Reviews

It’s not enough to rank in the local search results. Your business has to stand out from the competition and attract new customers. Reviews play a critical part in this because they are a powerful ranking and conversion factor.

How Reviews Impact Rankings

Reviews can impact your rankings in a couple ways:

1. Directly. According to the Local Search Ranking Factors, 4 of the top 20 Google ranking factors involve reviews.
   
   More specifically:
   • Having a high numerical rating (i.e. 4-5 stars)
   • Having a high number of reviews
   • Having a sustained influx of reviews (i.e. getting reviews consistently over time)
   • And having recent reviews
2. Indirectly. Google has confirmed that they measure engagement on your Profile to determine your rankings.
   
   So, while reviews are a direct ranking factor, they also provide additional indirect ranking benefits, making them absolutely critical to your local visibility.
   
   When you run a search for local businesses, which results do you click on first? The ones with the most reviews and 5-star ratings? Yeah, us too. Those clicks send the signal to Google that people like your profile.
   
   Also, the more reviews you have (and the better their quality), the more time people will spend scrolling through them. When Google sees that people are spending a lot of time on your Profile, they will likely rank it higher.

So, how can you apply this knowledge to:

1. Get more reviews, consistently,
2. and improve the quality of your reviews?

Ask every customer to leave you a review.

But no incentivizing. Google’s guidelines say you cannot give discounts, rewards, or monetary compensation in return for customer reviews.

💡 That being said, you can incentivize your employees. Reward them for requesting reviews from your customers.

And if you can’t find the time to:

• send personalized review requests
• follow up with every customer
• respond all your reviews
• and monitor your reviews on multiple websites

… you might like Whitespark’s Reputation Builder tool. The Reputation Builder will automate all of these processes for you. It will also help you get more reviews, let you publish them on your website and socials, and enable you to monitor your review progress.

When we started using Reputation Builder at Whitespark, we got 50 reviews in just one month. And it was super easy — all we did was import our client list, and the tool did the rest.

How Reviews Impact Conversions

5 of the top 10 conversion factors in the 2026 Local Search Ranking Factors Survey are review-related:

1. Factors #1 and #5.

Profiles with high ratings and a high number of reviews draw people in.

Which business would you pick: One that has a 4.8 star rating and 315 reviews, or one that has a 4.6 star rating and 41 reviews?

Chances are, you’re going to pick the first one because:

1. People like it more (it has a higher star rating).
2. More people like it (it has more reviews).

So, you need to ask every single customer for a review, and remind them with follow-up emails, calls or messages.

2. Factor #2.

Profiles with positive sentiment in their reviews get more customers. This needs no explanation: if a customer reads good things about the business, they will choose to go there.

Aim to get about 30% more positive reviews than your competition. If you stand out with glowing reviews, you will get more clicks and conversions.

Two simple tips to increase your reviews’ conversion power

1. Ask your customers to mention the service/product they received

Keywords in reviews will help increase your rankings on Google, but they will also improve your conversion rates. They can:

• show prospective customers that you have what they’re looking for
• trigger eye-catching review justifications in the search results

In order to get keywords in your reviews, you need to make your review requests specific. Reach out to your customers after their visit and give them a keyword-rich ‘prompt’ to follow:

Subject: How is your new furnace?

Hey Darren,

Just checking in to see how things are going with the new furnace. If you have any questions or comments, please let me know!

Also, we would really appreciate a review on Google. It has a huge impact on our business. Would you mind giving us feedback on how you like your new furnace by leaving us a review on Google?

Here’s a link:
https://reviewthis.biz/furnacepros

Thank you!

Darren

2. Ask customers to include photos and/or videos in their review

Photos and videos serve as additional proof that the review is legit and the product/service is as good (or bad) as the reviewer says.

Additionally, research by Sterling Sky shows that reviews with photos stay in the top 10 positions for much longer than reviews without photos.

Make sure your positive reviews stay on top by asking customers to include a photo or video in their feedback.

To make this process easier, you can take the photo for your customers during their visit, then send it together with your review request, like this:

If this sounds like a lot of work, the Reputation Builder software can help. It will automate your review requests, send reminders to the people who forgot to share their feedback, help you craft review responses and much, much more.

Google’s Review Policies

Here are Google’s most important review policies, summarized:

1. You cannot incentivize, pay or bribe a customer to leave a review.
2. You cannot review gate – “review gating” is when you ask your customers how their experience was first, then you send the unhappy customers to a feedback form and the happy customers to Google to leave you a review. Google has made this explicitly against the guidelines.
3. You cannot review your own business.
4. You cannot leave a review as an employee.
5. You cannot post a negative review about an ex-employer.
6. You cannot post a harmful review about a competitor.

You can find the full list of review guidelines here.

How to Ask for Reviews

Here are a few suggestions to help you grow your Google reviews.

Get a review link

To get your review link, go to your NMX and click “Ask for reviews”. You will see this window pop up, with a link to share with customers:

Alternatively, you can use our free Google Review Link Generator to get a review link and QR code that you can share in emails, text messages, signs, packaging, uniforms, etc.

Below, we’ve outlined a few effective ways to ask for reviews.

Ask via text or email

Create a review request template containing your Google review link.

