Does Responding to Reviews Help Your SEO? What Businesses Need to Know

Local SEO plays a critical role in driving customers in your area to your business. As you develop your SEO strategy, it's important that you make it a habit to not only encourage customers to leave a review on your Google Business Profile, but that you also respond to all reviews that come in.
In short, yes, responding to Google Reviews, both good and bad, help your SEO. It demonstrates that you care about their experience with your business and gives you a chance to share your gratitude and observations.
If you're looking for a way to help improve how frequently your business shows up in Google and even get a slight edge against your competitor, keep reading.

Do Google Reviews Help SEO?

If you are like many business owners, you be underestimating the value that reviews on your Google My Business (GMB) page can have when trying to improve your SEO.
When Google ranks websites in its SERP (search engine results page), it will first assess a website to measure whether or not it has good E-E-A-T: Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trust. This being the case, Google reviews actually play a key role in determining how a website ranks on Google by making a business look more trustworthy.
The fact is that Google trusts what customers have to say about your business more than what you say on your website. This is true of your potential customers too, as 93% of users say reviews factor into their buying decisions .
If your business has numerous positive reviews, Google will take this as evidence that your business is trustworthy, which will have a positive effect on your search ranking as you do this over time.

Responding to Reviews Further Improves SEO

While encouraging customers to leave reviews can boost your SEO, you should take things a step further by making a point of responding to as many reviews as possible.
Putting in the time and effort to respond to each one of your customer's reviews has a number of benefits:

Making Your Business Look Trustworthy

These days, online reviews play a critical role in helping customers decide which businesses they can trust. When you respond to reviews, whether good or bad, you're showing potential customers that you care about your reputation and are willing to ensure that all of your customers have a good experience.

Adding Keywords

Google scans the reviews on your Google My Business profile for keywords that can help it learn what your business does and whether your business is relevant to specific user searches.
When responding to reviews on Google, you have an opportunity to include keywords in your response than can help Google better categorize your business, improving your future search results.

Increasing Your Position in Search Results Through Engagement

Another factor that influences your ranking is how many people engage with your Google Business Profile. Whenever prospective customers spend time swiping through your pictures, requesting directions, asking questions on your profile, or even reading reviews, this is very positive for your business' visibility.
Whether positive or negative, you should give people not only a chance to read a customer's review, but also your response. When it comes to negative reviews, you have a chance to provide your side of the story instead of it appearing one sided and potentially out of context.

Google Says You Should Do It

Though many businesses choose not to interact with customer reviews, the fact is that it is no secret that doing so improves SEO. Even Google has made it clear to businesses that responding to reviews improves your local ranking.

Be A Customer-Centric Business By Responding to Google Reviews

When you take the time to thank happy customers and apologize to unsatisfied customers, this demonstrates that you are a customer-centric business.
Something as simple as responding to customer reviews can be essential for your online reputation, which can help to boost your local SEO and make potential customers feel much better about choosing you.
Thanks for reading! Now go and ask your customers for a review today!

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