The 5 Worst Ways To Get Google Reviews
1. What’s the harm in buying Google reviews?
2. Why not pay or reward customers to leave a review?
3. Employees, friends, and family leave reviews for your business?
4. What about “review gating?” Should you screen your reviews?
5. Should you tell customers what rating or review to leave?
Real reviews or take a shortcut?
1. What’s the harm in buying Google reviews?
Even thinking about someone doing this makes me a bit crazy. It’s a little bit like stealing. You’re obtaining reviews you never earned the right way.
Never purchase Google reviews from anyone because you’ll be purchasing fake reviews. If you’re a good business that provides goog services, you don’t need to “buy” Google reviews.
Buying reviews violates Google’s review policies. The last thing you want is fake reviews creating problems with your Google Business Profile.
Legitimate reviews from actual customers are the only way to go.
2. Why not pay or reward customers to leave a review?
Never offer a customer a reward in exchange for writing a positive review for you.
Google doesn’t allow you to offer something in exchange for a review. Whether it’s a discount, free product, or service, Google prohibits reviews that are posted because you offered an incentive.
If your customers value the work you do for them, they will be more than willing to give you a review.
3. Can you have employees, friends, and family leave reviews for your business?
Your family wants you to succeed. Your employees want the same thing.
Never have anyone with a personal or professional connection to the company leave an unearned review. It creates a misleading picture for potential customers. It’s also possible that Google will notice your dishonesty.
Assuming you get work on a daily basis, you can get plenty of legitimate reviews from real customers.
4. What about “review gating?” Should you screen your reviews?
This one is kinda weird. Basically you are working to make sure your potential customers only see good reviews.
Gating separates your customers who give a positive review from those that want to complain. The happy customers get encouraged to post a Google review while the unhappy customers get sent somewhere else to complain.
All businesses want customers to see positive reviews but deliberately trying to influence which customers are encouraged to leave reviews is a red flag.
It’s much better to allow all reviews whether they are positive or complaining. If someone leaves a bad review, respond to it. Apologize when appropriate and address their issues. Potential customers look for responses from businesses. It shows you care about every one of your customers.
5. Should you tell customers what rating or review to leave?
Never tell a customer what to say in their review or how many stars to give your business.
Ask them to leave an honest review. Leave it at that.
Your customers appreciate the service you provide. They don’t need anyone persuading them on what to say or do. They’ll do it all on their own.
What you can do is make leaving a review easy. Provide the link or QR code. Then leave what your customers say up to them.
Real reviews or take a shortcut?
Just keep the review process simple and easy for your customers to use.
Ask after you’ve completed the work and then send them a Google review link as a URL or a QR code. Send a QR code for those customers that prefer that method to get to the link. And if they forget, send a polite reminder. My dentist sends 3 text reminders. My nurse practitioner sends 2 text reminders.
Trust your customers. If they liked the work you did, give them the opportunity to say so without influence.
About the owner of this website:
My name is Don Glasgow
I built my first website in 2001. I ranked that site almost immediately for "St. George real estate. Yes, I live in St. George, UT.
I've built many more websites since then.
I also have an enormous amount of knowledge on how to get a website to rank.
