Does Responding to Google Reviews help Local SEO?

We’re an SEO consulting agency helping businesses to increase their website search rankings through On-page, Off-page, and local SEO. Over the past months, we’ve received inquiries from different clients about Google reviews. Does responding to Google reviews help my SEO? Is there an SEO-friendly format to use while answering customer reviews? What must I include while responding to customer reviews on Google?

As an SEO agency creating helpful business content for our clients, we’ve decided to craft a full-length tutorial addressing these questions. And at the end of this local SEO guide, you will have a concrete answer to these questions. So, without any further ado, let’s get started.

1. Are customer reviews essential?

A review is like a reward for your excellent services. It’s a way customers return their gratitude for the good job done. So, customer reviews are necessary if you want more clients. Among so many benefits, here are some of the reasons why you need customer reviews:

Customer feedback will help you measure customer satisfaction. In other words, are your past clients satisfied with your products or services?
Google uses customer reviews as a ranking factor for local businesses. So, you will need more reviews from real people to rank higher in the local business pack.
On the other hand, reviews tell Google what your business is about. And the type of customers you associate with. Hence, you will appear in their search results every time they are looking for a related service.
They improve social proof, which will boost your customer conversion rates. People want to know what others are saying before trusting you. In other words, reviews will build customer trust and loyalty.
Lastly, reviews assist new customers in choosing service providers wisely. You must have realized that businesses with 5-star reviews get more customers than others.

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2. How does Google rank local businesses?

Talking about local visibility, you might want to know how Google ranks local businesses. Google uses certain principles to analyze how best to rank local businesses. And we have described these principles below:

Expertise: Relates to niche-based knowledge. You can build expertise by creating industry-based content such as blogs.
Authority: Associated with the number of backlinks to your website. Building high-quality SEO content will enable other websites to link to yours.
Trust: How authentic a business is. Businesses that have worked with real clients get reviews. And that is how they build trust with Google.
Google My Business Profile (GBP) Data: Associated with profile information accuracy. Is your business profile complete? Did you verify your location? Are your business hours accurate?
Proximity: How close is your business located to the searcher? Companies within the user’s location will appear at the top of the list.
Prominence: Relates to user experience. Is your business famous offline? What do the users say when they visit your physical address?

3. Do I need to respond to customer reviews?

The simple answer is YES! Responding to Google reviews will help your local SEO and improve your visibility. But how?

First, when a customer leaves feedback on your profile, it’s like a business message that needs a response. So answering these reviews shows that you value the sender (customers). And it’s a privilege to hear from them.
Secondly, reviews are a signal that real people are interacting with your business page (best practices to get Google customer reviews). So, responding to these reviews creates an engagement, notifying Google that your business is active.

This way, you’re building trust with Google. As a result, Google rewards you by ranking your business profile higher in local searches. That means more users will be able to see your business. But to achieve this, you must know what to put in your review response. We explain this below:

4. What to include in an SEO-friendly Google review Response?

Google reviews and responses should be descriptive. Hence, they should entail the client’s brand. The service provider’s brand and the services you offered. Lastly, the client’s reaction to the whole process.

Reviews act as a backstory of what happened. Users want to know how you helped past clients. Hence, it gives them a clear picture of how you will help them.
On the side of Google, it wants to understand how clients feel about your services. Are they satisfied or disappointed at the end of the day?

So, whereas customers look for authenticity and transparency, Google is looking for engagement and Keywords. Google wants to see things like services, company names, and locations. If you don’t know what your business keywords are, we can help you discover thousands of top traffic-driving keywords for your business.

Let’s Help your Business SEO

We understand how it feels to get feedback from customers. It is the first sign that you are doing a great job. But how you treat these reviews determines where you can be. There is a lot of donkeywork needed but its worth it. Note that SEO is an ongoing task for every business because its important. Therefore, it would help if you dedicated a team specifically to manage your business SEO needs. In case you lack one, we can fill that gap!