We know we need customer reviews. They are the lifeblood of any local business. But what if we told you that reviews are a massive, often-untapped gold mine of data, just waiting to be excavated?
The truth is, Google doesn’t just take your word for it when you fill out your Google Business Profile (GBP). Google loves to crowdsource information, and reviews are the best, most verifiable way for the search engine to do that. Your reviews are a direct, lagging indicator of how customers perceive your business, and they hold the key to ranking higher, converting better, and improving operations.
Julian Hooks, SEO Director at Asurion, who oversees more than 700 franchise and corporate locations, recently joined us for our Local SEO for Good event to share the strategic insights he uses every day.
We’ve taken his advice and compiled it into this helpful guide to mining your reviews for gold.
1. Identify Keyword-rich Themes (And Apply Them Everywhere)
In reviews, customers naturally describe your business in their own words, and these phrases are your high-converting keywords disguised as compliments.
The Golden Nuggets (Positive Reviews)
Your first step is to scan your positive reviews for recurring language, specifically, top adjectives, service descriptions, and value statements.
For example, a recurring phrase might be: “Same day phone repair,” “friendly and knowledgeable staff,” or “fixed my iPhone fast.”
Here’s how to apply these recurring phrases to your SEO strategy:
- On-page content: Incorporate these customer-validated phrases into your H1s, content, titles, and service blurbs. If customers rave about your “friendly service,” make sure that phrase is featured on your landing page.
- Conversion rate optimization (CRO): Use these phrases in your meta descriptions to help increase your click-through rate (CTR).
- The ranking factor debate: While some experts argue that keywords in reviews don’t matter for ranking, data from businesses with hundreds of locations suggests otherwise. Julian has seen that keywords in customer reviews do have a great impact on where you rank for specific terms. Google increasingly highlights verbatim review snippets in the local pack to justify relevance, often over service descriptions or website mentions.
“We’ve seen data across hundreds of locations showing that keywords in customer reviews do have a great impact on where you rank for specific terms. Google will often highlight those verbatim snippets to justify its relevance.”
2. Embrace the Gift of Negative Feedback
No one likes getting a one-star review, but every negative review is an opportunity that should not go underutilized. Think of negative feedback not as criticism, but as a valuable gift for improvement.
Frequent complaints highlight operational and content opportunities. Your job is to identify and fix the issue, and then fix your reputation with the customer.
“We have to think of a negative review not as criticism, but as a valuable gift for improvement that should not go underutilized. It’s an opportunity to identify and fix both an operational problem and a content problem.”
How to turn negative feedback into improvement:
- Create FAQs: A lot of negative feedback comes down to simple miscommunication. If important details are “buried in the fine print,” and they keep showing up in reviews, you need to be more upfront. Use the complaint to create a clear, front-and-center FAQ section on your website or Google Business Profile.
- Rewrite service descriptions: If customers think they are getting one thing, but receive a different product or service, their expectations aren’t aligned. Rewrite your service descriptions and landing pages to clarify exactly what is (and isn’t) included.
- Run CRO tests: Use the pain points mentioned in negative reviews to inform your CRO testing and user experience updates on the site.
3. Scale Your Insights with AI
It is impossible to do this analysis manually for hundreds of locations, but even a local business with a few dozen reviews can effectively use AI tools like ChatGPT or Gemini.
You don’t need a custom API; you can simply:
- Use a tool like Pleper.com or BrightLocal’s Reputation Manager to scrape and download your reviews (and your competitors’).
- Upload that Excel file into an AI tool.
- Ask the AI to “look for themes,” “analyze sentiment,” and “tell me what we’re doing right and what we’re doing wrong”.
This will save manual hours and provide instant data on things like keyword frequency, sentiment, and even how often a specific employee’s name is mentioned (great for incentivizing staff!).
4. Don’t Stop at Google: Multi-platform Optimization
While Google is the “big dog” in search share, you can’t ignore other platforms like Yelp, Facebook, and Reddit.
