Tips for getting more online reviews

Standing out on Search and Maps

Time to complete:

3 minutes


Your Business Profile on Google helps customers find you on Google Search and Maps. It also displays Google reviews left by your customers. These reviews give your business credibility and are helpful to potential customers, so you’ll want to build up a set of them. This lesson will give you a number of tangible strategies to get more customer reviews.

Business reviews appear next to your listing in Maps and Search, and can help your business stand out on Google.

Just ask if you want more reviews

The key to getting online reviews is to simply ask for them. Chances are that your loyal customers would be happy to leave you a review, but they just haven’t thought of it or don’t realize how helpful it would be for your business.

When it comes to asking, you can:

  • Ask in person: After every positive interaction, encourage customers to share their experience online. Train your employees to ask, too.
  • Ask in marketing materials: If you don’t feel comfortable asking in person, take the opportunity to ask for a review in your email signature, on your receipts, or on a card you mail with your product. You can even add a follow-up email or text a few days after a purchase asking for a review.

If you’re looking for ways to phrase your request, you might say:

  • “Please support us with your reviews and photos on Google.”
  • “Thanks for being a valued customer! We’d love to hear about your experience. Please leave us a review on Google.”
  • “Reviews are really important to us. We’d love to hear about your experience.”

How to get more reviews on Google

When looking to get more reviews on your Business Profile specifically, here is a helpful tool you can use:

  • You can create a custom short URL so customers can visit your Business Profile with one click to leave a review.

Make it easy for your reviewers

You want to make it as easy as possible for your customers to leave you a review. If it’s complicated or takes too much time, they may give up. To help your customers, tell them where to find your business on Google, Facebook, or Yelp — or even better — send them a direct link to your profile. As a note, you should never offer incentives in exchange for reviews.

Deepen customer relationships — and inspire new ones

At times, it can feel hard to ask customers to leave an online review, but getting more reviews from your current customers can help you build trust among future customers. And responding to your reviews can also help earn customer loyalty and deepen those relationships.

As a best practice, thank customers who take a few moments to share their appreciation for your business. Following up with timely and professional responses to reviews shows that you value customer input, and encourages them to leave reviews (and visit you again) in the future.

TAKE ACTION

Encourage your customers to leave reviews

You can make your Business Profile on Google even more useful for potential customers by building up a collection of reviews from customers.

  • Ask customers for reviews after positive interactions or in your marketing materials

  • Create a short URL to give to customers so they have a one-click path to leave a review