Choosing which reviews to feature

The instinct is to feature every five-star review. That produces a wall nobody reads.

Specific beats glowing

“Great place!” ★★★★★

“Booked last minute for our anniversary and they moved things around to get us a window table. The lamb was the best I’ve had this year.” ★★★★

The four-star review is worth more. It’s specific, it tells a story, and it names something concrete. The five-star review could be about anywhere.

Filter for length as well as rating. A minimum length filter does most of the curation work for you.

Cover different reasons to choose you

If every featured review praises the same thing, you’re only persuading people who already care about that thing. Pick a spread:

• One about the product or food itself
• One about service or staff
• One about a specific occasion — a birthday, a business trip, a first visit
• One that mentions overcoming a problem well

That last category is disproportionately persuasive. A review saying “there was a mix-up with our booking and they sorted it immediately” tells a prospective customer what happens when things go wrong, which is what they’re actually worried about.

Vary who’s speaking

Reviews from visibly different kinds of customer help more people see themselves. A wall of reviews that all sound like the same person only speaks to that person.

Recency matters

Prioritise the last six to twelve months. Old reviews raise a question you don’t want raised.

Don’t fake balance

Some businesses deliberately include a mediocre review to look authentic. Don’t. It reads as either a mistake or a manipulation, and neither helps. Authenticity comes from specificity, not from staged imperfection.

What not to feature

• Reviews mentioning staff by name, unless you’ve asked them
• Reviews mentioning prices — these date badly and set expectations you may not keep
• Reviews referencing something you no longer offer
• Anything that identifies a customer more than they’d expect

How many

Enough to be credible, few enough to be read. Six to twelve on a page section; more on a dedicated testimonials page where people arrived intending to read them.