Playing It Smart · 6.20
Checking A Named Competitor's Review Activity
Regularly looking at exactly what a specific local competitor is doing with their reviews — not to copy them, but to spot gaps you can genuinely do better on.
Why this matters
The customer’s side
Not directly customer-facing — this is a research habit that feeds everything else in this guide, rather than something a customer ever sees you doing.
The search engine’s side
Prerequisite — informs strategy, doesn't rank on its own
Not a ranking factor itself, but a practical way to prioritise your own effort — if a named competitor has a thin response rate or a stale profile, that's a specific, provable gap you can close faster than starting from a generic checklist.
How to check yours
Method 1 — Direct comparison
look at exactly what they're doing, side by side with your own profile.
- 1.Pick one specific, genuine local competitor.
- 2.Compare review count, rating, response rate, and recency across Google, Bing, and Apple/Yelp/Tripadvisor.
- 3.Note the single biggest gap — usually response rate or recency, since both are easy to neglect and easy to fix.
Method 2 — Ask an AI tool directly
a quick way to see the comparison the way a prospective customer might.
- 1.Ask ChatGPT, Gemini, or a similar tool to compare your business and the named competitor's reputation.
- 2.Note whether it can even find recent information about either of you — a gap there is often the clearest opportunity of all.
How to fix what you find
Once you've found the gap
prioritise closing it specifically, rather than working through this whole guide in order — the fastest wins are usually wherever a real competitor is weakest.
Keeping on top of it
Quarterly is plenty — competitor positions don't shift week to week, and checking too often mostly just costs you time.
How Reyse handles this
Done With You
we help you identify the sharpest gap and where to focus first.
Done For You
we track this as part of your monthly reporting, so you always know exactly where you stand against the agency down the road.