Google ranks local results on relevance, distance and prominence. Distance you cannot change, relevance is mostly your profile categories and site content — prominence is where reviews live.
What reviews contribute
- Volume and average rating over time
- Recency — a review from last week counts differently to one from 2021
- Owner replies, which Google explicitly encourages
- The words customers use, which often match the searches you want
What reviews will not fix
If your categories are wrong or your service area is misconfigured, more reviews will not rescue the listing. Fix the profile first, then compound with reviews — a routine, not a campaign.
If you run this for several clients rather than one business, the access and reporting side is covered in managing Google reviews for multiple clients.
For the arithmetic behind the rating itself, how much does one review change your Google rating? works the numbers at 30 reviews and at 300.
