Google review generation in Newcastle, NSW: make asking for reviews part of the job.

How many reviews you have, how recent they are, what they say, and whether you reply. Recency is the part most businesses miss, because a burst last year does less than a trickle this month.

Reviews feed the prominence half of how Google ranks a business locally, alongside mentions on other websites. Google names it in its guide to local ranking and it has not moved.

What is being weighed

• How many there are. Compared with the businesses you are ranking against, rather than against a target number.
• How recent they are. A steady arrival reads as a business that is trading. A cluster from two years ago reads as one that was.
• What they say. The words in a review are read. A review that names the job and the suburb says more than one that says great service.
• Whether you reply. Replying is a signal, and it is also the part a customer reading them can see.

The customer half matters as much as the Google half. Somebody choosing between two businesses on a map is reading the reviews, and the most recent ones are the ones at the top.

In a market this size, reviews are the closest thing to a word of mouth reputation written down. They are also the one ranking factor that arrives from work you have already done.

Newcastle is small enough that reputation travels anyway. Reviews are that reputation in a form a stranger can read, and in a form Google can count.

Everything else in local search is work you have to add. Reviews come out of jobs you have already finished and customers who are already happy, which makes them the cheapest thing on the list and the most commonly skipped.

The gap on most Newcastle listings is a good rating sitting on a small number of reviews, with the newest of them a year or two old.

Ask the same day the job finishes, by text, with a direct link that opens the review box. Every step between the ask and the box is where people drop out.

The businesses that collect reviews steadily are not asking harder. They are asking sooner, and they are removing the steps.

What makes the difference

• Timing. The evening the job finishes, while the customer is still pleased with it. A week later is a different customer.
• The channel. A text gets read. An email joins a queue, and a card left behind gets thrown out with the packaging.
• A direct link. Straight to the review box, not to your listing. Google gives every business a review link from inside the profile.
• It happening without anyone remembering. Sent automatically when a job is marked finished, because the owner is on the next job.

The words matter less than everything above. Thank them, say it takes a minute, and send the link. Asking for a five star review specifically is the one wording to avoid, and it is covered below.

Buying reviews, offering anything for one, and filtering out the unhappy customers are all against Google's rules. A bad review is answered in public, calmly, and it does less damage than a page of perfect ones.

Google's contributor policies cover what is allowed, and the three that catch businesses out are worth knowing before somebody sells you a shortcut.

What is against the rules

• Buying reviews. They get removed and the listing can be suspended. They also read as bought to anybody who looks at the dates.
• Offering anything in exchange. A discount, a voucher, entry into a draw. The rule covers incentives, not just cash.
• Filtering who gets asked. Sending the review request only to the happy customers is called gating and it is not allowed. Ask everybody.

A bad review is worth answering rather than fighting. Reply once, in public, briefly, without arguing the detail, and offer to sort it out off the listing. The reply is written for the next person reading, not for the reviewer.

A run of perfect reviews is its own problem. People do read a rating of exactly five with suspicion, and one honest average review usually sits there making the rest believable.

Get your review link, decide the moment in your job that triggers the ask, automate the message, reply to everything that arrives, and check nothing has been removed.

1. Get your review link

Google gives every business a direct link from inside the profile. It opens the review box straight away, which is the whole point of using it.

2. Pick the moment

The point in your work where a customer is most pleased. Job marked finished, invoice paid, keys handed back. It should be a specific event, not a mood.

3. Make the ask send itself

Triggered by that event, by text, with the link. An owner on the tools will not remember, and that is the only reason most businesses have few reviews.

4. Ask everybody

Not a filtered list. Gating is against the rules and it also removes the feedback that would have told you something.

5. Reply to all of them

Short replies. Google counts it and the next customer reads it.

6. Check what disappears

Google removes reviews sometimes, including real ones. Worth noticing, because a listing that quietly loses reviews is worth asking about.

The setup is an afternoon. Reviews then arrive at the rate you finish jobs, which is the honest answer, and the effect on the map builds as the recent ones stack up.

The order it happens in

• The link and the trigger are set up. One sitting. Nothing has been asked for yet.
• The requests start going out. With every finished job, automatically. The arrival rate follows your job rate, not a schedule.
• The recent ones stack up. This is the part that feeds the map, and it is why the routine matters more than a one off push.

A business that asks after every job and then stops is back where it started within a year, because recency fades. The routine is the product.

Ask whether every customer gets asked, whether anything is offered in exchange, whose accounts the messages send from, and what happens to the system if you leave. The first two are the ones that put a listing at risk.

We do this work in Newcastle, so we are not neutral. These are the questions we would want asked of us.

• Does every customer get asked? Ours go to everyone. Filtering to the happy ones is against Google's rules and it hides the feedback worth having.
• Is anything offered in exchange? Nothing, on ours. Incentives are against the rules whether they are cash or a voucher.
• Whose number do the messages send from? The business's own, so a reply reaches you rather than an agency.
• What happens if I leave? The link, the messages and the customer list are yours. Ours are set up in the client's own accounts from the start.
• Am I locked in? Ours runs month to month and always has. Any arrangement you cannot leave at the end of a month is worth a second look.

This is one of the easier things to run in house once it is set up, and plenty of Newcastle businesses do exactly that.