We know that Google reviews and social proof help to build trust and credibility with prospective customers.
What your customers say about you carries a lot of weight with prospective customers.
But do these reviews actually play a part in how you rank in Google?
The answer is more nuanced than you might think. Let’s break down what Google Reviews can and cannot help you with when it comes to improving your organic search visibility.
Table of contents
Q: Are Google Reviews an SEO Ranking Factor?
Answer: No, Google reviews are not a direct on-site ranking factor for your website. Poor Google reviews will not directly impact your rankings in the organic search results.
Q. Are Google Reviews A Google Maps Ranking Factor?
Answer: Yes, Google Reviews are a Google Maps ranking factor and play a significant role in how your business ranks in the local map listings.
TLDR:
Google rankings DO NOT affect your rankings in the organic search listings. However, Google reviews DO play a significant role in how you rank in the local map pack, AKA Google Maps.
In other words, Google reviews can help your Google business profile to receive more views and achieve better rankings in the map pack, but they cannot directly improve your website rankings in the organic search results.
How Does Google Decide Map Rankings?
Google uses three key metrics to determine map rankings.
1. Prominence
Prominence considers the number of reviews that you have, what those reviews say about your business, how many websites link to your business, and the kinds of experiences that users are having with your business.
2. Relevance
How relevant is this business to what the user is actually searching for. Providing comprehensive information about your business including services, categories, products, and even your name can play a role in determining how “relevant” that business is to users.
3. Distance
Proximity plays a key role in how you rank and when you appear to users in the map pack. The closer that you are to that user, the more likely Google is to show your business to users. The caveat on distance is that users must have location services turned on so that Google can pinpoint their location and personalise search results accordingly.
So, of the three big ranking factors for Google Maps, prominence is the key factor relating to reviews & how those reviews can impact your prominence (rankings) in the Google map pack.
Should You Care About Reviews?
Ok, so now that we’ve clarified that Google Reviews DO NOT influence your organic search rankings, but they DO influence your Google Maps and Map Pack rankings, it raises an important question:
If you don’t care about Google Maps visibility and only want to improve your organic rankings, does that mean you shouldn’t care about your Google Reviews?
The answer is simple: Irrespective of whether you want to rank in the map pack or just the organic search results, you should still care about your reviews.
What customers say about your business plays an important role in whether users transact with it.
As an SEO Agency, we’ve seen it first-hand. We’ve had customers with outstanding organic rankings who fail to transact because Google Reviews let them down.
Research shows that 88% of potential customers look for online reviews before they choose a local business.
Customers do their due diligence. Almost 9 out of 10 customers will actively search for reviews of a local business before they interact with it. If customers read poor reviews or see no reviews, they are far less likely to interact with your business than a competitor with strong social proof.
