How to Get Google Reviews in 2024: 18 Simple Ways

Getting more Google reviews for your business improves your online reputation, builds customer trust, and boosts conversions. Although most businesses aim to get a higher review rating, they don’t always succeed in doing so.

In this article, we’ll discuss actionable steps on how you can get more Google reviews from past customers and improve your online reputation.

Why Do Businesses Need Google Reviews?

Businesses need Google reviews to build trust with potential customers and maintain a positive online reputation. Studies have shown that consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. 

High review ratings help businesses be more visible in local search engine results, attract new customers, achieve brand awareness, and grow their revenue over time. 

What Are Google’s Guidelines On Reviews?

Before implementing a strategy of how to get Google reviews, you have to know the rules. 

Google’s guidelines on local reviews clearly state what kind of content is not allowed, which includes fake engagement. 

To go into detail, Google defines fake engagement as:

• Paying for content that does not represent a genuine experience with a business.
• Discouraging negative reviews.
• Soliciting only positive reviews.
• Incentivizing positive reviews in exchange for freebies or discounts.
• A review posted by a competing business to undermine the business’s product or service.
• Reviews posted using multiple accounts.
• Reviews posted by an emulator, device tampering service, or a modified operating system.

Can You Purchase Google Business Reviews?

No, you can not purchase or buy Google reviews as this is in violation of Google’s guidelines. 

Can Google Detect Fake Reviews?

Yes, Google has a system in place for detecting fake reviews, but it is not perfect. Google uses a combination of automated systems, machine learning, and user reports.

Why Customers Don’t Trust 5-Star Reviews?

Customers do not expect every product or service to be perfect. This is why they might doubt a 5-star review rating and think it’s not authentic. Reviews that lack detail about a product or service might also feel unreliable to customers.

How To Get More Reviews For Your Business: 18 Simple Ways

Let’s go into detail on how to get more reviews for your business. This part will be divided into three:

• How To Qualify And Start Getting Your First Review
• How To Get More Google Business Reviews
• How To Scale Reviews

Each part involves different steps and approaches, so it’s best to know the difference between the three.

Housekeeping to Qualify and Start Getting Google Reviews

If you haven’t gotten any reviews for your business on Google, then this is the best place to start. 

1. Verify Your Business Profile

To start getting reviews on Google for your business, you’ll have to claim and verify your listing. 

You can either look for your business in Google and click “Get Verified” or if you don’t find your business, go to the Google Business Profile home page and register your business. You can use the official guide from Google on verifying your business profile.

You need to follow these steps before you can view and reply to online reviews. People who find your business in Google Search won’t be able to leave a review if you are not verified, so you need to ensure this step is done before you request reviews.

2. Generate a Google Review Link

The purpose of generating a Google review link is to let your customers know how to leave a review. 

You can go to your Google Business Profile home page and click the “Share review form” button found under “Get More Reviews: Share review form” section. You can also look for your business in Google Maps and copy the link to the “Write a Review” button.

Getting your Google review link is important because you’ll use this link to ask your customers for reviews.

3. Generate a QR Code

You can share your Google review link using a QR code. Simply enter the review link to a QR generator (like this one) and share the code in your web pages or use it in your physical marketing assets like posters and flyers. 

QR codes are great for when you have a waiting area or a checkout counter so customers can easily scan it with their phones and complete the review right there.

4. Display Google Reviews on Your Business Website

Your business website is a great place to feature your reviews and highlight the best ones from your most satisfied customers.

Below is an example from a Miami-based dental clinic, A New Smile:

You can learn how to embed your Google Reviews to your web page or hire a web design expert to get this done for you.

5. Create a Google Review Page For Your Website

A dedicated review page can make it easier for you to request reviews. This page should have no other call-to-action (CTA) than for the visitor to leave a review. 

You can create a button with your Google review link and users can leave a review directly on your Google Business Profile.

6. Kick Off a Google Posting Strategy

Did you know that you can publish content on your Google Business Profile? You can post updates and any useful information about your products and services and it shows up on the Updates tab of your profile (like the image below).

Posting updates like these helps with your local SEO and adds more opportunities for you to get new leads for your business.

