How to ask for a Google Review for your Business

Google reviews are crucially important to help you win more business from search engine users.

Having positive reviews ensures your business is putting its best foot forwards and they improve your credibility, rank, reputation and brand image – it is a win-win situation.

Ensuring your Google reviews reflect the reality of your situation

A common problem we see with reviews, and this can be extreme in some industries like restaurants, is that the only reviews a business gets are bad reviews.

You could be serving 1000 customers every week, but it will be that one difficult customer, who was unpleasable, that leaves a scathing review.

This is problematic as your reviews don’t reflect the reality of your situation. You have one bad review. 100% negative reviews. Yet, it is 0.1% of customers who were unhappy that week.

Dealing with bad reviews on Google is tricky. Often, unless there is outright slander or problematic language you will be stuck with the review.

Fortunately, there is a simple strategy to get around this – you simply ask customers for Google reviews.

The best way to get Google reviews

As silly as it sounds, the best way to get more Google reviews is to ask your customers to leave you a review. I know right – who would have thought it!

The best way to do this is to send a simple email asking customers to leave a review, as it is a quick and easy method of receiving feedback.

It is recommended to send your email to happy customers as they act as the best brand advocates. Do not ask customers who appear upset or dissatisfied as they may leave a bad review and damage your reputation. Send your email as soon as possible when your customer is most happy with your service or product and their positive thoughts are fresh in their minds.

This is a numbers game and only a small percentage will leave you a review – however, this will help ensure your reviews are far closer in sentiment to the real world feeling of your customers rather than the vocal minority that were unhappy.

The process to ask for a Google review

You want to ensure you make this as easy as possible for your customer.

One way to simplify this is to generate a Google review link that sends customers directly to your Google Business profile.

To do this, head to https://whitespark.ca/google-review-link-generator/. Simply type your business name, city, and zip/postcode in the “enter a location” field on the map and copy the short URL to your clipboard. You can then share this link with customers in your email and it will take reviewers directly to the review page. Include a clear CTA link to the review in your email and make this the single goal for the reader to make the process as easy as possible.

Make the email personal by using your customer’s name and make a personal request to leave a review. Write in a personable and casual tone and test different wording to see what achieves the best conversion rate. Typically, we would advise a flashy HTML email and just use plain text, but feel free to A/B test HTML vs plain text and measure the results!

Be sure to include all key points but try to keep the email short and sweet:

• let the user know why you are asking for a review
• how long it will take (60 seconds)
• how grateful you are

Let them know you are looking forward to reading their review, and thank them immediately after they have left it.

Your email will read something like this:

Dear [customer/client’s name]

Thank you for your recent service. We really appreciate your business, support and feedback, and truly value you as a customer.

Our goal is to provide the very best service and we are always looking for ways to improve. We are looking to gain feedback on our service so that we can enhance your experience and make our customers happy.

We would love to hear your feedback, and I would be incredibly grateful if you could take a couple of minutes to write a quick Google review for us. This will allow us to improve our service and let others recognise the value we provide.

To submit your review, simply click the link below and let us know what you think.

[Insert your Google review URL link here. Generate a review URL for your business by heading to https://whitespark.ca/google-review-link-generator/ ]

Thank you so much for taking the time to leave a review. Your feedback is highly appreciated and important to us and I look forward to reading your comments.

Many thanks,

[your name]

Simple right?

As with many things Google, SEO and Digital Marketing it can be easy to overcomplicate things. Fortunately, this is an easy way to improve your SEO and help your business generate more customers.

Simply customise this template and away you go – you can download the full template here: Google Review Email Template

Tip: Send an initial customer service email asking the customer how their experience was with your business – the ones that reply with positive sentiment will be your best bet to leave a glowing review that helps promote your business. This adds an extra step but can help build a better relationship with your customers and helps ensure you get some really glowing reviews on your Google Business Profile.

All it takes is a quick email for your reviews to grow and your rank, credibility, and reputation to flourish.

And, of course, if you found this article helpful, you can always leave Bowler Hat a Google review here: https://goo.gl/nWBdYR

Free SEO Audit & Battle Plan for 2022 & Beyond – Looking to improve your SEO and grow your business in 2022? Get a free audit and battle plan to get your business to the top of Google. 

Further Reading

• Beginners SEO Tips
• Small Business SEO Tips
• Google Ads Success Factors

Find out more about our SEO services here and don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more marketing tips! What are your secrets for getting more Google reviews?