As Large Language Models (LLMs) and AI search tools (like Perplexity and ChatGPT) become more prevalent, they are heavily citing reputation and citation data from multiple ecosystems. Your strategy must include:
- NAP consistency: Ensure your Name, Address, and Phone number (NAP) are consistent everywhere. This isn’t just a Google ranking factor; it prevents an AI from citing an old directory from ten years ago and sending a customer to the wrong place.
- Monitor all platforms: If you have no presence on Yelp or Facebook, you will come up short in these LLM-driven searches. You must monitor and optimize your presence on all relevant platforms.
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5. Master the Art of the Ask
The best way to get a keyword-rich review is to master the art of asking.
The Power of the Personal Ask
The in-person ask at the point of sale by far outperforms everything else.
“The best way to get a keyword-rich review is to master the art of the ask. The in-person ask at the point of sale will by far outperform every follow-up email, text message, or automated prompt you try.”
Customers are much more likely to leave a review if they believe they are leaving a review for the person who assisted them, not the corporation.
The Script
The employee should simply say, “I hope you had a great experience. It would be great for my career and my job here if you could leave me a review. Please just mention what I did for you or what I fixed for you.”
Why does this work? Because they are leaving John a review on his service, which makes the request feel personal and easy.
Phrasing Digital Requests for Keywords
If you are sending follow-up emails or text messages, it’s all about the questioning.
- Don’t ask, “What could we have done better?” (This tends to turn them toward something negative.)
- Instead, ask, “What did we fix for you today?” or “How did we help you today?”.
This phrasing inherently encourages the customer’s answer to include the product or service you want to rank for (e.g., “You guys fixed my cracked iPhone 3 on the same day. It was awesome.”).
Read more: How to Ask for Reviews
A Firm Stance Against Review Gating
In the conversation, Julian was asked about using a “middle page” to filter positive reviews to Google and negative ones to an internal channel.
His advice? Do not review gate.
It is a violation of guidelines, and you must “take the give” and accept that you will sometimes get a negative review. The benefits of a natural, honest review profile far outweigh the risk of being seen as fake or violating policies.
Your Gold-mining Checklist
It’s time to start mining! Here’s your checklist:
Phase 1: Excavate the Gold
- Export your reviews (and competitors’): Use a tool to scrape and download your last 50-100 reviews from Google, Yelp, and Facebook. Do the same for your top three local competitors.
- Analyze themes (manual or AI): Use an AI tool (like ChatGPT/Gemini) or a manual review to identify the top 3 recurring positive phrases/adjectives (keywords) and the top 3 recurring complaints/negative themes.
- Identify high-impact keywords: Note specific product or service terms that repeatedly appear in reviews, as these are critical for Local Pack ranking relevance.
Phase 2: Refine and Apply the Gold
- Update on-page content (SEO): Inject the positive keywords and customer-validated phrases into your:
- H1 tags and page titles.
- Service blurbs and descriptions.
- Meta descriptions (to boost CTR).
- Fix operational gaps: Use the negative themes to update your service clarity:
- Create a prominent FAQ section to address common complaints and clear up misunderstandings.
- Rewrite misleading service descriptions to better align customer expectations with delivery.
- Ensure NAP consistency: Verify your Name, Address, and Phone number (NAP) are perfectly consistent across all major platforms (Google, Yelp, Facebook, directories) to secure your local citations.
- Monitor all ecosystems: Commit to maintaining an active, consistent presence on relevant platforms (Yelp, Facebook, etc.) to optimize for emerging LLM and AI searches.
Phase 3: Keep the Gold Coming
- Master the personal ask: Implement a policy for employees to make an in-person review request at the point of sale, making the ask about them (the employee) and not just the business.
- Optimize digital phrasing: When sending follow-up emails/texts, prompt customers with specific, open-ended questions that encourage keyword-rich responses (e.g., “What did we fix for you today?”).
- Schedule review audits: Schedule a monthly or quarterly audit to repeat steps 1 & 2, ensuring your business stays current with customer sentiment and maintains a proactive strategy.
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