When you have launched your website with a range of services & completed a few projects, you can focus on collecting reviews.
Reviews aren’t just reputation votes for people—they’re major SEO assets.
Internet business experts agree that reviews influence Google’s algorithm, customer trust & ultimately business performance.
SBMarketer’s High-Performance Marketing Websites is the foundation for your reviews.
Ask how can I systemise customer reviews to send positive signals to the algorithm?
One important method is to encourage reviews on credible platforms for your niche.
“Reviews are the good & bad sentiment customers feel about products & services.”
Moz conducted studies to analyse the factors that influence search engine rankings, & they found reviews play a key role in Local search rankings.
“There is no single answer to which factors carry most weight because Google handles results differently across their products, markets, industries, platforms, & devices.”
A good approach is to build profiles on the main review platforms for your niche, then reach out to associates & customers for reviews.
Ask associates, people you’ve assisted while volunteering, & others you helped while at university or on community projects.
Moz explains Google uses 3 types of reviews—Google-based reviews, e.g. Google Business Profile, Third-party reviews, e.g. LinkedIn, & First-party reviews on your website.
It’s good to vet the review platform you’re considering, as not all review sites are trusted.
Some remove truthful negative reviews after requests, causing credibility issues.
You might ask, “How can I build reviews quickly from zero as a new entrepreneur?”
Smart entrepreneurs will feature review systems for customers in their business & marketing systems to expedite reviews growth.
They promote their preferred review platform, request reviews on their Home page, & in other areas where customers visit, e.g. Contact page.
They add a request to “Leave a Review” on their order confirmation page with a CTA, plus on their invoice, & on the delivery email with CTA.
They might create an automated email sequence, e.g. “Leave a Review” shortly after their service is completed or product delivered, with a survey.
The ACCC has guidance on how to ensure review practices are legal. They state, if you offer incentives, they must be clearly disclosed & given regardless if a review is positive or negative.
It all starts with the 4 Best Website Technologies Assisting Entrepreneurs.
Tip: Look where your competitors have most of their reviews, then build a review profile & system.
12 Credible Review Platforms & Marketplaces
For new entrepreneurs here are 12 credible review platforms & markeplaces to consider.
- Google Business Profile (GBP): Primarily for local search performance, GBP can significantly impact your visibility on Google searches & Google Maps Local Pack;
- LinkedIn: Request reviews for your services or company, send 20 review invitations & mark projects complete. Premium subs. display their latest 4 or 5-Star review;
- Clutch: Connects business service providers & projects. List your business, request reviews & brief a project to providers;
- Hotfrog: Australia’s freshest local business directory. List your business, add video, articles & offers. Request & write reviews;
- Yelp For Business: Find local businesses, home services, & restaurants. Yelp can help you connect with local customers nearby.
- Trustpilot: A global digital review platform where consumers evaluate businesses & share their service experiences;
- Trustburn: is an online consumer review directory for reputation management that allows users to read, write, & share reviews;
- Capterra: A resource for software developers, WordPress users, & IT services, providing in-depth reviews & ratings;
- Lazada/Shopee/Amazon: If you’re selling products or services, third-party reviews can improve your reputation by providing good signals to search engines;
- Upwork: Is the world’s largest human & AI-powered freelance marketplace to hire top talent—trusted by businesses & professionals worldwide.
- Airtasker: For businesses & freelancers offering services, customers post jobs, business are ranked & provide quotes, happy customers leave reviews.
- Angi: A directory for trades & service-based businesses in USA, particularly in the home services industry.
Tip: Request 3 types of reviews that Google likes—Google-based (GBP), third-party (LinkedIn), & first-party (your website) reviews.
Customer reviews play a significant role in improving SEO & business performance.
10 Ways Reviews Boost SEO Growth For Entrepreneurs
If you are curious how reviews impact business growth? Below are 10 proven ways reviews assist SEO & traditional growth of an Internet business.
1. Guiding Consumer Choice
Research by The Bazaar Voice on 30,000+ global shoppers found 88% use reviews to discover & evaluate products.
If you’re like me & you purchase goods online from Lazada, Shopee, or Amazon, then you know that good reviews impact who you buy from.
In the Philippines I buy my Subaru parts online using star-ratings, as supply is limited, so I buy from sellers with 4.7-5.0 stars.
Before buying I read reviews from happy customers, & I prefer to buy from sellers with a higher number of items sold to reduce risk.
I give reviews for sellers who provide quality products & for faulty product warnings.
Reviews help genuine sellers grow their business & protects consumers.
2. User Generated Content
For an Internet business positive reviews & star-ratings impact everything from conversion rates, to SEO performance, & search results.
Search engines favour User Generated Content because it indicates the business is active & currently engaged with its customers.
TBV’s Shopper Experience Index, found 59-65% of people in AU, USA, & UK rely on User Generated Content in their buying decisions.
They found consumers use a combination of testimonials, star-ratings, number of reviews & products sold—as decision signals.
Many people compare online prices & reviews with in-store product prices, & whoever has the best price & quality usually wins.
Good reviews also help to verify the quality of what people are buying.
