Online reviews are public ratings and written feedback that customers leave about a business on platforms like Google, used by other potential customers to judge the business before contacting it.
Reviews are the deciding factor in most local choices. When two businesses appear side by side, the rating and review count usually break the tie, often before the website is even visited.
They feed local ranking. Review count, rating and how recent the reviews are all influence whether a business shows in the map pack, so reviews are marketing and SEO at the same time.
A steady flow beats a one-off push. Ten reviews from this year signal a busy, current business; forty reviews that all stopped two years ago signal the opposite, so the habit matters more than the total.
Two dentists are next to each other in the map pack. One has 18 reviews at 4.9 stars, the most recent from last week. The other has 6 reviews at 4.4 stars, the most recent from two years ago.
Most people pick the first, without thinking hard about it. The rating, the volume and the recency together say this is a trusted, active practice.
The first dentist did not get there by luck. A simple, consistent habit of asking happy patients to leave a review compounded into a decisive advantage.
In-House builds a review-request habit into the marketing through the SEO agent and Google Business Profile integration, so reviews keep arriving rather than stalling after launch.