How to get more Google reviews
Ask in person, at the moment the job is finished and the customer is pleased, then send the direct link by text within the hour. That is the whole method, and everything else is a variation on it. What almost nobody tells you is the number to stop at, because the target is not more, it is your category median in your county, and in the trades we measured that runs from the low teens to the mid thirties rather than the hundreds people imagine.
By Busy Season Local, updated
What your competitors actually have
Median review counts read from every business Google returns across the towns in each sweep, September 2026. The bar is lower than it looks from the outside.
reviews is the middle of the Nassau plumbing category. Half the trade sits at or below that, which means one more review than that puts a business ahead of half its competitors.
for roofers, where 64 of the trade carry fewer than twenty five. A storm-season category and most of it is thin.
for HVAC, and 52 carry fewer than fifty. The number to beat is your own category, not a national benchmark.
Read from the September 2026 sweeps, one per trade per county, every business Google returns for the town. Directional rather than a census: Google returns what it returns, and a business it does not show is a business we did not read.
What actually works, and what wastes the ask
Ask while they are still standing there
The gap between finishing a job and asking is the single biggest thing you control. A request made in person with the phone already out converts many times better than one made by email two days later, when the relief has worn off and the message is competing with everything else in an inbox.
Send the direct link, not instructions
Google gives every profile a short review link. Send that by text, not a sentence telling somebody to look you up and find the reviews tab. Every step you leave for the customer is a step where half of them stop.
A perfect score is not the goal
5.0 across six reviews and 4.7 across ninety are not the same claim. The second is evidence and the first is a business nobody has stress tested. Across the trades we measured, 19 salons and 25 roofers sit on a flawless five with fewer than ten reviews, which reads as no evidence rather than as strong.
Never buy them and never write them
Bought reviews get profiles suspended, and a suspended profile costs more than no reviews ever did. We will not write one for a client either, including the polite version where we draft it and they approve it. A review is the customer's sentence or it is nothing.
Reply to the ones you have
Replying is free, it is visible to the next reader, and it is the only part of the system that works on reviews already written. A bad review answered plainly does less damage than a good review nobody acknowledged.
The ten second version
Search your own category and town on a phone and count the reviews on the three businesses above you. That is your actual target.
Open your Business Profile and copy the review link. If you have to hunt for it, your customers certainly will.
Count how many jobs you finished last month. That is how many asks you left on the table.
See what a customer meets at your web address
Text us the address from your own phone. A person opens it on a phone, the way your customers do, and texts back what is in the way. Or check your Google listing right here, read live.
It opens a text to (917) 397-0493 on your phone. Add the address and send.
Rather talk? Call (917) 397-0493
Common questions
- How many do I need before it makes a difference?
- Ten is the first number that matters, and after that it is your category median in your county rather than a round figure. There is a separate page on that with the measured numbers by trade.
- Can I offer a discount for a review?
- No. Google's policy prohibits incentivised reviews and enforcement has got sharper, not softer. The risk is your whole profile, not the one review.
- What about the customers who say yes and never do it?
- Most of them. That is normal and it is why the ask has to be routine rather than occasional. A business finishing twenty jobs a month and asking every time will out-review one that asks when it remembers, even at a much worse conversion rate.
- Do reviews on Yelp or Facebook help my Google ranking?
- Not directly, and they matter for other reasons. A person comparing you will read whichever one they land on, so a strong Google profile beside an empty Yelp is a mixed signal to a human even when Google does not count it.
- Someone left a review that is not true. Can I get it removed?
- Sometimes, if it breaks a policy such as being about a different business, containing personal attacks, or coming from somebody who was never a customer. Flag it, and reply publicly in the meantime, because the reply is what the next reader sees while the flag is pending.
Read next
How many Google reviews do I actually need?
The measured medians by trade and county, and the calculator for your own.
Reviews that win the pick
The asking system run for you, and why we will not write a review for anyone.
What is a good Google rating for your line of work?
The middle of your own trade in your own county, measured, which sits higher than the four stars national guides call healthy.
Want to know where you stand first
The free review reads your listing against every business Google returns for your line of work in your town, and tells you the review count you are actually chasing rather than a number off a blog.
Request a site review