Reviews, replies, and getting found — explained plainly
Written for the owner of a café, salon, studio or practice who has a review open right now and a question about it. Every guide cites Google’s own help pages and the rules that actually apply, and none of them promises a ranking — no tool can.
Replying to reviews
Your reviews are arriving slower than a year ago — how a practice can tell, and what a normal pace is
A review count only goes up, so a slowdown is invisible. How to measure this six months against the same six a year ago, and a normal pace for a practice.
How to respond to positive reviews — twelve examples you can adapt, by type of business
A positive review is read by the next customer, not the last one. The four-line reply, twelve examples from a café to a dental practice, and the four mistakes.
The State of the Reply 2026 — who answers their Google reviews, who never has, and how fast reviews arrive
5,699 Google listings across seven US metros, read in August and September 2026. Reply rate by industry and city, never-replied, unanswered negatives, pace.
Can you respond to Google reviews? Yes — here's exactly how, and what happens next
Any owner or manager of a verified Business Profile can reply to every review. Where the button is, what the reviewer sees, and what you can undo.
HIPAA-safe review replies for med spas, dentists and clinics
The reviewer said they were a patient; you still can't. Two dental practices paid HHS for replies that named a treatment. The safe reply, with examples.
How to respond to a negative Google review (with four examples)
Wait an hour, decide if it's true, write four lines for the next reader — not the reviewer. Examples for a true complaint, a half-true one, and a med spa.
How to respond to Google reviews (with examples you can adapt)
Where the reply button is, who actually reads your reply, a four-line structure for good and bad reviews, and examples for a café, a salon and a med spa.
Getting reviews from customers who walk out
Yelp review rules for businesses — why you can't ask, what a Consumer Alert is, and what you can still do
Yelp bans asking for reviews, filters the ones it thinks were requested, and marks pages that pay for them. The rules in Yelp's words, and what's left to do.
The Google review card — what to print, where it works, and what it can't do
A card with a QR code to your Google review form is the cheapest way to reach a customer after they leave. The link, the layout, the printing floors, the rules.
How to get your Google review link — and put it where customers will use it
The button in your Business Profile, the Place ID link that works without it, and where to put the link so customers who already left actually use it.
The Google review QR code — how to make one that scans, and where it belongs
Google gives you a review QR code for free. How to get it, what it encodes, why printed codes fail at the counter, and where a code belongs — never a kiosk.
Google review rules for businesses — what's allowed, what isn't, and what it costs you
Two rulebooks apply to every review you ask for — Google's policy and the FTC's 2024 rule. What each says in its own words, and the six things that hurt.
How to get more Google reviews when your customers pay, leave, and are gone
For cafés, salons, bars and studios the ask has to leave with the customer. What a normal review pace looks like (measured), the four asks that work, the rules.
Being found locally
Are you in ChatGPT's answer? How AI visibility works for a local business
Ask an assistant for the best barber in town and it searches, reads a few pages and names a handful. What it reads, what it cites, and what you can do.
Google Business Profile verification — what to do when it stalls
Postcard never came, video rejected, "Get verified" back again, someone else owns it — the six ways verification stalls and the fix for each, in Google's words.
Local SEO for dentists — the checklist we run, and what each item does
Google ranks local results on relevance, distance and prominence, and says no one can pay for a position. The sixteen items we check for a dentist, and why.
Local SEO for med spas — the checklist we run, and what each item does
Google ranks local results on relevance, distance and prominence, and says no one can pay for a position. The sixteen items we check for a med spa, and why.
Local SEO for restaurants — the checklist we actually run, and what each item does
Google ranks local results on relevance, distance and prominence, and says you can't pay for it. The fourteen items we check for restaurants, and why.
Your market, measured
How the businesses in your city handle their reviews
Reply rates, unanswered reviews and review pace by city and industry, read from public Google listings — and the businesses doing it best, named.
See the market reportsRobbie Slagerman
Founder, Oh Local. Ten years at Target on store layout and space analytics across 1,800 stores, then Amazon Go and Amazon product management. Builds Oh Local. LinkedIn