How to Actually Get Google Reviews (Without Feeling Sleazy)
We all know Google reviews are the hugely important for social proof and local SEO.
But how do you actually get clients to write them without feeling awkward AF? Let me walk you through the exact system I use to gather reviews for my own business and my clients’ businesses.
Whether you are a local brick-and-mortar shop in the middle of tourist season or a service provider working from your laptop, you need a reliable system to future proof your customer pipeline. We'll cover how to make the ask, why you might want to "sweeten the pot", and how to create some automations so you can get your marketing out of manual mode.
🎉 If you are tired of wrestling with your website and local SEO, let me handle the tech tangles for you. Check out my Tech & Traffic membership to see how we can get your business found online.
Transcript below!
Resources I mentioned:
Email Template
Hi [Name],
I was just thinking about how lovely it [was/has been] to work together, and had a quick request.
Will you share a few sentences about your experience? Direct reviews from my best clients really helps others find me.
To help you get started, here's a few questions you might answer:
How did you feel before working with me?
What led you to working with me?
What would you say is unique about me, my services or my way of doing business?
Would you recommend me to others, and if so, why? Would you use my
Button/Link: LEAVE YOUR GOOGLE REVIEW HERE
Once you leave your review, I’d really love to send you a little treat as a thank you!
Word of mouth is the driving force behind my business and your input makes my it all possible.
Thank you so much!
[Your Name]
Elfsight (to embed your google reviews)
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00:01 something that has come up a lot recently with several of my clients is how do we actually get Google reviews?
00:08 How do we make sure that, that big piece of social proof that's really good for people finding you in SEO and, that trust factor, how do we actually get that?
00:19 How do we get people to leave reviews? And I've been doing this system that I'm about to share in my business for a really long time.
00:27 And it's been really good to really help my clients hone this system for themselves. Uhm, with my newer offer, a retainer that essentially helps with these types of things.
00:36 Those ongoing teeny little things that help you with your findability, help people find your website, your offers, your services, and actually hire you or buy from you.
00:46 So, uhm, let's talk about how to get freaking reviews. All right. So before we could do that, I'm just going to quickly introduce myself.
00:56 My name is Ellie. I'm the founder and CEO of Calibrated Concepts and I design websites, but I've worn many, many hats and my business has evolved a lot and I help with websites and sort of getting your website found.
01:10 Those are the two hats I'm wearing these days. Uhm, so let's talk about my top tips and systems and tricks and yeah, just everything I do to actually get reviews from my clients and help my clients get reviews.
01:26 The first thing, and this is going to be a really obvious thing, but you have to ask. Uhm, one of my clients recently had almost no Google reviews and they printed out a thing and put it in their, in their bar and they put it up all over the bars and the tables and they have had a steady flood of Google
01:49 reviews. Uhm, and that's and that has been so good for making their bar look more established, especially during tourist season, uhm, and for showing people what they can expect when they actually come to their establishment.
02:02 I have another client who runs a boutique and they had two Google reviews, they've been open for two years, and I was like, why, why do you not have any Google reviews?
02:12 Uhm, and I've shopped there, so the first thing I'm I did was go and leave them a review, but then I helped them create a flyer.
02:19 And on that flyer, we have a big, big tourist event coming up, uh, next week, and on that flyer it had a Google review, uh, system, it also had a come back and shop with us later when you're back in your hometown and not living here, uh, or not visiting here.
02:34 And we'll give you a discount code for coming back and buying from us online. So, you've got to ask. Now, how do we actually ask?
02:44 Uh, those are two examples for brick and mortars, but me and a lot of my clients are also, service providers.
02:51 So, how do you ask when you don't, can't just give someone a flyer and say, hey, I'll make it worth your while to leave you me a review?
02:57 than you might think. Uh, pretty much, you have to make it easy for them. So, we'll talk about all the different bits and pieces.
03:07 of this here in a minute, but I send off an email. So, how do I make it easy for them?
