Google Review Link Generator

Why are customer reviews important for local businesses?

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Consumers trust reviews

Many studies have proven that most consumers not only trust online reviews as much as they do a recommendation from a personal friend, but they are also influenced by online reviews as well. Some even suggest that this number could be as high as 88% of people. That’s pretty unbelievable; most consumers will make buying decisions almost solely based on the experiences of past buyers who they don’t even know. Reviews and ratings can influence people to either go crazy for you… or go crazy for your competition, rather than you. This alone should convey how incredibly important it is for your business to have reviews on Google.

Reputation is crucial

When it comes to local SEO, reviews for your Google business listing are incredibly important. The number of reviews that a business has can be the deciding factor in their ranking position in the local results pack. We’ve heard some companies tell us that they are afraid to ask customers to leave a review because they are worried about receiving some negative reviews. Guess what? They still get some negative reviews anyways, because unhappy customers are almost always more vocal than happy customers and we as humans just naturally like to complain. So, if you have more happy customers than unhappy customers (if you don’t then maybe you should work on that…? Just a thought.) then go ahead and ask customers to leave you a review.

Increased online visibility

When a search user performs a local search — a “near me” search, a search that contains location keywords, or a search from a mobile device — Google performs a search that is based on the searchers location as opposed to the more traditional organic search. A local search shows the related, nearby businesses on a map, and also shows the contact information for the top result. Name, phone number, website, opening hours are all displayed to the searcher immediately. Guess what else they see? That’s right – reviews!

 Better search engine rankings

Google has made known just how seriously it takes reviews and how much of an impact reviews can have on the search engine ranking position of a local business. The search giant has said that the “prominence” of a business is one of the three main ranking factors for a local business. The number of reviews and score of each are both factors in determining the prominence —  more reviews and positive ratings should improve the ranking position of a local business on Google. 

Ready to get collecting reviews from your customers?

This tool will help make it easier to have customers leave reviews for you on your Google My Business listing by generating a direct link. When a customer clicks this link, they do not need to search for your business — they are taken straight to the page where they can leave a review. 

Sounds easy doesn’t it? That’s because it is!

How to ask customers for a Google business review

If you’re already creating experiences that your customers are going crazy for, then they will be more than happy to write a positive review about your business. All you need to do is ask. However, there are a few incredibly important things to keep in mind when asking customers to leave you a review. 

Choose The Right Timing

 Ideally, you want to ask a customer to leave a review when they are most likely to leave you a positive review, which means that in some situations timing can play an important role in securing awesome client reviews for your business. Obviously you don’t want to ask for a review when a customer might be in the middle of a negative experience, but even when it comes to positive reviews there is still a line that needs to be tread. 

On one side is the customer who has not had enough time to fully appreciate your business or has not been able to fully utilize or benefit from your services yet. In this case, asking for a review would be considered asking too early, because the customer probably has not developed a fully-formed opinion in their mind about you just yet. Keep delivering an experience that is worth talking about (in a good way!), and they’ll soon be ready to share that with their friends and colleagues.

On the other side of the line is the customer whom you may have waited for too long to engage to ask for a review. It’s not that your product or service is not as excellent as it was when they first started using it, it may just be that they’ve grown used to the benefits over time. That sense of impressiveness that you initially inspired in them is disspating. 

Make It Easy

 This should be pretty obvious to just about everyone, but people in general shy away from doing things that aren’t easy. Why should leaving you a review be any different? It’s amazing how many business owners wish they had more feedback from customers, but don’t give the customer any obvious way to do that. Don’t just ask a customer to leave you a review — make it as easy as possible by giving them a direct link to where they can do that. 

What are some ways to make it easy for customers to leave reviews? Well, now that you have the direct link to your Google review page, we’re going to take our own advice and give you some easy ideas to get you started using your link! 

Idea #1 : A link in your email signature

This has to be one of the easiest ways to start asking for reviews. Everyone, business-person or not, sends multiple emails each and every day. Why not add your Google review link to those emails ask customers to leave a review for you? 

Idea #2 : Integrate with your email marketing 

You DO have an email list where you can let customers know about exciting new products, insane deals, or holiday specials… right? If not, you need to start building that list. Okay, that aside, when you’re already communicating regularly with your buyers via email marketing, it’s a no-brainer to ask them for a review as well. These people are part of your list because they’ve engaged with you somehow, so go ahead and ask them to tell you what  they think of your product or service and ask them to leave a review if they are impressed.  

Idea #3 : Phone & real life conversations

If you have a business where you do a lot of the sales and support via telephone (or even in person), what better time to ask for a review than when you’ve just made a customer happy? Whether they called with a problem which you easily fixed, or it’s just a friendly conversation with a long-time happy customer — this is a great time to ask them if they would mind leaving you a review. Sure, this process is not quite as easy as online methods, but if the customer agrees to leaving you a review, simply fire them off an email with your direct Google review link in it.

Don’t Cheat

Cheaters never prosper, not even when it comes to reviews. As a general rule, use common sense when it comes to asking for reviews. Don’t incentivize, don’t do anything that would be conflict of interest (asking an employee to leave a review), and don’t post fake reviews. Google is very clear in it’s policies: 

Conflict of interest: Reviews are most valuable when they are honest and unbiased. If you own or work at a place, please don’t review your own business or employer. Don’t offer or accept money, products, or services to write reviews for a business or to write negative reviews about a competitor. If you’re a business owner, don’t set up review stations or kiosks at your place of business just to ask for reviews written at your place of business.”