How to Increase Google Reviews – Top 8 Tips

What’s the first thing you do when you’re looking to book a service, buy a product, visit a restaurant, or book a hotel? Usually, we would go online, look up the brand, and check its Google reviews. Based on the reviews and experiences of other customers, we tend to move ahead with the transaction.

According to a Consumer Review Survey in 2021, 81% of US-based customers said that they check Google reviews to evaluate local businesses. Clearly, we are in an internet-powered era where Google reviews and other online reviews significantly drive the purchase decisions of consumers. Thereby, it becomes very important for brands to understand how to increase Google reviews and build a good review score. 

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With these sure-fire tips on how to increase review score on Google, you will be able to understand where and how to engage with your customers to get them to share feedback. Let’s read each in detail.

1. Share the Google Review Link via Email and SMS

The first and foremost step to make sure that customers are easily able to review your brand is to share the direct review link with them. Your customers shouldn’t have to make an additional effort of looking you up and sometimes even struggle with understanding how to write a Google review.

So, first, create a Google review link shortcut with these simple steps:

Go to Google My Business Account > Click Home > Click on Get Your First Review or Get More Reviews > Click Share Review Form > Copy the link

Now you can share this link with your customers through different channels like –

1. Email: You can send your customers your Google review link via business email after a transaction or specific customer service interaction. Make sure to send the review link while the interaction or engagement with the brand is still fresh in their heads so they are more likely to write a review and write a genuine one.
   For customers that seek support via email newsletter, you can embed the review link into the email signature along with the response from the customer service agent.
   
   
2. SMS: The SMS open rate is over 90% which means that if you share your Google review link via SMS, the chances of your customers checking the review request and writing a Google review can be higher.
   When your customers can write a Google review for your business in just a click, you can expect a significant Google reviews increase.

2. Add Review Link to Your Website

If you have an online presence, chances are that your customers would visit your website. Especially, if you’re an e-commerce brand, your customers would engage primarily through the e-commerce website design. So, why not make writing Google reviews for your business even easier?

If you do not want to rely completely on email and SMS communication to ask for reviews, you can add the Google review link to your website, for example, to the website footer. You can also customize your order confirmation page so it has the Google review link so your customers can review your business right after the transaction.

3. Leverage Feedback Surveys to Increase Google Reviews

Surveys are the most effective way to understand your customers’ sentiments and keep them engaged with the brand. And to measure feedback using the standard metric Net Promoter Score, you can use NPS surveys.  And if a customer takes your survey, they might want to write a review as well for your brand, especially if they had an excellent experience.

So, what you can do is leverage surveys to get Google reviews. Be it email surveys, QR code surveys, web link surveys, or SMS surveys, you can simply add your Google review link to the NPS survey’s ‘Thank you’ screen so customers can click the link at the end of the survey and directly land on the Google review page. Now there are two ways you can get Google reviews from your survey respondents:

1. Response-Based Action: Based on the feedback your customers choose to give your brand, you can take your customers to the Google review page. For example, in a Net Promoter Score survey, you can send a survey link to Promoters via email or show them the customized message at the ‘thank you’ screen – “Thank you for your great feedback. Please take a minute to review us on Google.”
   
   Similarly, you can send a survey request email to customers who rated their satisfaction with your brand high. However, you will have to be careful since Review Gating is not permitted. As per Google guidelines, you cannot collect only positive reviews while limiting negative reviews. This can lead to a penalty, the most common of which is the removal of reviews and a drop in ranking (or fall off Google entirely).
   
   
2. Customized Workflow: Creating a customized workflow is something that you can do with automated survey software. For example, you can add a question to your survey asking customers if they would like to write a review for you. If they respond with yes, an email with the Google review page link can be automatically triggered for them. And if they say no, the review request wouldn’t be shared with them. This ensures that you identify people who are actually interested in writing a review and send them a request. And if you know what is email bounce and tend to keep an eye on it, you're aware that this also helps keep your bounce rate low - which will avoid damaging email deliverability and future interactions.

4. Engage with On-Site Customers

The impact of one-on-one interactions with customers is second to none because the customer knows that you are directly talking to them and that they are heard.

For example, if you have a retail store, you can have your billing staff politely ask customers about their experience and whether they would like to share a Google review for your brand. This personalized interaction can nudge them in the right direction and even convince them to write a Google review for you.

5. Print QR codes with Review Link Embedded into Them

Reaching out to each customer, especially if you have a large footfall, can be difficult. But with a Google review embedded into a QR code using dynamic QR code generator online, you can reach out to customers almost everywhere. For example, in a retail store, you can print the QR Code and display it at various touchpoints like the billing point, exit gate, etc. Similarly, you can also print the QR code directly onto the packaging and even the product itself (items like a washing machine, brochure, etc.).

You can also paste the QR code onto tables in a restaurant or print it on bills, invoices, tent cards, receipts, etc. This is effortless and will enable customers to do a simple scan using their phones to reach your Google review page.

6. Print ‘Leave Us a Review’ Cards

You can print physical cards and use them at different customer touchpoints to collect Google reviews. You can:

• Print steps to writing a review for your business
• Print a QR code with the review link embedded into it so users can scan the code to visit the review page with a click

Now, these cards can be used in different ways. For example, you can send this card to your customers when a product is delivered to them. You can distribute these cards at the physical store if your brand has a physical presence. In restaurants or hotels, you can share the card with your guests along with the bill or receipt.

7. Ask for Reviews on Social Media

Social media makes it easier to reach customers, which makes the brand more visible. So, in addition to using your social platforms for branding, you can reach out to your customers to get Google reviews. You can simply add the link in bio of your social media profile and even share it through posts so customers and people who have interacted with your brand in some way in the past can share a Google review for you.

8. Respond to Reviews

This has to be one of the most important tips on how to increase Google business reviews. You can reply to Google reviews with your business account and your responses will be visible along with customers’ reviews. Now, if customers who visit your page to write a review notice that the business hasn’t responded to any of the earlier reviews, they may be discouraged from writing one themselves.
Moreover, it disrupts trust between the brand and customers when businesses don’t reply to Google reviews.

So, as soon as you get a review, either positive or negative, make sure to thank your customers for sharing their feedback and help them improve their experience with your brand. This would encourage more customers to write Google reviews for you.

Why do you need to increase Google review score?

Here are some reasons you need to have an effective strategy to increase reviews on Google:

1. Increased Likeliness of Attracting New Customers

93% of customers say that they have made buying decisions based on Google reviews at some point. Customers trust online reviews and good reviews of your brand can attract potential customers.

2. Improved Search Engine Optimization and Visibility

Rating activity helps Google boost businesses’ visibility. Businesses with a huge number of ratings rank higher since they are recognized as brands that customers are engaging with. Also, adding keywords to your Business account can also increase your potential visibility.

3. Improved Interaction with Customers

When customers are willing to share feedback via Google, you can understand directly from them how you can improve their experiences. Moreover, active responders are also pushed up so they are more visible.

Conclusion

Google reviews are critical for all brands and there’s no bad time to start working on increasing the number of reviews and ratings. But it doesn’t end there. You must consistently respond to reviews and act where action is needed so your customers are motivated to give you another chance even if there was a bad or unexpected experience.

We have a similar article on How to Increase Capterra and G2 Reviews for Your product. Do give it a read.