I’ve suggested often that reviews in your Google Places and Yelp pages have become a very necessary aspect of trust building as well as local SEO. So much so that getting proactive in stimulating reviews in all the right places must be on the checklist of marketing action steps.

Today Google added an interesting twist to Google Maps searches called Descriptive Terms that injects another dynamic – search optimized reviews. Google has started indexing local search results with phrases that accompany things like reviews. So if you search Marketing Agencies Kansas City, MO you get one set of listing and if you add something like “digital work” to the search the list changes based on words in the reviews.

Right now this is just a Google Maps function, but Google claims it will spread in Place search on Google.com and Google Maps for mobile soon!

Better start suggesting keyword phrases for those reviews people are anxious to write.