Why Online Reviews Are Important for Local Business Success Today

Why Online Reviews Matter More Than Ever for Local Businesses

Just recently, BrightLocal released its latest Local Consumer Review Survey, highlighting how online reviews continue to shape customer behavior and local business visibility in today’s digital landscape. BrightLocal has been tracking consumer review trends for more than a decade, and the latest research shows that reviews are more influential than ever for businesses trying to build trust online.

With more consumers relying on Google searches, Maps, social media, and even AI-generated recommendations to find local businesses, online reviews now play a major role in how customers make purchasing decisions. The 2025 survey also revealed that people are paying closer attention to detailed reviews, recent customer experiences, photos, and business responses before choosing who to trust.

There were several fascinating statistics and insights included in the report, and I’d like to go through some of the most important ones because they offer valuable lessons for local businesses moving forward. As we continue into 2026, businesses that actively manage their online reputation, respond to reviews, and encourage customer feedback will likely have a major advantage in local SEO and customer trust.

How many people are searching for your business?

The first stat that I want to talk about is that…

93% of consumers used the internet to find a local business in the last year. With 34% searching every day.

This is huge. 93% of people are using the internet to find a local business. Now, this is the key - LOCAL business:- we're not talking about search in general, but they're looking for a specific service or specific product from a local business.

And a third of those are searching every single day for local businesses. So, if you are a local business, this is super important, especially during the uncertain times of COVID and lockdowns and whether somebody is open or not.

Google My Business and those other search review sites can be a very, very strong advocate for letting customers know whether you're open or you're closed or you have reduced hours and so on.

87% of consumers read online reviews for local businesses in 2020, which is up from 81% in 2019.

Reviews are the word of mouth of the internet and people are reading them. They are reading them in their droves and it's super important for you to have good reviews. All of the review sites are constantly adding new features to their services and people are gravitating towards them on a more regular basis.

You can see in the graph below that frequency of searching for local business information has grown steadily over the last 3 years

 

 

Is your Business COVID Safe?

Going along with that last stat, I also wanted to share was that

67% of consumers say they wouldn't use a business if reviews said it did not have a COVID 19 health and safety measure in place.

So this is very important. This is why Google My Business, especially, and even Yelp and those other review platforms are also letting us talk about our practices for COVID-19. It's letting us tell customers, not only do we have a health and safety policy in place, but it also gives us the ability to let them know of hours and anything else that's different due to the COVID-19 implications that are happening right now.

What they also discovered was that 22% of people also wrote reviews to support local businesses that were struggling during the pandemic. Love that spirit!

What Industries are the Most Reviewed?

One of the interesting pieces of information to come from this article is the industries in which consumers are most likely to have read reviews.

Number one is Restaurants, and it probably makes sense. Most people want to make sure that they're not the only person eating at that restaurant and it has a good quality number of reviews.

Number two is Hotels, for a very similar to restaurants

Number three is Medical Services. So lots of medical doctors, dentists, chiropractors, and all those service-based medical professionals are very, very reliant on reviews.

Number four is Automotive. So anyone that's an automotive repair body shop are super reliant on very effective reviews and then Clothing Stores are the next one that they found to be very, very likely to have people read reviews.

Other ones just from personal experience are service-based industries. So services like plumbers, electricians, gardeners and other people that are coming to your house to do service. People want to make sure that they've got the right person coming for the job.

What is important in a Review?

The next one that was very interesting was a stat that…

Only 48% of consumers would consider using a business with less than four stars.

So more than half of the people would not use your business if you did not have more than a four-star rating. Now, how do you get a four-star rating? Well, of course, you've got to have a good quality service, good quality product.

But I think the important part is that you've got to be actively chasing reviews. And the number of reviews that are on your site can grow rapidly if you are actively chasing those reviews.

So what are the factors of a review that are most important to readers?

As you can see from the graphic below, the most important aspect was the Overall star rating and then followed by the legitimacy… or how real is that review? That’s a big concern in this day and age of ‘fake news’ right?

 

The other key points were the recency of a review, the tone or the sentiment of the review and also how many reviews a site has.

