Introduction
This post provides step-by-step instructions anyone can follow (yes, even you!) to create a link that your clients can use to effortlessly post a review (hopefully five stars) on your Google My Business (GMB) page. This one trick will greatly increase your review count on your business’s most important social media asset, so read on.
Why Getting Google My Business Reviews is Important
Getting a steady stream of positive reviews on GMB will not only enhance your organization’s reputation, it will also boost your position in Google and other search engines. GMB reviews also help improve click-through rates of your paid search campaigns, which, in turn, lowers your cost per click. Furthermore, because Google is the largest search engine, it prefers the signals that its own review engine sends over other review engines (such as Yelp and Facebook), so taking this step will pay off big time. See SEO Ranking Factors for more information.
Step-by-Step GMB Review Link Instructions
Accomplishing this task takes less than five minutes and offers you a huge return on investment, so what are you waiting for? Let’s get started!
- Go to the Google Places API .
- Enter your business information in the “Enter a location” field at the top of the map.
- Click your business name in the list that appears. (If you have multiple locations then you will need to create multiple links) Your Place ID will appear on the map, beneath your business name. (Your Place ID is that funky alpha numeric character combination you will see.)
Add your Place ID to the following URL to create your link: https://search.google.com/local/writereview?placeid=your_place_id_here Using the example above, the URL with the Place ID added would be: https://search.google.com/local/writereview?placeid=ChIJ5YNd9TNItokRZZ2A91BVfyo Save the link in a handy place or, better yet, create a form email in Google Apps where you can quickly call up the email to send to a client at a moment’s notice.
Important Note on Obtaining Reviews
Always follow the rules as Google expressly forbids you to provide a quid pro quo in exchange for a review. In my experience, incentives for reviews are totally unnecessary anyway. Here’s a link to Google’s review policy. If you do a little planning and ask nicely for a review at the right time using your handy new link, you will see the reviews start rolling in. Happy review hunting!
WRITTEN BY
Rick Hogan, CEO & Co-Founder – Bleevit Interactive Rick possesses over 20 years of digital marketing experience and started Bleevit Interactive with the primary mission of helping local businesses succeed online. When he is not working he can often be found hiking Great Falls, Virginia with his Labradoodle Lily, or sailing the Chesapeake Bay. If you have any comments or suggestions on how we can improve this post or otherwise want to give us a shout, send an email to hello@bleevit.com.
