Customer reviews are obviously important when potential customers are deciding if they want to do business with you or not… But most people don’t realize that they’re heavily weighted in Google’s local algorithm as well.
BrightLocal just released a really cool report on consumer reviews, and it’s got some pretty cool stuff in it. If you do any sort of marketing at all, you should check the report out – but if you do Local SEO, it should be required reading.
You can check the full report out here.
But I wanted to share a few of the highlights with you today, so here we go:
76% of consumers “regularly” read online reviews when browsing for local businesses.
87% of consumers used Google to evaluate local businesses in 2022. That’s up from 81% in 2021.
Google is the most trusted review platform across all the industries that were surveyed.
Almost half of consumers have been offered incentives in exchange for leaving a review – which is very clearly against Google’s guidelines.
And a crazy one: 20% of consumers ages 18 and up are using TikTok for local business discovery!
The report also shows that people are engaging more with review content in general, actually reading reviews and responses and not just relying on the overall star ratings.
Definitely head over to the brightlocal site and check out the full report, it’s packed with awesome info.