Things to consider when asking for a review via email or text:

• Include a question in your subject — “Hey Bob, could you please leave us a review?”
• Personalize the email template (incorporate the customer name, mention any details about their visit, etc.).
• Encourage the customer to mention specifics and encourage keywords in their reviews.
• If you don’t receive a review, send a follow-up request a few days later.

Here’s an example of a template you could use as a starting point:

Hello [Customer Name]

It was a pleasure working with you on [project]. Thank you for your business!

Online reviews from great customers like you really help our business. Could you take 60 seconds to leave us a review on [review site]? Here’s a [direct link].

Wondering what to write about? Here are some questions to help you:

– What service did we complete for you?
– Which location did you have this service at?
– How did we do?
– What do you like about working with us?
– Have you tried any other products or services?
– Did you work with any specific people you’d like to mention?
– How do we compare to other companies you’ve tried?

These are just suggestions, so feel free to write whatever you want! Thank you in advance for helping us out!

[Your Name]
[Email Signature]

Other spots to place your review link and/or QR code

• Your website
• Receipts
• Business cards
• Review cards (near the register)
• Review signs in your place of business
• Employee t-shirts
• Packaging

Use a Review Platform

Depending on your business model, asking your customers directly may be the best option, but if you want to scale your review request system and track your review performance, a review management tool like Reputation Builder can be very helpful.

It lets you monitor and manage your reviews on Google, Facebook, and 100+ other review sites. It will also send automated review requests to your customers via email and text, embed your reviews on your site, and post them on social media.

You can get a free 14-day trial here.

Managing Your Reviews

Respond to All Reviews

Review responses don’t impact rankings, but your they are an opportunity to solidify your relationship with the reviewer, show prospective customers how awesome you are, and even change an angry reviewer’s mind.

You can respond to reviews via the NMX or directly on the Profile, both on desktop and mobile. Just make sure you are signed into the Google account that you use to manage the GBP.

We’ve outlined below how to respond to positive reviews, and how to approach the negative ones.

How to respond to a positive review

1. Start with gratitude — Thank your customers for taking the time to write a review. This shows them you value their feedback and reveals to potential prospects that you care about your customers. Consider a review response an extra step toward building stronger relationships with your customers.
2. Personalize your response — Mentioning details about each specific customer interaction can add more value and credibility to your reviews.
3. Invite your customers to return — Remember that you’re also writing these responses for your FUTURE customers. When you remind the reviewer that you’re eager to work with them again, you’re extending the same invitation to potential customers who are reading your reviews.

Here’s an example of a great response to a positive review:

How to respond to a negative review

1. Empathize with the customer — Take a moment to say sorry. It is important to let your customers know that you genuinely care about their experiences. Remember, you’re not only writing this response for the person that left the review, but also for potential customers reading your reviews.
2. Say thank you — Sincerely thank your customers for taking the time to write a review. This is a great way to establish a sense of trust and rapport with them.
3. Take the conversation offline & offer a solution — Don’t get into the details in your response. Discuss their problem and try to find a solution away from the public platform. That’s why including your contact information in your review response is important.

Negative reviews can be opportunities to build a closer relationship with customers and turn them into brand advocates. When you take the time to understand and respond to an unhappy customer’s concerns, you can often turn a 1-star review into a 5-star review:

Report fake reviews

Unfortunately, some industries are riddled with Google review spam. If you get a bad review from a person who’s never visited your business — or even worse, if your review section gets flooded with 1-star reviews all of a sudden — you should report them.

Follow these steps for requesting the removal of a review. Be sure to have the necessary proof and not a “he said/she said/they said” argument to back up your claim.

Google also has a tool called  “Manage your reviews” designed specifically for businesses to report reviews and check the status of any previously escalated reviews. This is a great way to stay organized, especially if you manage many locations or are dealing with a lot of negative reviews.

Don’t aim for a perfect 5-star rating

Researchers at Northwestern’s Medill Spiegel Research Center found that customers are most likely to convert around the 4.2-4.5 star range, and purchase likelihood drops as the rating approaches 5 stars.

This may sound surprising, but negative reviews help establish trust and authenticity. So, don’t stress if you get a bad review here and there. If anything, a couple bad reviews will strengthen the credibility of your 5-star reviews!

Google Review Features to Know About

Review Attributes

Some Profiles prompt users to give their feedback on specific aspects of the business when leaving a review (such as what kind of product or service they got, how much they spent, etc.). Review attributes look like this for the reviewer:

And like this to the person looking at the published review:

This feature is not available to all Google Business Profiles. See a full list of categories here.

Place Topics

Place Topics are the clickable buttons in the “People often mention” section of your Google Business Profile, right below your star rating.

They display the most-mentioned words in your reviews:

It’s useful to keep an eye on your Place Topics, as they can have both positive and negative sentiments. No restaurant wants to have “cold food” as one of their place topics, for example. So, make sure you deal with recurring negative review topics and correct your business practices accordingly.

Photos

Google encourages reviewers to add photos and videos to their review:

We strongly encourage you to remind your customers to add photos and videos to their reviews. Research shows that reviews containing visuals tend to stay at the top of the Review section for longer than solely text-based reviews.

Show off your reviews

Displaying your reviews and testimonials outside of Google can help your business get more customers and encourage existing customers to leave you a review, too.

Share your best reviews as photos on your GBP so that they don’t get buried in the review section. Embed your reviews on your website, share them on social media, use them in your marketing materials… The possibilities are endless.