If you frequent restaurants, shops, and other local businesses and want to influence the quality of businesses in your area, you should write a review on Google Reviews.

All you need to do is create a Google account and then start accessing Google Maps. You can write a review on the Google Maps website or with the Google Maps app on your phone.

In this article you will learn how to start providing reviews of local businesses and even establish yourself as a local tour guide. This makes your reviews even more valuable to local businesses. You can even get rewards for giving reviews.

Leave a review on Google Maps

You can rate and review a local business you’ve visited by following the instructions below.

• Use the search box to find a local business to review.
• In the left pane with the company information, scroll down and select the Write review button.
• A form will appear where you can complete the check.
• Click Submit when you are done.

Your review will now appear alongside other reviews in the reviews section below your business listing on Google Maps. Reviews also appear at the bottom of the business page, which appears when people select a business from the left pane.

Edit reviews in Google Maps

If you made a mistake or changed your mind about your business rating, you can edit your rating and review at any time. It’s also a good idea to update your review to reflect your most recent experience with the company, as some companies may improve or deteriorate over time. New reviews also have the biggest impact on a company’s online reputation. To edit previous reviews:

• Sign in to Google Maps with your Google account, select the menu icon in the top left corner and select My Contributions from the menu.
• On the next page you will see a list of places you have visited recently. This is because the Participate tab is selected by default and offers the ability to quickly rate and review companies you’ve visited. Instead, select Reviews from the menu.
• Scroll through each review summary in the left pane to find the review link you want to edit. When you find it, select the three dots to the right of the company name.
• Select Edit Review from the pop-up menu. Or if you just want to add photos or remove the review altogether, you can choose one of these options instead. When you’re done updating, click the Submit button at the bottom of the review page.

Keeping your ratings and reviews up to date and relevant is important if you want people to appreciate the reviews you leave for local businesses.

Google Maps and Google Reviews

The review form allows you to share a lot of information about your experience with a local business. This includes:

• Visual star rating 1 (very poor) to 5 (excellent)
• A text field where you can provide a detailed summary of your experience with that company
• A button to add photos for additional evidence to support your positive or negative rating
• Tailored questions related to the type of business you are reviewing
• The impact of negative or positive reviews on local businesses is huge. It’s more common than ever for people to search for goods and services on Google Search or Google Maps. It’s even more common than using Yelp’s review site to find information about local businesses.

For example, consider whether you are looking for the best company in your area to replace your home’s windows.

A Google Maps search for “window replacement” yields a large number of local window repair companies with multiple stars next to their names.

Which company do you think potential customers contact first? The one with a rating of 4.4 next to the company name or the one with a rating of 4.7?

People know that if a company is good at producing happy customers, they are much more likely to be happy customers if they also do business there. And business owners know this too, so it motivates them to put more effort into building a satisfied customer base and getting positive customer feedback.

The effect goes beyond Google Maps. When web users use Google’s search engine, Google Maps results and customer reviews are often displayed there as well. Because Google reviews are so powerful, Google doesn’t allow anonymous reviews.

How do you become a local guide?

So you’ve discovered that you enjoy writing reviews. If so, consider signing up as a “local guide.” Google awards you points for every review you leave. These points give you an edge over other reviewers because the local guide star appears next to your name. The more points your star has, the higher your position in the local leaderboard will be.

Google mentions on the Local Help page as a guideline that you get early access to new Google features, as well as “special rewards from partners”.

There is no “rewards” page where points can be redeemed. All you have to do is wait for offers from partners. While early access to things like Google storage and other perks is possible, partner offers are rare indeed.

Most of the benefits of being a local guide are the extra recognition your reviews get on Google business profiles, Google search results or Google Maps. People value local guide reviews more.

To become a guide, just go to the login page and enter your data. To get the most reward points for each of your reviews:

• Add at least one photo and add photo tags
• Add a video

In addition to reviews, there are other activities that earn you extra points. These include:

• Answer the questions posted on Google Company Pages
• Reply to questions and answers posted by other users
• Edit and update your previous reviews
• Add a place or street to Google Maps
• Post a listing or description of a place on Google Maps

If you like the idea of making a significant difference to the quality of businesses in your local community, Google Maps Local Guide is a great way to do it.