Gathering a pile of amazing online reviews is one of the most effective ways to market your business online.
It also happens to be one of the most difficult. (I know, go figure)
Stop me if you’ve heard this before:
“I have a customer base of dozens, hundreds, even thousands of customers. They all tell me how much they love my product/service and would happily recommend my business to their friends. So, I ask them to leave a super short review and rate my business on Google. They say ‘absolutely!’ And yet, here I am, sitting on Google Places with a measly two 5-star reviews to show for my efforts.”
Yah, that’s frustrating.
Why would a happy customer not be willing to write you a quick Google review?
Google has made receiving customer reviews surprisingly difficult
I build websites for a living. There are many others that do the same, so competition is fierce. I rely heavily on receiving great and public feedback from my customers.
Of course it’s always great to delight my customers, and that is always my #1 goal as a small business owner. But, as egotistical as it sounds, I need them to say how much they love me online.
That will help others to see that I am a credible, professional and wonderful person to work with, and hopefully bring in more business. (ok maybe I exaggerated the wonderful part)
The thing is, when I asked my customers to share their honest review on Google, they almost never did. Why not?
People are crazy-busy. Sometimes, more than they need to be.
They want to leave you a glowing review. They want to help you out. But they need it to be easy. I don’t blame them. I need that too.
If you want to get people to do anything these days, it has to be dead-simple. It needs to be 100% clear where they need to go, and you have to walk them through every step of the way.
Google has made it surprisingly difficult to do this.
It’s likely Google has made it challenging because they don’t want businesses soliciting reviews from customers, thereby muddying the waters and leaving the integrity of all these online reviews in question.
No matter how hard I tried, I could not find a simple method for receiving Google reviews from my customers. The ideal method would be something so simple that my customers would just have to click one thing, rate me on a scale of 1 to 5, and be done with it.
Until now. I’ve finally found a solution! Allow me to share how:
A stupid-simple way to get more Google ratings for your business
Step 1:
Go to Google Places and search for your business
Step 2:
Enter your business name at the top of the map (where it says “enter a location”)
Step 3:
Copy the Place ID located directly under your name on the map
Step 4:
Paste your Place ID at the end of the following link: https://search.google.com/local/writereview?placeid=[PLACE ID GOES HERE]
Done
You now have a direct, custom review link to share with everyone and anyone
When people click on this link it will take them directly to the review box on your business’ Google page.
One click. One rating. A couple of sentences if they choose. And done.
Simple, effective, and fast.
How to ask customers for a Google review
When I discovered this method, I immediately emailed the link to my current customer base. Here’s a general look at the type of language I used:
Be honest, keep it short and get right to the point.
Don’t be afraid to make it clear that you could really use their help. People genuinely like helping others and, if they had a great experience with your business, they will be even more inclined to do so.
You could even offer a little freebie to thank them for their time. Just be sure to follow Google’s review guidelines.
A wealth of positive online reviews on Google will go a long way to adding credibility to your business and attracting more customers to it.
Use this simple method to ask your customers to give them to you!
