Why does Google care if your business has online reviews?

Maybe it’s because Amazon taught us to rely on ratings and reviews, or maybe it’s because we’ve always been social creatures, eager to hear about what others did when faced with similar decisions.

Maybe it’s because Google tends to show us search results that feature reviews and ratings.

Whatever the root cause, there’s no question that ratings and reviews help shoppers on their quest for the perfect purchase, or that they work wonders for businesses of just about any size.

Whether you need to improve your online reputation, create a feedback loop with your customers, step up your user-generated content game, or boost on-site conversions — a review strategy can help with all of that.

But perhaps the most underrated benefit of collecting reviews is that, when implemented properly, reviews can help Google better understand your site. That’s a huge win for organic SEO.

Between more and more businesses emerging each day (who are, to say the least, also trying to stand out in organic search), and paid advertising becoming less effective in saturated markets, ranking well in organic search results is a true asset for any business.

When your potential customers are off consulting the internet for help making their next purchase, wouldn’t you want to put yourself right where they can see you?

Unlike paid advertising campaigns, which don't always delight consumers, doing what you can to improve your organic Search Engine Results Page (SERP) ranking can really move the needle — with less risk of potential customers getting fed up with your brand.

If we had to quantify the importance of your organic search ranking, a staggering 91.5% of organic traffic share goes to sites listed on the first page of results. Don’t shoot the messenger, but if you’re not ranking anywhere near the first page of results, you’re probably not getting seen in organic search.

Make no mistake. Ranking on the first page in Google SERPs is a challenge for businesses of all shapes and sizes, and it certainly doesn’t happen overnight. The good news is that other aspects of your broader marketing strategy, like review collection, can do double duty to help you with organic SEO.

According to Moz's 2018 Local Search Ranking Factors, review signals like quantity, velocity, and diversity came in as the 3rd most important factor in how Google ranks local businesses in its “Local Pack” SERP. Some sources consider review signals to be even more important in 2019. That’s a pretty big deal, especially if you do a lot of local business.

And if you’re not a brick and mortar business, the SEO community believes you’ll still see serious SEO benefits from gathering reviews. Common understanding is that Google uses them to derive brand signals, which can boost your site’s domain authority and eventually your position in search.

Because Google’s goal is to serve up high quality and reputable results, they’re on the lookout brand signals that can help them separate the “brands” (who, among other indicators, have proof of a satisfied customer base) from the “generics” (the sites that Google classifies as having a poor user experience).

Image courtesy of Moz

Simply put, Google appreciates when some of the guesswork around a website’s quality is done for them, so it’s a good idea to use independent (read: trusted) online platforms to gather reviews.

In answering why Google cares about online reviews, we have to touch on the role reviews play in off-page SEO. As the name suggests, off-page SEO (also called off-site SEO) refers to the actions you take outside of your actual website to impact your rankings in organic search.

This is a high level look at how it works:

By incorporating some off-page SEO techniques into your overall strategy — like building a presence on social media and third-party review platforms — you signal to Google that you’re a brand.

Most businesses have an on-page SEO strategy to help with organic search, but fewer are spending significant energy on off-page opportunities. Pulling some key levers for off-page SEO could be the competitive advantage your business needs to rise to the top of organic search results.

When people search for reviews of your brand, what do they find? Business profile pages on Trustpilot tend to appear as a top search result, often with Review Snippet stars, and are backed by the credibility of a review platform built for people and businesses.

But why do the Trustpilot profile pages tend to surface at the top of SERPs?

It all goes back to the concept of domain authority. We don’t mean to brag, but Trustpilot’s domain authority is strong. In fact, as of 2019, Trustpilot is among the top 1% of most visited sites in the world and 0.35% of all Google searches include a Trustpilot business profile page — and for some additional context, there are about 63,000 Google searches every second of every day.

The more reviews you get, and the more you enrich the content on your business profile page (think: company contact information, mission statement, social media profiles), the more content you provide for both search engines to associate your brand with ours, and show your profile page at the top of search results.

According to Moz, off-site SEO-related factors like third-party reviews carry more than 50% of the ranking factor weight. Though search engines are constantly evolving, factors like relevance, trustworthiness, and authority will likely always play a role in a page’s ability to rank, and building up your online presence with reviews can help businesses crush all three of those criteria.

At the end of the day, you want both your customers and Google to think of you as a brand. You can make all the on-page SEO optimizations you want, but Google will still be looking out for your brand’s reputation on third-party platforms.

Most businesses spend a lot of time optimizing their websites for what they think Google wants to see, but what your customers want to see is still incredibly important. When a person searches for reviews of your company, they’re looking for a neutral third-party source of information.

Profiles on third-party review sites like Trustpilot tend to rank highly thanks to their strong domain authority, helping them stand out in organic search. They’re a great way to highlight your reputation to potential customers.

Choosing to build your online presence on a platform that’s likely to appear at the top of search is an advantage. But choosing a review platform known for transparency and openness is the fast track to a brand reputation that consumers can not only easily find, but also easily trust.

If you want to learn more, here are some other useful links that will help you get started improving your organic search performance with online reviews.

Trustpilot is a leading online review platform. Ready to start showing off your reputation in search results? Click the banner below to learn more about the many ways we can help.