Asking customers for Reviews

In this report that BrightLocal prepared, they said that

73% of consumers had been asked to write a review for a local business, which is a lot more than 2019.

They also discovered that there were twice as many positive reviews written than negative ones… so it's not all bad news!

Now, obviously, people are requesting feedback, which is great.

And most businesses asked for a review via email, then in person, on a receipt, social media, and over the phone. Our online review management service Palm Desert ensures that all these feedback channels are monitored and optimized

So you can see that there's a number of things that people were asking for a review from. And it's super important that it doesn't matter how you do it as long as you can meet them where they're at to get those reviews, you're going to find that you could grow steadily.

The other important aspect of reviews is that only 73% of the consumers only pay attention to reviews written in the last MONTH.

So if you're not actively asking for reviews, then you're going to find that people are going to dismiss the reviews that are maybe six months or a year old because they're not relevant to today's situation or today's transactions. So you want to be thinking about how often are you asking for reviews. Hint: Every transaction!

Further to that last stat,

72% of consumers have written a review for local businesses, which is a huge jump from 66%.

So people are out there actively writing reviews. Now you want to make sure that when they're writing reviews, you be careful about not offering them an incentive. Because that is usually against most terms of service for these review application platforms. So you really want to be making sure that people are doing it because they want to do it and not because you're giving them some incentive to write a review.

Responding to Reviews

Finally, the last stat was that…

when writing a review, one in five people expect to receive a response to their review within one day.

Now this is uber important because a lot of people don't do this. They look at the reviews that people give them, they get excited, they may share with their friends, but they don't respond to the person giving the review. So if you are somebody that is getting reviews often, then make sure you respond to them too. You actually should respond even to ALL the reviews, Good and Bad.

The survey also asked people how long do consumers expect reviews they write to be responded to.

Here it is people… 76% expect their review to be responded to within 1 WEEK! Don’t let this go by the wayside… if you have a Google My Business Account, the app can send you a notification to alert you when there is a new review.

So make sure you're out there responding to all reviews that people do. Now, this can be a bit of a challenge, especially if you've got all these different sites where people could be leaving you a review. They could be on Google My Business, could be Yelp, Facebook, could be TripAdvisor.

It could be some of those niche platforms that you may not even know that you're listed on. So it's often good to get a service, even like BrightLocal, that can monitor those reviews across all the different services for you, which makes life a lot easier when you're trying to manage your reputation.

As we can see, reviews in 2020 were very, very much dominated by COVID-19 and the lockdowns and the shutdowns that we're all going through.

And lots of people spent more time at home more than usual on the internet. They're looking for new services because maybe now they're working from home and they need to go and find local services that they wouldn't ordinarily use because they've been at their workplace.

But despite all of these crazy, crazy situations that are going on in 2020, reviews are super vital and a super vital source for making sure that local businesses and customers stay connected.

Most people are now looking at reviews everywhere. You need to have a presence online. You need to have a Google My Business presence. You need to have a very active account on there, and you need to be not burying your head in the sand when it comes to people talking about your business.

Shameless plug: If you need to up your game with your location listing and reputation management, please give us a call and we can send you in the right direction.

Final Thoughts — Why Online Reviews Matter More Than Ever for Local Businesses

As we move further into 2026, online reviews continue to play a major role in how customers discover, trust, and choose local businesses. With more people relying on Google Search, Maps, social media, and online recommendations before making decisions, reviews have become one of the strongest trust signals a business can have.

Positive reviews not only help attract new customers, but they can also improve your local search visibility, strengthen your online reputation, and increase customer confidence in your brand. Today’s consumers want to see authentic experiences, recent feedback, and businesses that actively engage with their customers.

That’s why it’s so important to consistently encourage reviews, respond professionally to customer feedback, and maintain a strong online presence across your business profiles. People don’t just buy products or services anymore — they buy trust, credibility, and the overall experience your business provides.

If you want to improve your online reputation and local visibility, reach out our team in Palm Desert to help build a stronger review and local SEO strategy for your business.