Google review post template

How to ask for a Google Review for your Business

  • By Beth Griffiths
  • December 1, 2021

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 dont 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 customers 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/clients 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 tohttps://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 dont forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more marketing tips!What are your secrets for getting more Google reviews?

  • Google, Local SEO
Share on facebook
Facebook
Share on twitter
Twitter
Share on linkedin
LinkedIn
Share on pinterest
Pinterest

Beth Griffiths

All Posts »
PrevPreviousSmall Business SEO Tips
NextIs SEO Good for Small Businesses?Next

17 Responses

  1. Stefano - Web2Web says:
    September 29, 2017 at 2:41 pm

    Hi Beth

    Thank you so much for this template, I was really looking for the right wording for my mailer.

    Short and sweet!

    regards
    Stefano

    Reply
    1. Beth Griffiths says:
      September 29, 2017 at 3:07 pm

      Hi Stefano,

      Im glad you found my template useful! I hope it brings you many more Google reviews!

      All the best,
      Beth

      Reply
  2. Amy Ernst says:
    April 9, 2018 at 4:20 am

    I am fairly new on attempting to get reviews for our business. How do I find the link to give a customer for a Google Review?

    Reply
    1. Beth Griffiths says:
      April 9, 2018 at 10:12 am

      Hi Amy,

      We have written a blog post detailing how to generate a Google review link here: https://www.bowlerhat.co.uk/google-review-link-generator

      To generate a link to give a customer for a Google Review head to https://whitespark.ca/google-review-link-generator/ and simply enter your business details.

      Hope this helps you get more reviews!

      Reply
  3. Lynn Ritchie says:
    May 23, 2018 at 12:12 pm

    Hi Beth This info is all great, however the link we have dosnt seem to open when we use it for some strange reason, you have to copy and past it into a browser you cant just click on the link, any suggestions to use this is?

    https://search.google.com/local/writereview?placeid=ChIJ_X04YaO1h0gR1Lj-kY0CtZM

    Or what I could be doing wrong?

    Thanks in advance.

    Regards
    Lynn

    Reply
    1. Beth Griffiths says:
      May 23, 2018 at 12:33 pm

      Hey Lynn, thanks for getting in touch. Try this link and see if that works: https://goo.gl/xCxeZx

      Reply
  4. Hazel Pnd says:
    August 15, 2018 at 11:55 pm

    hello

    How can I the link to post the review into our company on google

    Thanks
    Hazel

    Reply
    1. Beth Griffiths says:
      August 16, 2018 at 10:09 am

      Hey Hazel,

      You can get the review URL using this tool: https://whitespark.ca/google-review-link-generator/

      Hope this helps,
      Beth

      Reply
  5. Mike Coyle says:
    October 2, 2018 at 9:15 pm

    How can I generate a link with the pre-selected 5 Star option?

    Reply
    1. Beth Griffiths says:
      October 3, 2018 at 10:15 am

      Hey Mike,

      Unfortunately, Google has stopped the pre-selected 5-star option so reviewers now choose their own rating. Ive updated the article to reflect these recent changes, so thanks for the heads up! Remember, you can still generate a Google review link for your business here: https://whitespark.ca/google-review-link-generator/

      All the best,
      Beth

      Reply
  6. Patricia A Jannetti says:
    December 2, 2018 at 7:59 pm

    Recognize is spelled incorrectly.

    Reply
    1. Beth Griffiths says:
      December 3, 2018 at 11:01 am

      Hey Patricia,

      It is not spelt incorrectly.

      Recognise is the British/English spelling
      Recognize is the American English spelling

      Both are correct, so use whichever spelling based on your own preferences and location.

      We are based in the UK and have a predominantly British customer base and I write in British English so use recognise.
      Whereas if you are an American business with American customers and write in American English, then it makes sense to use the American recognize instead.

      Likewise, spelled is the American spelling and spelt is the UK spelling.

      All the best,
      Beth

      Reply
  7. Gen R says:
    December 7, 2018 at 5:55 pm

    Hi Beth,

    This link doesnt work correctly for me?

    https://whitespark.ca/google-review-link-generator/

    It locates the business details all ok but the link generated fails!

    Reply
    1. Beth Griffiths says:
      December 10, 2018 at 9:29 am

      Hey,

      Try this link

      https://goo.gl/FXGoKW

      Reply
  8. Erica Daunt says:
    January 4, 2019 at 8:28 pm

    this was so helpful, thank you so much!

    Reply
  9. Steve says:
    April 27, 2019 at 8:29 am

    Super useful, Thank You for sharing this.

    Reply
  10. Harshad says:
    July 18, 2019 at 2:44 pm

    Very useful thanks a lot for sharing this appreciated

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Comment

Name *

Email *

Website

Δ