3. Boost Search Rankings
Positive reviews on Google Business Profile, improve business rankings in local search results, as Google’s algorithm considers reviews from their products a high-quality signal.
In addition they use third-party review data from platforms like LinkedIn, Yelp & Airtasker to assist search results & determine what to display.
On these platforms & in the SERPS, they trigger algorithms to display the best rated sellers first, helping seller’s improve their visibility.
First-party data is another component in Google’s evaluation, e.g. recent customer reviews & testimonials on your website boost results.
Tip: If you want to improve your search rankings, build systems to request reviews across Google-based, third-party, & first-party systems.
4. Increase Website Traffic
Reviews are the new “Word of Mouth” & a major factor in Google Maps listings & their Local Pack rankings for businesses.
Positive reviews on credible platforms for services can improve search performance & visitor referrals from these platforms.
As a result of reviews, more potential customers are likely to visit from both organic search results & review platform referrals to a website.
Then as web visitor traffic grows, it further enhances your SEO performance, by providing a higher-traffic signal to Google—boosting listings.
Tip: In addition to asking for reviews, try posting your services on review platforms to start the traffic from LinkedIn & the SERPs.
5. Builds Trust & Credibility
Reviews act as credible social proof from people who have engaged with a business.
I know when I’m a customer, I’m more inclined to trust a business with numerous positive reviews & 4 to 5-Star ratings.
I like to read positive & negative reviews for my evaluations on product sellers & service providers, before proceeding.
Negative reviews can also be turned into positives with empathy & professionalism, & when they’re handled well with compassion & remedies.
The trust gained from reviews increases user engagement, CTR, & conversion rates on a website, helping the business owner.
6. Opportunity For Outreach
Every review or testimonial from a customer is fresh UGC, sending a signal to search engines.
Once you have established your profiles on the main platforms (GBP & LinkedIn) & added review systems to your site, you can get proactive requesting reviews.
Timing is key—send requests shortly after project milestones or completion, & after positive client interactions with a link to your GBP or LinkedIn.
Have you noticed how booking sites automate review requests by email?
Marketing automation platforms can strengthen reviews with every client receiving an automated request post stays or with invoice delivery.
Ask yourself, “Who can I reach out to & request a review each week?” Then look back in 3-months to watch your reviews & social credit growing.
7. High-Quality Backlinks
It’s well known that high-quality backlinks from authoritative third-party sites signal to Google that your website is credible & trustworthy.
When you have business profiles on review & directory sites like LinkedIn, Clutch, & Hotfrog, & Local Chamber of Commerce, this builds authoritative backlinks to your website.
New entrepreneurs take note of this critical step.
I noticed good improvement in my rankings for SBMarketer searches on Google (p3 to p1) after I set-up my profiles & listed on review & directory sites.
It’s like priming the search engines to understand that you’re a professional business, you’re active & currently operating in your industry niche.
Tip: Make sure your NAP data (name, address, phone) is consistent across all platforms.
8. Better Click Through Rates
Businesses with positive reviews, higher star-ratings & more reviews are likely to receive more clicks from SERPs, as these are top listing signals.
One of the key reasons reviews & UGC boost CTR is because consumers trust peer voices more than branded content, so their more likely to convert from this information.
Rich snippets also help improved CTR, as Google often displays star-ratings, review count & snippets from UGC, to improve your visibility.
A high CTR also signals to search engines that your result is relevant to the user’s query, which positively influences search performance.
Tip: Incorporating reviews in email marketing increases CTR by 78% (Amra & Elma).
9. Provides Customer Keywords
Reviews provide primary keyword diversity for organic searches & conversational language.
This occurs when rich snippets contain the conversational review words & language.
Customers can significantly enhance your SEO performance by using keywords related to your business services in their reviews.
This is because search engines consider customer reviews as “Very Credible UGC” which boosts the credibility & relevance of your website.
The natural & varied language customers use in their reviews can improve your search visibility for those terms, potentially adding new queries.
Tip: Assist customers by providing strategic review statements & primary keywords.
10. Contributes To Schema Markup
Reviews should be wrapped in Schema Markup, e.g. Simple Review Schema, so Google knows they represent customer feedback & ratings.
They boost SEO performance from their contribution to SM from rich snippets.
Search engines evaluate the data from rich snippets, e.g. star-ratings, volume of reviews, reviewer name & dates, in considering to display a business page.
In some results pages, the rich snippet data is displayed with your website content in the listing.
Try searching for SpaceX CA on Google Maps, you see a star-rating (4.8 from 1225+), which comes from their Google Business Profile.
10 Ways Reviews Boost SEO Growth For Entrepreneurs
Industry leaders believe reviews is one of the best SEO growth strategies for new entrepreneurs, as search engines use reviews as a key signal.
5-Star customer reviews provide credibility & trust for a business, reassuring consumers, & providing high-quality backlinks to a website.
It makes sense for search engines to rewarded business with 4 or 5 star-ratings with higher ranked search listings, as these are like “Word of Mouth” referrals & votes from customers.
Start building your review platforms & systems as soon as possible to leverage the SEO benefits for your business website.
Let me know how reviews work for you, & what’s your favourite review platform in the comments below?
