For small businesses in any industry, one of the most effective yet underrated marketing strategies I always recommend is collecting Google reviews. If you’ve ever Googled a local business and decided to try it out because it had dozens of positive reviews, then you know just how powerful reviews can be. They instantly make a business more credible. Read on for the benefits of Google reviews that prove why they should be part of your marketing strategy.
1. Google Reviews Improve Your Local SEO
The biggest reason to start collecting customer reviews for your Google Business Profile is they improve your local search engine optimization (SEO). Simply put, your local SEO is your business’ visibility on local search results. The better your local SEO, the better your business’ chances of being discovered by local audiences, and the stronger your brand presence.
Try it yourself: do a quick Google search of a business in your area (for example, “cafes near me”), and you’ll find that the profiles that show up have a high number of positive reviews. Having multiple positive reviews improves your local SEO because it tells Google that people find your business relevant and worthy of their time.
Proof of the Google reviews’ importance in boosting SEO: When searching for cafes near me, profiles with plenty of positive Google reviews were placed on top of search results.
2. Help You Rank for More Accurate Keywords
Another benefit of having Google reviews on your profile is they help attach relevant keywords to your business, which enables your profile to show up in more relevant and accurate searches, directly helping boost your local SEO. For instance, if many reviews mention your cafe’s avocado toast, it’ll help your profile appear in Google search results when people in your area search for avocado toast.
Google reviews also give your profile more accurate keywords to rank for.
3. Improve Your Brand Reputation
More than just your local visibility, positive Google reviews can also improve your overall brand reputation. It’s simple: having plenty of good reviews will more likely convince people to try out your business than having no reviews at all.
If you were searching for restaurants to try in a new area, you’d probably choose one with plenty of good reviews. Or, say if a prospect is deciding between trying your business vs a competitor, having good reviews on your profile might just be what tips the scales in your favor.
But more than that, reviews are also one of the best avenues for managing your brand reputation in the long term. As your business grows and more people find it online, you want to be sure your reputation is still stellar. Google reviews aren’t just a one-time strategy you set up and then forget about. You must maintain them consistently by monitoring and responding to your reviews regularly.
Monitoring your reviews consistently is necessary, but it also takes much time and effort, which is where reputation management tools can help. These platforms can do all the monitoring for you and even analyze your brand’s reputation in real time. One platform I recommend is NiceJob, which can do all that and is easy enough for beginners to navigate.
4. Put You on the Map (Literally)
Google reviews can put you on the Google Map Pack when people in your local area search for your products or services. For example, say you own a car wash business, and people search for “car wash near me.” If you have a good number of Google reviews, your cafe’s Google Business Profile will show up on a map that appears in their search results. This is because the number of reviews on a Google Business Profile helps Google determine its relevance in search results.
Google will also display the number of reviews you have and your average star rating, which increases your chances of attracting a local customer.
Having plenty of Google reviews means Google will display your profile on its map pack, where local customers will have a higher likelihood of finding you.
5. Influence Customers’ Buying Decisions
If you’ve ever been convinced to buy a product because of a glowing review, then you know just how powerful positive reviews can be in influencing purchase decisions. That’s one of the biggest advantages of Google reviews: they’re a low-cost way to directly influence customers’ buying behavior. This is because reviews act as social proof that makes your brand more credible.
In fact, studies show that 75% of customers trust recommendations from fellow customers more than brands. The reason for this is they feel more authentic and less sales-y, which is particularly valuable when customers are deciding whether or not to complete a purchase. Hearing a positive experience from a previous customer can get them to convert far more effectively than any call to action you write.
6. Make Your Brand More Credible
All the above points boil down to one overall concept: user reviews make your brand more credible online. Reviews act as an online form of word-of-mouth marketing, aka when customers discuss your business with their social circles in a positive light. Google reviews let customers do just that on a global scale. And because it’s Google, you’ll have the widest and one of the most trusted platforms to be seen on.
7. Because It’s Google, Your Reviews Are Verified
We’ve established above how Google reviews make your brand more credible to customers. One of the more specific benefits of Google reviews for businesses is that they don’t just come from random profiles. Because they’re on Google, they’re guaranteed to come from real, verified people with a Google account. Google reviews will appear with the reviewer’s name and photo; if you click on them, you’ll also see their reviews of other businesses.
This is a significant advantage because, fundamental to your brand’s credibility, you must ensure your reviews are verified, and Google makes that process easier.
All Google reviewers are verified real people. If you click on each reviewer, you’ll also find their previous reviews of other businesses.
8. Help You Rank on Google Images
One of the biggest benefits of Google reviews is that they’re a good way to gather more user-generated photos of your business and your products and services. User-generated content (UGC) marketing is steadily rising because it offers a more authentic, unpolished look at your business. And importantly, it comes from customers, which gives it a higher degree of authenticity.
The benefit here is that having more photos on Google means your photos have a higher chance of ranking on Google Images, increasing your Google ranking overall and helping you get discovered more easily.
Google reviews mean more user-generated photos of your business, which can help you rank higher on Google Images.
9. Get More Visits to Your Website or Social Media Page
One of the biggest benefits of Google reviews is they’re a good portal to lead customers to your other online fronts, like your business website or your social media pages. 99.5% of people (basically everyone) start their customer journey with a simple Google search, and there’s a good chance your Google Business Profile will be the first thing they land on.
