced metric, a low average rating can paint a very bad picture of your business. 

A higher average rating immediately suggests that the consumer won’t be disappointed in their choice. It suggests that the business offers a great customer experience and high-quality products or services. 

Correspondingly, too many negative experiences result in a low average star rating, which indicates that the business perhaps doesn’t prioritize customer care or delivering value. Naturally, if you have a much lower star rating than a rival, a local consumer will question whether they should use your business and risk a bad experience or opt for the higher-rated alternative. Our research confirms this, with just 3% of consumers saying they would consider using a business that has a two-star or lower average review rating. 

Overall Review Sentiment: Positive or Negative

Much like the average star rating, the overall sentiment of a review (whether positive or negative) is an important factor that speaks to the quality of the consumer experience. 

Many review platforms provide a snippet of text from the review alongside the star rating, so having a positive overall sentiment can reinforce the impact of the star rating. 75% of consumers say a positive overall sentiment matters to them when reading a review, so this is an important factor to keep in mind.

Authenticity 

As consumers have grown more accustomed to factoring reviews into their research and decision-making processes, so too has their awareness of fake reviews. Many consumers are now confident in their ability to sniff out illegitimate or inauthentic reviews; so much so that 62% of consumers now believe they’ve seen a fake review within the last 12 months on platforms such as Facebook, Amazon, and Google. 

In 2020, 79% of local consumers said they trusted online reviews as much as personal recommendations, but this figure has since dropped to 48%. Factors such as a review being too gushing in its praise for a local business, too many anonymous reviewers, lacking text to back up star ratings, and overly negative comments all erode consumer trust. 

Authenticity matters — not just for consumers to build those vital levels of trust, but to review platforms and search engines, too. While review site guidelines vary from site to site, they all regulate against fake reviews and most have policies in place to report fake reviews, including Google. 

Review Recency Matters, Too 

Given the proliferation of reviews, older reviews can easily be judged to be less relevant to local consumers, as they don’t speak to current local consumer experiences. 49% of local consumers say that a review left within the last month would help them to feel positive about a local business — and just 7% say that the recency of a review is irrelevant to how they feel about a local business.

Many platforms also allow users to filter reviews to show the newest first, meaning it’s important to have a steady stream of new reviews being published for your business. 

Business Response to Reviews

Responding to reviews matters to consumers and Google alike, so this is a core component of building a strong review profile. 55% of consumers say that a business responding to reviews matters to them and seeing a response is likely to leave them feeling good about that business. 

Google too makes it clear that responses are a core component of local business reviews, saying that responses from a business can help to build consumer trust. Review responses additionally form part of local search ranking signals and can impact search visibility. 

From a business perspective, responding to the review can allow you to give additional context to the comments, such as in the example below, and showcase your appreciation for your reviewer’s time and feedback. 

Reviews with Photos 

User-generated content such as imagery is proven to be an important aid for shoppers when deciding whether to go ahead with a purchase. As a multi-media format, it adds rich detail to text-based information and can help consumers visualize the experience they’re likely to receive. 

For local businesses with brick-and-mortar locations open to customers, such as bars and restaurants, images within reviews can be especially useful. 

This is underlined by data confirming that 40% of local consumers consider images to be an important part of a review. 

Quantity of Reviews 

If you think of reviews as a form of crowdsourced recommendations, it’s easy to see why the number of reviews you have matters. Having just one or two reviews may not give a local consumer the level of confidence they need to choose your business, as it could be that there simply isn’t enough opinion there to base a decision on. 

By contrast, a large number of reviews demonstrates a broader depth of sentiment. This means that a strong average star rating from a large number of reviews can be taken as a measure that many people find your offering to be of good quality, thereby increasing trust. 

Visibility Across a Number of Review Sites 

Having a good level of diversity in your review profile, with reviews across a number of different review sites, also matters. With 78% of consumers going online to research local business information at least once per week, the more points of reference you can offer to those consumers, the better. 

Not all consumers will feel comfortable with every site, so having a good spread of reviews across a number of different platforms means that consumers aren’t missing out on reviews of your business. If, for example, a consumer doesn’t have a Facebook account and wouldn’t use the social network for research, but may well go to Google, Yelp or Tripadvisor, you’ll want to have reviews in those places in order to be visible to that consumer. Focusing purely on Facebook would mean that you miss out on traffic across those other platforms.