Google reviews are so important because they accomplish two things: They get you more awareness and help you convert leads. When we're doing marketing activities, we're either working to create more awareness or converting that awareness. Google reviews do both. With more reviews, you get more awareness by ranking higher on Google, and when people are scrolling Google for service, and you have 50 or 100 more reviews than the next competitor, consumers will pick you. 

Get a list of clients, grab the link from your Google Business profile, then copy and paste this into a text to your customers that says, "Hey, we're trying to get more reviews on Google. If you enjoyed working with us, would you mind leaving a review?". Send this to 40 or 50 customers, and you'll receive your first five reviews today. I guarantee it. If they don't leave a review the first day, follow up two days later.

The first one is 'Ask'. I recommend asking via text, email, phone call, or even face-to-face. Text and email are the easiest to automate, but face-to-face is excellent, too. If you are in person with the customer, don't ask them to leave the review right then; get what I call a 'micro-commitment' to leave the review at some point. I tell the customer, "Hey, you'll get a text and email from us after we leave here. Would you mind leaving a review for us? It really helps us out." This way, when they say yes, you get a micro-commitment, and the text or email is just a reminder later on.

The second is "Remind". If the customer hasn't left a review or clicked the link you sent them in two days, I send them another text, wait one day, then send them an email. If they still haven't taken action, I will send them one more email. That's our general cadence for follow-ups. You can also have employees occasionally go through your customer list and call and ask for a review.

The third pillar is "Incentivize". Millions of businesses do it, but you don't want to pay people for reviews as it's against Google's terms of service. How we do it at Review Harvest is by donating a meal to Feeding America for every single review that our clients get. Our clients don't have to do anything; we donate the meal on their behalf. It's an incentive for the common good, not a personal incentive to the person, so it's compliant. The person leaving the review feels great for helping someone in need.

The last one is “Make It Easy. Give the customer a direct link to your Google Business profile or share a QR code so they can get right to it. Don't make them type in your business and find where to write a review. You're not going to get very many reviews that way.

You don't want to ask too much of the customer as this can hurt the total amount of reviews being left, and I always optimize for getting my clients the maximum amount of reviews. I've found it best to simply ask the customer to share their experience with the business, and you can explain what makes a good review. The best reviews are long, like five, six, seven plus sentences, and have your keywords in them. You can ask for photos too. A recent, long review packed with your keywords and photos is the ideal review.

We always want to respond to reviews since potential customers will be reading these responses. The simplest approach is to personalize the response using the customer's name and the context of the review. If they love your service, tell them how happy you are and that you look forward to working with them again. If it's a one or two-star review, use it as an opportunity to show potential customers how you handle adversity. Even if you have a few negative reviews, potential customers can see your response, such as: "Hey, let's talk so I can make this right." This will prove to potential customers that all of your good reviews are legitimate and that even if you make a mistake, you will make it right.

Just because you have a hundred reviews on Google doesn't mean people know that. Only people that came through Google know that. Turn your reviews into graphics, post them to social media, and add them to your website. There are widgets for your website, like ElfSight that make it easy. Step back, look at your customer journey, and then find ways to inject reviews into these touchpoints. One of my high-ticket clients brings a fifty-page folder with all their reviews to assessments. The more social proof, the better. You want to be the safe bet, and there is strength in numbers.

Clay Lawerence (@claywlawerence)

The Google Map Pack is absolutely huge because it's the most viewed free real estate on Google for home service companies. If you type in “plumbers near me,” you’re going to get a few advertisements followed by three organic rankings. Typically, consumers will pick from one of these three organic results.

You need to make sure that your category on Google Business is accurate. If you're a plumber, make sure it's "plumbing." One of my clients does dry vent cleaning but had their category as duct cleaning. We had to fix that. Type your business category in Google and see who is raking in your area to see what works best. There is SEO tracking software like Local Brand Manager to get data on this, too. You can also try to stuff keywords into the name of your business. If you're an H.V.A.C. customer, you should have "heating" and "cooling" in your company name. Some clients will register a D.B.A. to do this so that Google can't bug them about it.

Google likes to see recent reviews. If you have 200 reviews but haven’t gotten a review in six months, and your competitor has gotten 50 reviews in the last month, Google may rank them above you. That's why you always want to make sure you keep requesting reviews.

The biggest thing for getting people hundreds of reviews is making it automated so it can happen in the background. If you have to click a button each time to ask for a review, it won't happen. We send an image of the business owner with the customer's name in it. We set it up so that a personalized message with this image goes out to their customer two hours after our client leaves a job. This customized image helps cut through the noise, with people seeing thousands of daily ads. People know it's automated, but it gets their attention when they see the photo. 

Junk Punks is in Tampa, a super competitive junk removal market with over 200 businesses. They came to me when they hadn't been in business very long and were getting overshadowed by all the other competitors with way more reviews. We took them from 127 to 357 reviews in two months, and now they're in the top three of four most reviewed junk removal businesses in Tampa.