How to Get More Reviews

When you get your first few reviews, the goal is to keep them coming. Here are some steps to get more Google reviews for your business:

1. Ask for Reviews

Make it a part of your strategy to always include asking for reviews when communicating with past clients or customers. In addition to a customer satisfaction survey, review requests should be essential for every customer you have served or sold to.

A few ways that reviews can be collected include:

• In person
• Via e-mail
• Via text or SMS
• QR code
• Social media

We’ve discussed how you can create a Google review link to share with your customers. This process is similar and you just need to apply the right method depending on how you’re collecting the review. 

For instance, printing a QR code of your Google review link makes sense if you’re asking for reviews in person. However, a regular link should work better when asking for reviews through SMS.

2. Publicize Your Google Business Reviews on Social Media

Integrate posting your best positive reviews on your social media content calendar. This helps your business earn the trust of potential customers and can even push them to finally buy your product or service just from reading existing Google reviews (like the one below):

3. Focus On Improving Customer Service

Customers will remember your business if you treated them well. To get a positive review, you would need to put all efforts into providing exceptional customer service. 

Train your staff to ensure they reflect the level of service you want your customers to experience. Conduct customer satisfaction surveys to learn how you can improve. 

One example for motivating your staff to provide great customer service is to run a contest on which staff gets mentioned the most in reviews. The winner gets a prize (or employee of the month award). 

4. Respond to All Your Reviews

Responding to both positive and negative reviews demonstrates to your audience that you care about feedback even if they’re not that great.

In addition to accountability, you’re showing people transparency and legitimacy, which helps with earning trust and winning over new customers.

5. Integrate Your Google Review Link in Your Email Signature

Get the most out of your email marketing campaigns and include your Google review link in your signature. 

This simple step can help add more opportunities to get more Google reviews from existing customers who are in your email list, in case they haven’t responded to previous review requests.

6. Consider SMS Marketing

Not everyone responds using email. In fact, a good number of people prefer SMS or text messaging when responding to businesses. 

You can expand your reach and diversify your marketing channel to SMS and use text messaging to send a review link to your customers who might prefer this method to leave reviews.

Ramping Up and Scaling Reviews

After mastering how to get Google reviews, you’re now ready to scale and get significantly higher review numbers.

1. Create A Review Management System

You can do this within your marketing team or hire a review management expert, but you have to be more organized and systematic if you’re serious about ramping up reviews.

There are many reputation management softwares and apps that allow you to track, manage, respond, and analyze reviews all from a central dashboard. This helps you minimize your work and get more things done.

2. Report and Flag Inappropriate Reviews

You need to ensure that all your Google customer reviews are real. Take the time to log in your Google Business Profile to check that each review is legitimate and not violating Google’s review policies. If you feel like a review is inappropriate, immediately flag it so Google can check it and take the necessary action.  

Below are the reasons you can choose from when reporting a review:

3. Regularly Conduct a Customer Satisfaction Survey

You need to know the pulse of your customer at all times. Even with high review ratings, you need to regularly run customer satisfaction surveys to every customer. 

There is always room for improvement and you will only discover this from customer feedback. Doing this ensures you address problems with your products or services and that you get more positive Google reviews in the future.

4. Invest in Review Generation Tools

Review generation tools like Birdeye help you save time and effort when trying to get more Google reviews. These tools allow businesses to automate review requests and even personalize them according to the customer’s interactions with your business.

5. Set up Review Plaques

Get a Google Reviews badge for your home page or website to highlight your review rating. The badge can be in a prominent position in your business website, specifically the home page.

You can get the badge’s HTML code from Google (see badge below) or have it customized by a web design expert.

6. Send Postcards

In today’s digital world, you can surprise past customers and send them a review request in the mail. Postcards can be a unique and memorable way to say thank you to a customer’s purchase while asking for reviews at the same time.

Hire a Digital Marketing Agency to Boost Your Local SEO

It takes a lot of work and commitment to get high review ratings in huge volumes. For small businesses or companies on a budget, not all review generating strategies might seem doable.

A great cost-effective alternative is to focus on a holistic local SEO strategy that provides better online visibility for a local business. On The Map Marketing is an expert at providing businesses with a strong local SEO strategy that is effective in improving the quality and quantity of reviews. 

To get started with crafting a tailored local SEO strategy that gets you more reviews, reach out to us today!