I’m going to be blunt here because I care about your business doing well.
One of the most common things I hear from clients and from people who aren’t my clients is “I’m not getting enough work” or “my competitors are showing up on Google Maps and I’m not.”
So I ask them: are you collecting Google Map reviews?
The answer is almost always no. And then they come back a month later with the same complaint. Nothing’s changed because nothing’s been done.
Here’s the thing. Google Reviews are one of the key signals that help push your Google Business Profile up the rankings and into that coveted three-pack those top three map results that appear when someone searches for your service locally. If you’re not there, you’re invisible to a huge chunk of potential customers.
You Don’t Need Hundreds
Let me stop you before you say “but my competitor has 200 reviews, I’ll never catch up.”
You don’t need hundreds. You need a tempo. A steady, consistent flow. A couple a month is infinitely better than zero. Google wants to see that your business is active and that real people are engaging with it. That consistent signal matters far more than a one-off burst.
It Doesn’t Even Need to Be a Customer
Shock horror your reviewer doesn’t have to be a paying customer. A friend, a colleague, someone you’ve helped with advice, a former workmate who knows the quality of what you do. They can leave you a genuine review. That’s completely fine. Just get the rhythm going and give Google that signal.
However — and I cannot stress this enough — please do NOT get your wife or your son who shares your surname to leave a review. Yes, a client actually did this. It looks exactly as ridiculous as you think it does, and it does more harm than good. Google isn’t stupid, and neither are your potential customers.
Make the Review Count
When someone does leave a review, ask them to make it more than a one-liner. A review that says “Great job, highly recommend” is fine, but a review that mentions the actual service is better. Something like “Had a full bathroom refit done, really pleased with the tiling and finish” carries more weight. Having the service term in the review gives a small but real boost to your relevance for that search term.
A few sentences is all it takes. Not an essay. Just enough to sound like a real human talking about a real job.
Make It Easy for Yourself
Here’s your action plan. It takes five minutes:
Get your Google Review link. Save it in a note on your phone. That’s it. When you finish a job and the customer’s happy, text it to them or drop it in an email. If you’ve got a QR code version, even better show it to them on site while the goodwill is fresh.
The link is sitting right there. The QR code is sitting right there. Use it.
The Bigger Picture
SEO and marketing isn’t one big magic trick. It’s a collection of small things done regularly. Your website, your content, your citations, your social presence — and yes, your reviews. They all add up.
I can control a lot of your SEO. I can optimise your site, build your citations, write your content. But this one? This one’s on you. I can hand you the link and the QR code, but I can’t make the ask for you.
So please — next time you’re tempted to ring me and say it’s not working, ask yourself: when was the last time I asked someone for a review?
Start today. One review. Then another next week. Build the habit. Watch what happens.