But that’s only possible if you have reviews on your profile because, as mentioned, Google takes reviews into account when determining what profiles to prioritize in search results. Of course, if your profile ranks higher and links to your website or social media, it’s an excellent way to get more visits. After brand discovery, the next step in the customer journey is interest and research, and that’s where your website and social media will come into play.
10. Have Direct Engagement With Your Customers
Direct customer engagement is everything in marketing. Customers like to hear directly from the people behind the businesses they support—especially local businesses. Not only does it make for good customer service, but it also forges stronger, more authentic connections with your local community. And Google reviews give you an avenue to do just that. When customers leave a review on your Google Business Profile, you can respond directly.
There are many benefits to this. You’ll have direct engagement with your customers and get valuable feedback about your business. Other people who visit your profile will see that you genuinely care about your customers’ experience.
Google reviews give you an avenue to directly engage with your customers by responding to their reviews.
11. Give You Social Proof for Your Website
I mentioned above how influential Google reviews can be in granting your business credibility and improving your overall brand reputation. But that isn’t only limited to your Google Business Profile. You can also embed Google reviews into your website to instill trust among your website visitors in your business. It’s also easy to do, as most website builder platforms have widgets that integrate your Google Business Profile into your website.
Embed Google reviews into your website to act as social proof. (Source: Elfsight)
12. Offer Valuable Customer Insight
Of course, reviews also provide insights about your business from the people who matter most: your customers. Any good business owner knows that customer feedback should play an important role in determining your future strategies, whether for your products or services, marketing strategies, or even customer service.
Reviews are a valuable resource that not only tell you what customers think of your business but also what matters to them most, and even their general demographics and psychographics. For instance, if you run a cafe and find from your reviews that customers particularly like your avocado toast, you might highlight that as your signature item and build a marketing strategy around it.
13. Help Your Local Services Ads Rank Higher
Finally, one last key importance of Google reviews is that they can help your business profile rank higher if you ever start placing Google Local Services Ads. Google Local Services Ads are like regular Google Ads, except you’re specifically advertising your Google Business Profile in your specific location.
Getting Google reviews is specifically important here because Google also considers your reviews and ratings when calculating your ad’s quality score. The more positive reviews you have, the higher your ad’s quality score and the higher it’ll rank on Google search results, which increases your chances of getting bottom-of-funnel leads.
Getting Started With Google Reviews: 4 Ways
There’s no overstating the importance of Google reviews, as the points above show. And the best part about having them in your local marketing strategy is they’re easy to start—and inexpensive. Many local customers are happy to leave a positive review to support a small business they had a good experience with. Once you have your Google Business Profile set up, here are some ways you can start collecting reviews and build a stellar reputation.
- Place QR codes around your store. The first step in getting Google reviews from customers is making it accessible. Thankfully, QR codes are a convenient way to help do that. If you have a physical location, place QR codes at your counter or around your store that link to your Google Business Profile.
- Link to them from your checkout page. Meanwhile, if you have an ecommerce business, you can collect Google reviews by linking to them during customers’ checkout process.
- Include them in post-purchase emails. Post-purchase emails are a type of email you can send to customers to keep them engaged even after they purchase from your business. They’re often a simple “thank you” email, but you can also use them to request reviews.
- Ask your customers directly. Finally, the simplest way to request reviews is to politely ask for them from your customers. This is also the safest way because you can request reviews specifically from customers who’ve had positive experiences at your store and are therefore more likely to leave a positive review.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Google reviews are important because they improve your local SEO and help your Google Business Profile rank higher on local search results. They also improve your overall brand reputation. This is because positive reviews act as social proof that reflects your business’ credibility, and people trust reviews from fellow customers more than brands. Good reviews can even positively influence people’s buying decisions.
No. Google reviews are 100% unpaid, both for the reviewers and the businesses that receive them. Any customer can leave a review on a business’s profile for free, and likewise, businesses don’t earn anything by collecting reviews. It’s part of Google’s credibility guarantee. Businesses can only earn from their Google Business Profile if they set up Local Services Ads to generate leads.
The only way to earn money from Google is by setting up Google Ads or Google Local Services Ads. However, these don’t directly let you earn money—they can only help you generate leads for your business or traffic for your website. Particularly, Google Ads place your website higher on Google search results for keywords related to your business, while Local Services Ads rank your Google Business Profile higher in local search results.
In marketing, the primary purpose and importance of Google reviews is to garner credibility about your business and to build your local online presence. Google reviews act as social proof, signaling to people that your business is credible and worthy of their trust. Also, because Google reviews live on your Google Business Profile, they help your business be more visible online and help you attract local customers.
Bottom Line
The benefits of Google reviews for your business are plenty, both short- and long-term. Reviews are a subtle but powerful force in marketing, especially for small, local businesses whose lifeblood is their local community. They don’t just get your name out in the online world; they also grant you a sense of authenticity and credibility—two building blocks of any long-lasting business.
Get started collecting Google reviews and building your brand reputation with NiceJob, a reputation marketing software. It’s built specifically for small businesses and acts as your online reputation management assistant—a must-have for any local business with an online presence.
