What your reviews say

What gets read

• When the most recent review landed, and how long the gap before it was
• Whether they describe the actual job or only say that you were lovely
• What the worst one says, and how far down the page it sits
• Whether the pattern looks earned or looks collected in a burst

How many reviews should a contractor have?

There is no number that is right everywhere, because the only number that matters is the one beside you in the same search. Forty reviews is commanding in a town where the next name has nine. It is invisible in a city where the next name has three hundred. The question is not how many you have. It is how many you have compared to whoever is standing next to you when the homeowner looks.

Do old reviews still count?

They count for less than you would like. A review from four years ago tells a homeowner what you were like under a crew you may not employ any more, and most people read it that way without thinking about it. The thing that reassures a homeowner is recency: evidence that the business was still doing this work, well, recently. A long quiet gap reads as something having gone wrong, even when nothing did.

Is a 5.0 rating better than a 4.7?

Often it is worse. A wall of perfect scores with nothing but short praise in it reads as collected rather than earned, and homeowners have learned to be suspicious of it. A 4.7 with detailed reviews and one honest complaint handled calmly in public reads as a real business run by real people. The second one converts better, and it is also true.

What does one bad review actually do?

On its own, very little. What does the damage is a bad review with no reply under it, because silence lets the homeowner supply their own explanation, and it will rarely be a generous one. The review is evidence about one job. The absence of a reply is evidence about how you run the business, and homeowners treat it as the more important of the two.