FORBES, FEATURED
This article was originally published on Forbes.com on January 24, 2025
Earning a five-star review or a positive comment online are accomplishments all companies strive to achieve. Social proof like these can help build your reputation as a trustworthy business, eventually attracting even more customers and boosting your sales.
On a recent Expert Panel, Forbes Communications Council asked about asked about the best ways to optimize online reviews for your company's SEO.
OUR TAKE:
5. Work To Build Trust With Customers
The best action a business can take to address online reviews is to engage with the customer. This is especially important for negative reviews. Don't try to hide them. Lean into your strengths and acknowledge your weaknesses. Transparency and communication build trust, and integrity is what will allow you to keep your customers. Yes, there are other techniques, but trust is the key.
FULL ARTICLE:
Earning a five-star review or a positive comment online are accomplishments all companies strive to achieve. Social proof like these can help build your reputation as a trustworthy business, eventually attracting even more customers and boosting your sales.
But online reviews can also have a big impact on your company's SEO, often affecting where you show up in the search results and the type of message being sent to any potential customers who may stumble across your information. To ensure you’re optimizing online reviews for search in the best possible way, consider the following 12 tips from the marketing and communications experts of Forbes Communications Council.
1. Listen To And Address The Feedback
Online reviews are crucial for helping buyers assess a product’s value. I myself lean heavily on them. To ensure SEO is positive, really focus on actively listening to feedback and taking actionable steps to address concerns so reviews become naturally positive. - Erin Nourijanian, UBS Arena
2. Respond To Every Review Possible
Answer all reviews on Google and Yelp: good, bad and no-text reviews. Responses send engagement signals to search engines, which boost your organic rankings and your local listings. Add key content about your business in your response to push content. Encouraging no-text, five-star reviews to share more feedback often earns updated reviews with good SEO content. Future customers are watching. - Cynthia Sener, Constellation Software
3. Request Reviews From Top NPS Respondents
Target your top Net Promoter Score respondents with a request for a review. This is a tried-and-true method to earn positive reviews from those who truly understand your brand and its benefits. - Lauren Pasquale Bartlett, Ingenovis Health
4. Focus On The Key Sites That Impact Your Visibility
Start by identifying which review platforms impact your visibility in generative and traditional search results. Focus on these key sites when requesting reviews. Actively engage with all feedback—positive or negative—to demonstrate trustworthiness and surface relevant keywords. Encourage detailed responses highlighting specific features or services to boost SEO impact. - John Schneider, Betterworks
5. Work To Build Trust With Customers
The best action a business can take to address online reviews is to engage with the customer. This is especially important for negative reviews. Don't try to hide them. Lean into your strengths and acknowledge your weaknesses. Transparency and communication build trust, and integrity is what will allow you to keep your customers. Yes, there are other techniques, but trust is the key. - Rachel Kule, Pursuit PR
6. Change Gears To 'Catching Success In Action'
Establish SOPs across teams to spotlight exceptional customer moments. Incentivize identifying these experiences, and then request public reviews. Tracking this process builds a system where great reviews improve SEO while reinforcing internal alignment on delivering stellar customer outcomes. - Kurt Uhlir, Ethereal Innovations, Inc.
7. Ensure Reviews Are Properly Displayed In Search Results
Optimize reviews by using structured data to make reviews display star ratings, review counts and consumer comments in search results for more visibility and clicks. Mine reviews for SEO keywords and consumer language and integrates into website content (product pages, ads) and review responses. Generative AI relies on trusted, clear reviews and visuals to create summaries and recommendations. - Toby Wong, Toby Wong Consulting
8. Develop A Post-Purchase Communication Workflow
To take advantage of reviews and elevate SEO, the business needs a steady feedback stream in a post-purchase communication workflow. Review recency has a big impact on SEO. Identify the customer life cycle point where product delight is at its peak and the customer is happiest with your brand. Use a channel like email or in-app notifications to build a recurring automation to solicit positive reviews. - Evan Reiss, Foxit
9. Embed Live Reviews On Your Website
Partner with review platforms to embed live reviews on your website using widgets or APIs. This creates fresh, user-generated content that boosts SEO while showcasing transparency. Adding schema markup to help search engines index reviews may also improve visibility. This approach not only enhances rankings but also builds trust with potential customers. - Katie Jewett, UPRAISE Marketing + Public Relations
10. Apply A UX Mindset To Each Review Touchpoint
Train your team to respond consistently and in compliance with both regulatory and brand guidelines. Then apply a UX mindset so each review touchpoint—from prompts to replies—is transparent and brand-aligned. A well-crafted response playbook incorporates relevant keywords for better SEO and humanizes interactions—hallmarks of exceptional UX that foster trust and strengthen brand authenticity. - Mark Rainey, inQUEST Consulting
11. Create Review Pages For Your Various Offerings
Many customer review sites let vendors create multiple product review pages for different offerings, allowing customers to leave targeted feedback on each product. These online reviews significantly impact traditional SEO and AI search because these reviews can appear for buyers searching for specific features or products and potentially lead to multiple listings for the same vendor. - Rekha Thomas, Path Forward Marketing
12. Leverage User-Generated Content And Images
To boost SEO through reviews, encourage satisfied customers to leave detailed, keyword-rich reviews. User-generated content like this signals trust and relevance to search engines. Optimize by responding to reviews and leveraging user-uploaded images, as visual search and AI increasingly value authentic, image-backed feedback in ranking algorithms. - Melanie De Caprio, SG360°