Customer reviews that are left on your Google Business Profile are incredibly important, as they can help attract and build trust with potential new customers, resulting in more leads or foot traffic for your business. Google Business Profile reviews can also affect your business’s search engine optimization in a number of ways, each of which we’ll cover below! If you have additional questions about improving the visibility of your Google Business Profile or optimizing your business’s website for search engines, please don’t hesitate to contact our team at Boston Web Marketing to request a free website audit!
Reviews Matter For Local Rankings
According to Google, local results rankings “are based primarily on relevance, distance, and prominence. A combination of these factors helps {Google} find the best match for your search”. “Prominence” refers to how well known a business is, which can be influenced by several things, including reviews on their Google Business Profile. Google says that “review count and review score factor into local search ranking. More reviews and positive ratings can improve your business’ local ranking”. For this reason, if you want your business to rank at the top of local results rankings, it’s crucial to prioritize reviews on your Google Business Profile.
Rank For Searches That Include “Best” or “Top”
Google searches that include “Near Me” or a location typically provide users with “Places”, or local results that highlight Google Business Profiles in the area on a list or map. When these searches also include “Best” or “Top” (ex. “Best Italian Restaurant Near Me”), Google only displays business profiles with a 4.0 or higher average rating, and filters out all the Google Business Profiles with average ratings that fall below that threshold. For this reason, it’s extremely important to monitor and gain new reviews to ensure your business stays above a 4.0 star rating if you want to rank for searches that include “Best” or “Top” along with your business category.
Reviews With Photos Can Outweigh Negative Reviews
Google Business Profile reviews that contain photos or videos can be incredibly valuable, as these reviews can stay atop the “Most relevant” default view users see when they navigate to the review section of your Google Business Profile. Without consistently getting detailed, positive reviews that contain photos or videos, negative reviews may appear at the top of this “Most relevant” default view. Getting new positive reviews with photos or videos can also be a great way to push negative reviews down in the list of reviews so they aren’t as visible to users who visit your Google Business Profile.
Contact Boston Web Marketing!
If you have any additional questions about Google Business Profile reviews or if you need assistance improving your business’s organic search visibility, please contact our team at Boston Web Marketing today! Our SEO & Google Ads specialists help businesses in every industry achieve higher search results and gain more leads! Give us a call today at (857) 526-0096 or fill out the contact form on our website, and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible!