Some business owners have moved on. They chase TikTok trends, pay for placements in curated directories, and ask customers to leave reviews on niche platforms most people have never heard of. Yelp gets love from restaurants. TripAdvisor still holds sway for travel. But somehow, Google gets treated like old news. It’s useful for maps, sure, but often overlooked when it comes to customer reviews.

That’s a mistake.

Google remains the first stop for almost everyone. If someone hears about your business and wants to know if it’s legit, they’re not opening Yelp. They’re typing your name into Google. Right there in the sidebar, your star rating is the first signal of trust or trouble. It shows up before your bio, before your website, before anything else. Those stars, pulled from real users with verified accounts, carry more weight than most people realize. [Read more…]