How important are reviews for a local business?

Reviews are very important — they influence both whether customers choose you and how well you rank locally. Most people read reviews before picking a local business, and a strong set of recent, positive reviews builds trust quickly. Google also treats reviews as a ranking signal, so they help visibility as well as persuasion. Actively encouraging happy customers to leave reviews, and responding to them, is one of the highest-impact, lowest-cost things a local business can do.