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How to optimize your online business profile

Your profiles across the internet are what buyers find when they search your name. Google, ChatGPT, Gemini and other LLMs use them to tell your brand story. Here's how to help control the narrative.

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By Chris Kolmar · July 28, 2026

The four most important things you can do to optimize an online business profile

Here are four proactive steps you can take to improve your business profile, all of it inside Aspect.

1Reply to every review
Your reply is public and permanent. It's a chance to add context to the situation and a way to communicate with the reviewer, and it gives search engines and LLMs keywords and structure to understand your value.
2Feature your best review
A featured review is the first one shown on your profile. Aim for a spotlight review, one where you turned a customer's one-star experience into a four or five-star one.
3Fix the problem, then ask for an update
Aspect provides Assisted Resolution: we reach out to a customer and invite them to revisit their review after you've solved what went wrong.
4Ask all your customers for reviews
A profile with even 10 reviews drives exponentially more visibility than one with 3. Same story between 10 and 40.

Here's an example of how to optimize your profile

All four steps, demonstrated in a live account, in under four minutes.

Video poster: the Aspect Review Inbox during the walkthrough, showing 347 results, 68 low star ratings and a 100 percent 60-day response rate above a table of reviews, with the presenter on camera at the lower right. — How to optimize your ConsumerAffairs profile · 3:52 · Presented by Chris Kolmar, ConsumerAffairs

Read the full transcript

0:00

Which company would you trust if you were looking up reviews online? A company with this profile, a limited amount of information, filled with one-star reviews being summarized to say, eh. Or would you trust this company, with a full editorial profile followed by long-form reviews from real customers, each one responded to by the company itself.

0:22

One company cannot be bothered to reply to any of the reviews, while the other one replies to every review. Just think about it yourself. Which one would you trust more? And so you should be maximizing your profile to the full extent, because everybody googles your name before they buy from you.

0:37

So having an optimized profile will lead to a much cleaner search engine result. And you can just talk to your users, that they all look at reviews before they buy. Not just the best things that have happened, but also some of the problems they have had. And they want to see how you have resolved them with past customers. That way they can set their expectations for what the downside possibly is, but they will also know the upside.

1:01

So with that in mind, let us take a look at the features in Aspect that you can use in order to maximize the visibility of your profile and help convert users into sales when they go searching for you online.

1:11

The first part of Aspect that will greet you every time you open it up is the Review Inbox. Here you will see all of the most recent reviews and which ones you have and have not responded to. The first thing you will want to do is reply to any reviews you have received recently. Simply click on the review and it will open up the reply inbox.

1:28

You can see that we highlight the key aspects of the review. This one was talking about service and packing, service and timeliness, and service and quote accuracy. Over time, as you accumulate more reviews, those aspects will become clear across your corpus of reviews, and you can use them to act on any potential problems or feature any potential highlights of the company. You can see the reply to the review right here, proving that the company cares about what their customers are saying.

1:55

The next feature you are going to want to use is a featured review, and you can see right now that they have this one featured up top. But let us say you want to pick this one in order to feature it. It is really simple. After you click on that review, you can click on the three little dots over here for more options and then feature this review. It is a small action that will significantly improve the look and feel of your profile, particularly because these featured reviews go above all the other reviews in the review layout.

2:21

Another feature you will see here is assisted resolution. This is not to be used as a way of deleting a review from your profile. We just do not do that. Instead, it allows ConsumerAffairs to contact your customer after you have fixed their problem and ask them to update their review.

2:37

The idea being that, okay, they have gone from maybe a one or two-star experience to interacting with you and you have resolved the issue, and now it should be a four or five-star experience. And those reviews where you have moved a customer from two to four or five stars can best be used in other parts of your marketing program. For example, you could feature them on your customer support page on your website, showing that you have helped resolve other people's past problems. Or you could use them on the landing page to show that you interact and care about your customers and help them convert.

3:06

The last key to a well-rounded profile is just having a whole bunch of reviews. They want to see both the positive and the negative. The most read reviews are not only five star, but they are also the one star. They need to understand what went wrong and how you made it right. So for example, here you can see that the customer had a bad experience for whatever reason, and they got a response from the company to try and make it better and see how they can improve next time.

3:30

And the reason why you want this complete profile is so that it shows up in search results and in LLMs. LLMs nowadays are digesting every bit of data they can on your brand. So having a fully completed profile along with reviews maximizes your exposure in LLMs. Because when a future customer googles you, you want to make sure that you are putting your best foot forward.

Here's why you need every type of review, from 1 to 5 stars

Buyers look at your overall star rating, so that needs to be good. But it shouldn't be too good — when was the last time you trusted a perfect 5.0 review of anything?

Instead, you want a well-rounded set of reviews that tell stories about working with your company. Buyers read your best review to see what to expect, but they skip the middle. They jump straight to the worst one to find out what happens when it goes wrong. Understanding how bad it could go matters, not because they expect it to go that way, but because it shows them how you'll handle it if it does.

That's why a well-rounded profile collects every kind of review. You want a rating that reflects your brand's true value, not just its best day.

Only 5 stars without context

A short profile of only five-star reviews like "awesome" doesn't help. Shoppers just go hunting for complaints on Reddit, the BBB, or a competitor's comparison page.

Instead, 4.5 stars with the full picture

A one-star review, with your reply, gives a buyer context on the downside risk. How you handle that interaction sets their expectations for working with you.

