Reviews do two jobs. They help decide whether you show up in Google’s map results, and they decide whether the person looking at you calls you or the business below. Both care about the number of reviews, how recent they are, and what they say.
Make it take ten seconds
- Get your direct review linkIn your Google Business Profile, choose “Ask for reviews” to copy a link that opens the review box straight away. Shorten it if you like, and use the same link everywhere.
- Ask at the right momentRight after the job is done and the customer is happy: when you hand back the keys, when the invoice is paid, when they thank you. A text with the link at that moment works better than an email a week later.
- Ask everyoneEvery customer, not only the happy ones you pick. More on why below.
- Make it easy to say something useful“If you have a second, it really helps if you mention what we did for you” leads to reviews that mention the service and the town, which helps the next customer and helps Google understand what you do.
- Reply to every reviewA short, specific thank-you. It shows the next reader that a person runs the business, and it nudges the next customer to leave one too.
What not to do
- Don’t offer anything for a review. Discounts, entries into a drawing or free items in exchange for reviews break Google’s policy, and Google can remove the reviews or restrict the profile.
- Don’t gate reviews. Sending happy customers to Google and unhappy ones to a private form is called review gating, and Google prohibits it.
- Don’t buy reviews or have friends and staff write them. Since October 2024 the FTC’s rule on consumer reviews makes buying or selling fake reviews, and suppressing negative ones, something the agency can fine businesses for.
- Don’t set up a review station in your shop. Many reviews from one device or one Wi-Fi network in a short time look fake to Google’s filters, and real reviews can disappear with them.
When reviews disappear
Google’s filters remove reviews they think are fake, and sometimes they catch real ones. A sudden burst of reviews after months of none is the most common trigger. A steady few a month is safer, and it’s also what a real, busy business looks like.
Written by Nikita Huttenlocher, founder and lead engineer at Huttenlocher Technologies, a web design and software company in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.