Do Reviews Impact Local SEO Rankings? New Study

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ahbappy250
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Joined: Sun Dec 15, 2024 3:30 am

Do Reviews Impact Local SEO Rankings? New Study

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In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, for those of us in the local SEO world, one thing is clearer than ever: if you want your business to make an impact in your locality, a strong local presence online is an absolute must.

In addition to maintaining a complete and accurate Google business profile, engaging with users and obtaining ratings and reviews are two key components of a solid Local SEO strategy .

But do ratings and reviews really denmark whatsapp number impact local SEO? And if so, how?

Our 2021 Local SEO Rankings study looked at just that. To find out, we studied 5,624 business-oriented keywords and analyzed the results of the Local Pack on Google Maps and the Local Pack on Desktop and Mobile.

How Reviews and Ratings Affect Local SEO for Google Maps
For listings on Google Maps, we've found that a listing's average number of reviews has a significantly stronger impact on its performance than its average rating .

In fact, we found that the average rating was not correlated with top three rankings.

Here is the breakdown of the average rating for all the cards analyzed in all categories:
It’s important to note that all three locations have average ratings above 4.1, which tells us that positive ratings are still beneficial, even if they don’t ultimately determine the top spot on Google Maps.

Conversely, the number of reviews a listing has is related to its position.

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Here is the average number of reviews in the top three positions for all listings examined:
Notice how, on average, the first position has more reviews than positions two and three. The result was the same when we looked at the median number of reviews:
These results show us how important it is to encourage as many satisfied customers as possible to write reviews.

Along with a strong Google Business Profile, maintaining a high volume of reviews and an average rating of 4.1 or higher can help improve your visibility in Google Maps results.
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