Step 1

Reply to every review to start optimizing

Aspect starts with the Review Inbox. It lists your recent reviews, flags the ones you haven't answered yet, and filters to Needs Response. Respond to every customer.

Aspect also highlights the recurring "aspects" of your review corpus, showing you where things are going right or wrong on topics like quote accuracy, timeliness and packing. Across enough reviews, those same aspects start repeating, and that pattern is worth more than any single review. You can act on it directly, for example, setting up an autodialer if timeliness is a common complaint.

But remember, everyone can see your response. Write it with the next buyer in mind, not just the reviewer. Help the person address their problem, but skip the stock AI-sounding reply. You're also giving future customers, and Google and LLMs, the context they need to understand your value.

The Aspect Review Inbox showing counters for 347 results, 0 unread, 68 low star ratings, a 100 percent 60-day response rate and 30 proactive reviews, above a table of reviews labeled Featured Review, Grace Period and Reply Sent.

If you collect reviews in more than one place, they all show up in the same list. Connected sources sit in the sidebar, so ConsumerAffairs, the BBB, Trustpilot and industry sites arrive together instead of in four browser tabs you check on different days.

Aspect gives you a public response and a private one. A refund or an account number belongs in the private reply. The public one goes on the profile, so answer the complaint plainly and say what you did about it. Improve with AI drafts it if you'd rather not start from an empty box.

Step 2

Feature the most impactful reviews

Featured reviews are the ones you choose to lead off your profile, so make them the best stories about your product or how you resolved a problem for a customer.

Open the review, click the three dots for more options, and choose Feature this Review. The best review to feature isn't necessarily a booming five-star, it's the one that answers your customer's biggest concern in a way that earns their trust.

The absolute best review is a spotlight review: one where a customer updated their one-star review to a four or five-star after you solved their complaint. That has the biggest impact of all.

An open row menu on a review showing the options Mark as Unread, Feature this Review, Request New Star Rating, Share and Assisted Resolution.

Step 3

Get spotlight reviews

Those recovered reviews are the most useful ones you own: put them on your customer support page to show you handle problems or put them on a landing page to show prospects what happens if something goes wrong. They convert better than praise does, because praise is what every competitor can claim too.

Assisted Resolution is not a way to delete a review. We do not do that.

Not for a fee, not as a favor, not on request. What it does instead is let ConsumerAffairs contact your customer after you have fixed their problem, and invite them to update what they wrote. It's an assist to you.

1A customer has a bad experience

They write a one or two-star review explaining what happened.

2You address the problem

You do the actual work to fix it. Then Aspect asks the customer to update their review. Both versions stay visible, but the star rating changes.

3You have a powerful story for the next customer

A two-star experience that becomes a four or five-star one is proof you help your customers. What more could a future customer ask for?

Step 4

How to get more reviews, including the "bad" ones

The last piece is simply collecting a lot of reviews. With enough of them, you'll get stories about every aspect of your business, and the brightest ones will shine through to reflect your brand's true value.

That's the part worth understanding. Popular mention tags are pulled directly from your reviews, so they add up to a summary of your business, written directly by your customers.

If most of them mention quote accuracy, that's the first thing buyers see, regardless of whether it's the impression you'd choose to lead with.

Your profile shapes what AI says about your company

An optimized profile doesn't just extend your brand, it shapes your visibility online. A managed profile ranks for queries like "[your brand] reviews" and "is [your brand] legit," and putting in the work to make it stand out carries across every one of those search surfaces.

Organic searchYour profile ranks for queries like "[your brand] reviews."
Indexed
AI OverviewsGoogle summarizes your reviews to customers.
Cited
Assistant answersChatGPT, Gemini and Claude answer "is this company legit?" from the context on your profiles.
Quoted

AI models love reviews about your brand because they're structured, dated, and full of specifics. A profile with detailed reviews and your replies gives a model the context it needs to draft your brand overview, which is the highest-impact thing a profile can do for your visibility.

You can see this yourself: search for your company, read the AI Overview it generates, and check which sources it cites. The most-cited sources are user-generated content like Reddit and reviews.

Optimizing your Aspect profile is a great way to maintain some control over the narrative that LLMs will paint.

The source panel beside a Google AI Overview, headed 6 sites, listing a Reddit thread, a Trustpilot review page and a Better Business Bureau complaints page.

Frequently asked questions about online business profiles

Can I get a bad review removed from my profile?

No. ConsumerAffairs does not delete "bad" reviews. We will only remove reviews in accordance with our community guidelines and review policy, think things like PII. If you want to fix a "bad" review, try Assisted Resolution: once you've actually fixed the customer's problem, Aspect contacts them and invites them to update their review. The current and past review both stay visible, but only the new star rating counts.

How do I respond to a negative review?

Answer the specific complaint, say what you did to fix it, and provide all the context. Keep every future customer in mind as you write it, and answer the real question: what will the company do if this same thing happens to me?

Do online reviews affect what AI says about my company?

Yes. Google's AI Overviews and assistants like ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude summarize your company by pulling context from every piece of information about your brand online. A profile with detailed reviews gives them the context they need to build an accurate understanding of your brand.

How do I get more customer reviews?

Ask. It's really as simple as that. Ask every customer based on a specific trigger, like installation, closing, or sale, and give them freedom to say whatever they want about the experience, hopefully as a story. Aspect can help run proactive review collection for you over phone and email so you ask every customer for theirs.

Optimize your ConsumerAffairs profile today

The Aspect team is here to help you improve your online visibility and start to build trust with consumers.