The fifth eBook in the Retention category. It turns satisfied customers outward, so the next stranger who finds you can see what the last one thought. The work is mostly about asking well, choosing the right two or three places to collect proof and putting that proof where decisions actually get made.
Members ebook·7 chapters· 45 minute read
Chapter 4
Choosing the Right Review Platforms
How to pick the two or three review platforms that genuinely matter for your kind of business, and stop spreading thin asks across half a dozen places where nobody is looking.
There is no shortage of places willing to host reviews of your business. Search engines, map listings, trade-specific directories, marketplaces, shop platforms, social networks and review aggregators of every flavour. The temptation is to be on all of them. The cost of trying is that you end up with two reviews on each of seven platforms, which looks worse than ten reviews on one.
This chapter is about choosing. For your kind of business, there are usually two platforms that do almost all the work and a third that's worth a small effort. The rest can be politely ignored. Once you know which two or three to focus on, the asking habit from chapter two becomes much more powerful, because every review compounds in the same place rather than scattering.
By the end you'll have your shortlist, your reasons for it and a simple rule for what to do when a customer offers to leave a review somewhere off-shortlist.
The full chapter walks through the platform shortlist for six common business types, the criteria for choosing and the trap of spreading reviews too thin.
Why concentration beats coverage
Strangers don't read reviews everywhere. They read them in one or two places, depending on how they found you. If they searched on a map, they read the map listing. If they searched on a trade-specific platform, they read that platform. If they found your shop on a marketplace, they read the marketplace ratings. They almost never click through to a separate review aggregator they hadn't planned on visiting.
That means concentration of reviews on the platform a stranger is most likely to land on outperforms coverage across many platforms by a wide margin. Twenty reviews on the right platform will close more business than five reviews on each of four. The job is to pick that platform and feed it.
The four criteria for choosing
There are four things to look at when picking a platform. The first is where your strangers actually find you. If most of your customers say they found you on the map, the map platform is a must. If most say they found you on a trade directory, that directory is a must. If most say they found you through word of mouth and then checked your reviews, the platform they checked first is the one.
The second is what comes up when someone searches your business name. Open a private browsing window, search for your business and see what review platforms appear in the results. If a platform shows up there, your reviews on it are visible whether you like it or not.
The third is what your competitors are doing. If every competitor in your category is concentrated on one platform, that's the platform strangers are using to compare. Ignoring it is unilateral disarmament.
The fourth is whether the platform supports a public reply from you. A platform where you can respond to reviews lets you do the fourth job from chapter one - prove you handle problems fairly. A platform where you can't is much weaker.
Shortlists for six common business types
Local service businesses (trades, cleaning, gardening, removals): Google Business Profile is the must. The trade-specific directory most popular in your country is usually the second. Facebook can be a third where your customers are active there. That's it.
Clinics, salons, studios and personal services: Google Business Profile first. The booking platform you use for appointments, if it supports public reviews, second. A specialist directory for your category third only if your customers genuinely use it.
Restaurants, cafes and hospitality venues: Google Business Profile first. The dominant restaurant or hospitality review platform in your country second. Booking platforms with public reviews third. Stop there.
Online shops on a major marketplace: the marketplace's own seller and product ratings first, by a wide margin. Google second only because brand searches show those reviews. Don't divide your effort.
Online shops on your own website: the review platform integrated with your shop software first. Google second. Trustpilot or an equivalent third only if your category's strangers expect to see it.
Business-to-business and consultancy firms: the published case studies and named testimonials on your own website are the primary proof. Google Business Profile second, because brand searches surface it. A specialist directory or platform for your industry third only if your buyers actually use it. Star ratings do less work in this category than written specifics.
Common-sense rules for shortlisting
Pick the platform strangers find you on first
Add the platform that shows up when they search your name
Add a third only if your competitors are concentrated there
Ignore platforms where you can't reply to reviews
Stop at three. Going wider dilutes effort
Claim and finish your profiles before you ask
Before you start asking customers to leave reviews on a platform, claim and finish your profile there. Claim the listing. Add the address, the hours, the photos, the description. Verify ownership. Without that, every review you ask for is being deposited in a half-empty profile, which weakens its effect. A claimed and finished profile makes reviews land in a setting that says 'real, current, looked-after business' before the stranger even reads a word.
What to do when a customer offers to review you elsewhere
Sometimes a customer will say, 'I'd be happy to leave you a review on [some other platform you don't focus on].' The right answer is gracious redirection. 'That's lovely - thank you. Actually, the place that helps us most is Google. Would you mind leaving it there instead? Here's the link.' Most customers are happy to put it where it counts. The few who insist on the off-shortlist platform are still doing you a favour, just a smaller one.
When to add a platform later
Add a fourth platform only when you have at least fifty reviews on each of your first two and the new platform is clearly emerging as a place strangers in your category check. Otherwise, stay focused. The compounding of concentrated reviews is one of the few growth dynamics in marketing that genuinely runs by itself.
What to do this week
Pick your shortlist. Two platforms, three at the most. Open a private browsing window, search for your own business and confirm those platforms are visible. Open the dashboards for each and finish your profile - photos, hours, description, contact details. Save the direct review link for each one in the same note as your asking scripts from chapter two. From now on, every customer ask points to the same one or two places.
The recurring principle here is the same as the rest of the category: keep existing customers close. Concentration is what closeness looks like in public proof - the same handful of customers, on the same handful of platforms, in front of every stranger. The earlier eBook to revisit is Customer Retention for Small Businesses, which makes the case that focusing on a small set of high-quality signals beats chasing every channel. The next chapter, Using Proof on Your Website, takes the reviews you've concentrated and puts them where they earn.
The rest of this chapter walks through the practical steps, the templates and the checklists you need to put it into action. It includes worked examples, copy frameworks and the small decisions that make the difference between a plan that sits in a drive and one that gets used.
Inside you'll find a step-by-step playbook, a downloadable template, a checklist you can run this week and a short list of common mistakes to avoid before you start.
The full action plan, broken into weekly steps.
Ready-to-use scripts, templates and checklists.
Worked examples for different sized businesses.
Common mistakes and how to avoid them.
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