Reviews Play an Important Role in Local SEO
Getting reviews from clients will help your local SEO, but don’t focus only on Google reviews.
You’ll need reviews from a variety of sites that the ranking algorithm expects to see in your review portfolio.
Many of you are focused on Google reviews, since most businesses want to rank high in Google Maps. This is understandable. You see other businesses with many reviews ranking in the 3-pack Google Map on page one of search results.
But there is more to ranking in local SEO than Google reviews. You should be looking for reviews in a wide variety of sources to send positive signals to the search engines. Large companies would get reviews from more than one source, so if you’re building a successful brand, your company will have reviews from more places than just Google.
Two things you should avoid with Google reviews: buying reviews, and having your employees leave reviews.
Both of these tactics are manipulative, and customers, competitors, and prospects can easily spot these. If you buy reviews, they may be deleted later, and they won’t help you in the long run. Having employees leave reviews is a conflict of interest, and these reviews might be flagged by competitors.
The best thing to do is to collect reviews from real customers, and work on delivering great customer service, all the time.
Get Reviews From Different Sites for Local SEO
What I see some growing companies doing, is focusing only on acquiring Google reviews. You should be collecting reviews on other websites, in addition to Google. There are specific sites for each industry that Google finds valuable. If you aren’t getting reviews on any of these sites, it looks very strange to Google, and your competitors may have an edge in that category.
Let’s take a quick look at some other sites where you should be racking up reviews.
Yelp
This is one website where you absolutely must get reviews, especially if you are in home services, health and fitness, restaurants, real estate, or legal. Google treats Yelp as an extremely legitimate site for reviews, as they have one of the most stringent systems for filtering out reviews. You’ll also notice that Yelp is often the first search result for many searches. This is because it is the leading marketplace for multiple types of services, and it allows customers to compare different service providers head to head. This is a good search result in most cases.
Imagine how strange it must look to Google if you get a whole bunch of reviews on Google Maps, but you have none or almost none on Yelp? Which is often the top search result for a local service provider search?
Get more reviews on Yelp. You will only limit your local ranking potential if you don’t get reviews on Yelp.
Better Business Bureau (BBB)
Does your company have a BBB profile? Most regions have a local BBB office, and you can get a profile by emailing them or calling the local branch. BBB reviews by themselves aren’t a reason for Google to rank a business higher than others, partially because it is only available in the US, Canada, and Mexico. Google representatives have said that they don’t use BBB for ranking, at least not in the way that many SEOs have claimed. In 2021, this was speculated by several SEOs, that a verified listing in BBB is a sign of Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness (E-A-T).
In local SEO, getting reviews from popular sites, like the BBB, is something that would occur even if search engines did not exist.
What is important to realize is that, 1) Google wants the algorithm to rank search results that a human would pick, and 2) they must rely on systems that work at scale to properly evaluate all the websites that exist.
Are BBB reviews valuable? Yes. Does Google use verified BBB profiles as a sign of E-A-T, or a sign of quality? Unlikely, as there are better signals, that are less prone to manipulation.
It is slightly more effort to get a few BBB reviews, but in my opinion, it can help make it look like your company is large enough to gather positive reviews in an array of places.
Your business probably has a Facebook page. Make sure you have the proper business categories, ones that line up with the rest of your online profiles. You can also get some reviews here, as Google takes notice of these.
Please note: you should 100% create branded profiles on all the major social media platforms, but Facebook is the largest, and the one that has customer reviews (on Pages). It would look odd for a growing company to have no reviews on their Facebook page.
Yellow Pages
Call this one “extra credit”, but Yellow Pages city landing pages rank fairly high for some search queries. Is it likely that some businesses would pick up some reviews on this site. Like all the other sites mentioned, Yellow Pages reviews can also show up in your Google Business Profile, under “Reviews From Around the Web”.
Industry-Specific Sites
These are the most important review sites for you to collect customer reviews on, outside of your Google Business Profile and Yelp.
Every industry has their own specific sites where they should focus on collecting reviews. Here are some of the most prominent sites for selected industries. (These aren’t counting local or regional sites that also have a high degree of trust.)
Contractors: Houzz, Angi, HomeAdvisor, Thumbtack, Nextdoor.
Health: HealthGrades, RateMD, Vitals.com, ZocDoc.
Legal: Avvo, Justia.
Real Estate: Zillow, Redfin, RealEstateAgents.com, RateMyAgent.
Web Design: Clutch, UpCity.
Find Out What Sites Google Looks at in Your Industry
If you compile a list of the local competitors in your market, and Google search each of their business names one by one, you will see their Google Business Profiles. On desktop, this will appear on the right hand side of the page. This is sometimes called the “Google Knowledge Graph” of “Knowledge Panel” for a company.
In each Knowledge Panel, you will see a section entitled, “Reviews from the web”. Sometimes this shows the reviews for that business, for up to three sites. Recently, in early 2023, most of the Knowledge Panels show one site.
See an example here, for the Philadelphia HVAC company, SK Heating and Air.
Notice how the number of reviews, and the aggregate rating of their reviews from Angi are pulled into their Google Knowledge Panel? The same will be true for your competitors. You can see what review sites Google pays attention to in your industry by taking notes on what appears here.
Local Sites
Some cities have local directory or review sites, run by a local marketing expert, a local magazine, or someone from the Chamber of Commerce. Sites that have been in continuous operation for several years may be trusted by Google, and have some regional authority. Setting up a profile and getting a few reviews on these sites may also help establish your local prominence.
This page is by no means an exhaustive list, but hopefully, it has given you some fresh ideas about where to get reviews outside of your Google Business Profile.
Need More Help With Local SEO?
If your company needs help ranking in your local area, reach out to us and tell us more about what you’re trying to accomplish. We’d be happy to give you a hand with your SEO.
