I doubt many marketers are giving much thought to the length of those reviews written by their customers, but you definitely want to do so.

A recent study showed that longer reviews tend to rank at the top of Google Local Listings, and remain there for longer periods of time.

But what is behind the logic here? That is, why are these reviews getting higher rankings and staying up there for so long? Is it because longer reviews tend to better satisfy the user query and it’s an algorithm thing pushing that review up due to the overall engagement with it? Or is it simply a length thing, with the algorithms purely measuring word / character count and bumping it up accordingly?

Either way, longer reviews are winning, so when you ask for reviews, do push your clients to write more. Oh, but just make sure they are positive reviews. Stats will actually show that long reviews tend to have low-star ratings. That’s because when people are unhappy, they tend to rant at length.