Getting Google My Business & Maps Reviews

The purpose of this post is to briefly give you some pointers as to how to get your customers to give you good reviews on Google Maps and Places, a very effective way of improving your search engine rankings in Google.

Google Maps listings are now integrated within the results from a general Google search, so getting to the top of these listings can mean getting to the top of Google within your area.

Lots of good customer reviews are a good way to help your boost your Google Maps and Places position, Google wants to create a good user experience – for you to see at the top of the listings the businesses that are most highly regarded by the people that matter, their customers.

To create your very own Google Maps listing, please click here and follow the instructions.

How to get customer reviews on Google

1. Do a good job so your customer feels inclined to give you a good review
2. Incentivise your customer to post the review onto Google
3. Give the customer clear instructions on how to actually give the review on Google

Bad reviews can be hard to deal with but not impossible. Click here for some great tips.

1. Do a good job so your customer feels inclined to give you a good review

Pretty self-explanatory, nobody is going to give a good review for a company who has not performed well.

Click here for some additional tips on how to generate good reviews.

2. Incentivise your customer to post the review onto Google

Most people do not do something unless there is an incentive to do so. So maybe give them a voucher or discount off your products or services in return for their review.

Please Note – It’s always better to be very careful with this tactic. Click here to find out why.

3. Give the customer clear instructions on how to actually give the review on Google

We would recommend this (1) goes onto the back of the voucher given to the customer and (2) if the customer has email is also emailed to them.

Example Wording for email

Dear <CUSTOMER NAME>

Your feedback helps our business grow!

We are always interested in hearing how we are doing (good or bad); if you could provide an honest review of your experience doing business with on Google for us we would greatly appreciate it.

Regardless of whether or not your feedback is positive, we want to know what you experience was like because it is important for our business to keep improving and ensuring our clients are 100% satisfied.

Without your opinions and feedback, we would not be as successful as we are.

So if you could possibly take a few minutes out of your day to fill out a Google review for us we would greatly appreciate it.

This is how you do a Google Review:

1) Sign into your Google account at www.google.co.uk (if you have a Google account miss point 2 and go straight to point 3.)

2) If you do not have a Google account you will need to create an account (this is really easy), to do this:

• Goto www.google.co.uk
• Click Sign In in the top right-hand side
• Then click Sign Up in the top right-hand side
• Then fill out your details on the form (we personally put in a fake date of birth, plus un-click the tick box at the bottom “Google may use….”
• Once filled out click Next Step
• The screen should then Say “Welcome”, then Click Get Started
• You should now be on the Google Home Page with your new Gmail address in the top right-hand corner xxx@gmail.com
• Then click here: <Link to your Google + Local Listing>

3) Then:

• Click Write a Review
• Then write your review in the box and put down the number of stars you feel appropriate.
• Then Click Publish

Thank you very much and we greatly appreciate your feedback.

First of all would aim to get 10 or 15 reviews, maybe three or four a month as you do not want to get them too quickly.

Please note that Google has automatic filtering systems that filter out what they consider to be fake reviews. Their system though is not good and filter out a lot of genuine reviews, though if you plan that only one out of two reviews will become live, then this is a good way to approach the exercise.

Getting reviews is hard, takes effort, but are very effective for your Google listing and getting you to the top.