The 2-minute Google review reply most businesses get wrong

If you run a local business, you get Google reviews. Hopefully good ones. Hopefully fairly often.

And when one comes in, most owners do one of two things.

They read it, feel good, and move on without replying.

Or they reply with something like:

“Thank you so much for your kind review, we really appreciate it!”

The second one is better. Replying is good. Google itself says that replying to reviews shows customers you value their feedback.

But that reply is a wasted opportunity. Here's why, and the simple fix.

Google is a robot reading your profile

Google is constantly reading your Business Profile to work out two things:

1. What you do

2. Where you do it

Your reviews and your replies are part of what it reads. So is every person scrolling through them, deciding whether to ring you or the next business down.

"Thanks, we really appreciate it" tells neither of them anything.

How to reply to Google reviews the right way

Say you're a roofer in Northampton and you get this review from a customer in Duston:

“Great job on our roof, quick and tidy. Would recommend.”

Instead of a polite one-liner, reply like this:

“Thanks Sarah, really glad you're happy with it. It was a pleasure replacing the slipped tiles and fixing the flashing on your roof in Duston. We're doing more and more work around Duston, Upton and Sixfields at the moment, so if you ever need gutters cleared or anything checked after a storm, you know where we are.”

Same effort. Two minutes, tops.

But now anyone reading it knows exactly what you do (tile repairs, flashing, gutters) and where you work (Duston, Upton, Sixfields). That's what makes someone pick up the phone.

Will it actually move you up Google?

I'll be straight with you, because there's a lot of nonsense online about this.

Replying to reviews on its own won't shoot you to number one. The big local SEO studies put far more weight on getting a steady stream of new reviews than on what anyone writes in them.

But good replies help in the ways that do count:

• They show Google and customers that you're active and you care

• They make people more likely to click on you over a competitor with the same star rating

• They give Google more context about your services and areas

So it's not magic. It's one of those small things that adds up, and it costs you nothing.

The rules

Reply to every review. Good and bad. Within a couple of days if you can.

Mention the job and the area, naturally. Write it the way you'd say it to the customer's face. If it reads like a list of keywords, rewrite it.

Don't copy and paste the same reply. Fifty identical replies look lazy to customers and pointless to Google.

Use their name. It's a real person. Treat it like one.

Keep bad-review replies calm and short. Thank them, own anything you got wrong, and offer to sort it offline. You're not replying to win the argument. You're replying for the next customer who reads it.

Keep the reviews coming. Ask every happy customer. A few new reviews every month beats twenty in one week and then nothing for a year.

A simple template

If you're stuck, fill in the gaps:

“Thanks [name], really glad you're happy with [the job]. It was a pleasure working on your [house/business] in [area]. We do a lot of [service] around [area] and [nearby area], so give us a shout if you ever need [related service].”

That's it. Two minutes per review.

Want to know where you stand?

Reviews are one piece of showing up on Google Maps. If you want to see how your profile compares to the businesses ranking above you, and what we'd fix first, get a free marketing analysis. Or have a look at how we do SEO for local businesses.

Talk soon,

Joshua