Like our clients, you may be wondering how to get Google reviews for your website.  While it may seem daunting, once you give your first review you’ll see that it’s quite simple.  I’m not actually going to spend time today talking about the exact steps needed to give a Google review, rather I’m going to discuss the things you should and should not do when asking for reviews.

First, think about what looks natural.  If your company has never had any reviews, wouldn’t it look unnatural if suddenly, you got 10 reviews in one day?  So, don’t email all of your friends and ask them to give you a review today.  The rate at which you accumulate reviews plays a role in the validity of those reviews.  In fact, I’ve seen Google completely remove reviews that they thought were fake.

Also, think about how fake it would look if all of your reviews said something very similar.  Don’t coach people about what to write.  Sure, it can be a good thing for your reviews to contain keyword phrases, but if all of your reviews said “best restaurant in Fort Collins” that may look a little fake.

Lastly, never ask for reviews when you have a captive audience.  If you have 100 people sitting in an audience and you ask for a review, not only will you get a large number of reviews coming in at the same time, you may also have a large number of them coming in from laptops or tablets that are all connected to the same WI-FI network.  Google can see that and that would look terribly fake too.

Think variety and velocity, as our SEO guy puts it.  Don’t overdo it by getting them too quickly and don’t make them look manufactured.  Never, ever, ever pay one of those Indian companies to give you 10000 reviews for a fixed price.  For a small fee, you just might get your site banned from Google forever.

Hope that helps.