03:12 I send a direct link to my Google business listing if you have a Google business listing, which you should, it has a place where you, it says, get more reviews and you click that button and it gives you a short link.
03:23 Sharing that short link directly when they click on it pops it up. And it gives immediately, like, they can put in five stars and type something out and it makes it super-duper-duper-duper easy for them.
03:34 I also provide them with prompts so that they're not having blank page syndrome. Um, so I provide them with prompts like, how did you feel before you worked with me?
03:45 What led you to work with me? What would you say is unique about me or my services? Or the way I do business?
03:51 Would you recommend me to others? Would you come back? And these are the types of things I prompt them with so that, again, they just go, oh, that's so easy to answer and it makes it super-duper-duper quick for them.
04:03 The third thing I do is I sweeten the pot. Um, I want to bring this up to the top of their to-do list because this is not the kind of thing that ends up on the top of someone's to-do list.
04:14 It's the very top of their to-do list. And while it's really important to me, and they would obviously love to do it usually, um, it's not that important to them.
04:22 And it might not be something that they get around to for a while, or it might be because it's the bottom of their to-do list, something they forget entirely.
04:30 And so the way that I do that is when I email them asking, I say, I would love to give you a token of my appreciation.
04:36 And I'm specific about what that token is. Um, and it really helps convert those quicker. And it's not something so large that I'm like bribing for reviews.
04:46 It's just something small. Um, when I lived in Northern Ireland, that was a very specific local chocolate company. I would give them a small gift card for that.
04:54 Um, here it's, I will buy them a coffee card from a local shop. just a small, like five ish to $10 gift.
05:02 Some of my clients give a discount out code, but anything you can do to make them a little more excited and bring it up, their to-do list is going to be really good for you.
05:13 So I use a formula and I mentioned sort of the prompts I use, but I, the next thing I do is in that email.
05:19 I use a formula and I will share this in the blog post for this video. So if you're looking to just copy and paste my template, please do.
05:27 I want to make this as easy for you as possible because it really moves the needle when people can see proof that is sort of vetted, that you are good at what you do, and that people can trust you and learn a little bit more about your restaurant or your, uh, uh, boutique or your website services So
05:48 the basics of this as you say, Hey, I was just thinking about how great it was to work together or how it's been to work together.
05:55 If you're on an ongoing retainer, I had a quick request. Would you please share a few sentences about our experience?
06:01 Um, and then I give them, you know, I say, it really helps other people find me. I give them those prompts we talked about.
06:09 I give them that link to my, that short link that opens it up exactly. And so they don't have to go anywhere or search for where to leave me a review.
06:18 And then I say, once you leave a review, I'll send you that little treat. And then I say, word of mouth is a driving force of my business and your input makes it all possible.
06:27 And then I sign off and I was so easy. And just, and I wrote that all without AI. And I think being genuine and asking for something and telling people why it matters to your business really makes people, again, it just brings it up to their to-do list.
