Google Business Profile Reviews and Ratings

Your Google My Business listing contains two magic numbers that can strongly influence how you rank in the map three-pack on a search page and how well you rank on the map. When people conduct a search for a local business, Google knows that they are looking for a business near them even if they didn’t specify it as part of their search query, just typing in “Veterinarians” will generate local search results based on where Google thinks you are. Once that happens the user will get a search engine results page from google that will likely have four basic blocks of results: ads, the map pack, the organic (free) results, and of course more ads.

If you are a local business the best place you can appear on the page, for free, is at the top of the map pack in the number one spot. Okay, the dream results are that you are the #1 ad, you are again #1 on the map pack (possibly listed as an ad), you are in the #1 spot organically and you also get two of the 10 organic entries (which is the limit Google will give you). That’s the maximum but that’s very difficult to achieve.

Taking ads out of the equation, it’s often easier to rank well on the map pack than to rank well in the organic results, plus you get higher visibility by being higher up on the search engine results page. There are a whole host of variables that determine who gets the top spot on the map and yes organic website ranking plays a part in it, but two of the easiest variables you can control to move up the list are the number of reviews you have and how highly you are rated.

When people see map results, they are given the option (at the bottom of the results) to switch from the search results page they are on to the map. Once they switch to the map (especially on a desktop) they will get a large list of businesses on one side of the page and the map on the other. On a cell phone, you can get the list of businesses and just keep scrolling because at that point google no longer even shows the map.

Here is where it gets interesting because this is where the number of reviews you have and your average rating are shown prominently on either side of a set of yellow stars. There is additional information provided as well and that information is very important but let’s just focus on the two numbers for a minute.

Assume the user knows nothing about the businesses they are looking for, they have zero brand awareness or name recognition. The easiest way for them to decide who to click on is to look for a business with “plenty” of reviews and a high average rating.

It’s a pretty simple selection process and it feels very safe because the user assumes that a decent number of reviews means lots of clients over time, and these clients are likely leaving an honest review, so the average number must be a fairly true reflection of the business. The more reviews the higher the certainty of the rating.

If there are no reviews that’s a red flag but so is a high number of reviews with a low rating. The red flag cases show how powerful and also dangerous this rating system can be for you. Luckily, the opposite is also true, if you have a solid number of ratings and your rating average is as good or better than most then you are likely to end up on someone’s shortlist for whatever business you are in.

If you have few reviews and a low rating the good news is that a concerted effort to add a fairly small number of positive reviews can quickly improve things. If you have a lot of bad reviews you may need to really work to get the rating up but you should also be reading the reviews to address whatever problem you have that is causing them in the first place.

The total number of reviews doesn’t have to be a huge number because in that local area it is relative to the number of reviews other businesses like yours have. There is no real magic number of reviews to strive for, you just need to be on the very high end of your competition. Having three times as many might be natural but it also might look fake. The other thing to keep in mind is that different kinds of businesses generate different levels of reviews. A restaurant might have quite a few times more reviews than a local small business accountant.

The same holds true with ratings, some industries tend to have higher average ratings than others where the ratings are more subjective. It’s worth looking at your competition both locally and beyond to get a sense of what passes for both a high number of reviews and a high rating.

Nobody knows these numbers better than Google themselves since they see all of the numbers across all Google Business Profiles. They, therefore, know what looks natural and what looks just a bit too amazing to be believable.

If you need help responding to reviews and generating more of them in a natural way that complies with Google’s best practices, why not call GBP Pilot and let us tell you how we can help you get the maximum out of your reviews and ratings.