06:41 And in my case, I'm really lucky that a lot of my clients are also small business owners and they understand how much of a difference it can make. 06:50 But if they don't, and maybe they're just busy, again, I'm reminding them, if, again, you are a brick and mortar, this might be a flyer you put into the bag of everybody that leaves your boutique. 07:02 It could be something you put on the table of everybody who sits at your restaurant, uhm, or that you put on the receipt for when people leave. 07:10 Whatever you can do to get those reviews in, do it. Do it, do it, do it. Okay. All right, now, Reminders are also very, very important. 07:20 So if I don't get a review, I don't make it a big deal, but about two weeks later, I send them a shortened version of that email where I say, Hey, I just wanted to follow up on this. 07:28 I know life gets busy. Here's a couple prompts. Here's the link. Let me know if you have any questions. And then I leave it, but But I do always make sure to send a reminder because… again, people get busy and they have the best of intentions, but it doesn't hurt to ask again. 07:47 And again, the people that you're asking of this will generally be really happy to leave you a review. Whew. So that's sort of the nitty gritty of like the how, but then what happens next? 08:00 So these are all the steps I used to actually collect these reviews, but I wanted to give you one little tip starting small. 08:08 If you're nervous, if you don't want to send that email and it feels really vulnerable or embarrassing, first off, we all have to do a lot of things like that in our business, right? 08:18 We have to put on the money hat. We have to put on the big ask hat, the selling hat. This is a version of that. 08:24 You have to put on the hat. And, and sort of just go for it. Uhm, but I would say if you're nervous, start small. 08:33 Start with the easy wins to get a few, like, showing up, and that could be your best clients. It could be friends and family who've used your products or services. 08:43 Just ask the people who make it really obvious and really easy to ask, uh, that you know are almost certainly going to say yes. 08:49 Just, just do it. That makes it a lot easier to get some reviews under your belt, and get some practice making that ask. 08:57 Uhm, make it a part of your process. So again, if you're a service-based business, uhm, I have a full offboarding sequence with my clients where when I'm done working with them, I say, you know, thank you so much, here's your website, tutorial, here is, you know, your final bill, et cetera, et cetera 09:16 , and then a couple days later, they get this email, and it's all automated, and then if they haven't replied, two weeks later, you know, they get that reminder email, and that has a, essentially a button that I push, where I can say whether I got the review or not, and then it just goes out. 09:30 If you're brick-and-mortar, uhm, again, making it a part of your process, adding it to your receipts, putting it on your door, putting it as part of your checkout process, uhm, putting it on as part of your email newsletter, so if you are brick-and-mortar, you still should have an email newsletter, and 09:48 saying, hey, like, we'd love for you to leave us a Google review, or to all the people who've made it maybe recently shopped from your online store, or maybe your online ordering system, that is a really good way to make this a part of your system, and maybe for those people, it's automatic if your system 10:05 allows it, uhm, otherwise, maybe it's you file a quick, pull a quick report of everybody that's bought from you in the last two weeks or month, and send out that templated email that you just have ready to go, because you do this maybe on your slow Tuesday morning every month, whatever works for you. 10:25 Alright, so that is all about how to get the testimonials and reviews, and then, like, you have them. You have them, you have, you've been working really hard to get a big bank of lovely reviews and testimonials, and they're starting to bring you in more work and more customers, and that is beautiful 10:42 . But how do you really leverage them? The first thing is you want to reply and thank them, and that should be on the public Google reviews, first of all, and then, in my case, I also send an email with that treat I've offered, right? 10:56 So I will reply and say, thank you so much for the lovely review, here's a gift card to this coffee shop that happens to be nearby you that I know. 11:05 And so, saying that. Thank you for somebody who's done something to support your business further it just breeds goodwill, right? 11:14 It also reminds them that you exist and maybe they'll come back. And the final thing I want to say is share your reviews. 11:22 Share them. Put them on your website. Put them on your social media. Screenshot them and share them in your story. 11:29 Stories. Say, create a post in talking about how much you loved this review and why and kind of create a case story around it. 11:36 leveraging those and sharing them further and wider makes a big difference. They're already public. Your clients won't mind, I swear. 11:44 And it allows you to have a piece of content that shows off that people love what you do, that you love what your clients, that you're great to work with, all those things. 11:53 So, my last tip is in sharing them, if you're going to put them on your website, there are a lot of ways to do this, but something that works for almost every website I've ever built is a free tool called Elfsight. 12:05 Now, it's free up to a certain amount of page views, um, but it's still really cheap. So, if you, even if you have to pay for it, I would highly recommend it. 12:14 Okay. I hope you have a lovely day. I hope you found this useful. I really hope you like, share, subscribe, and go out and set some time aside to ask for some damn reviews. 12:26 It will, your business will thank you for it. It will allow you some longevity. It will allow those reviews to be pulling in clients even when you're not thinking about marketing. 12:35 All right.
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We all know Google reviews are the hugely important for social proof and local SEO. But how do you actually get clients to write them without feeling awkward AF?