A physiotherapy clinic in Bath opens, the owner asks friends and early patients for reviews, and the profile fills up in a fortnight. Then the asking stops, and a year later the newest review is a year old. A searcher comparing clinics sees that date before anything else, and so does Google. Reviews are not a campaign you run once. They are a routine you keep, and the routine has to stay inside Google's review policies to be worth anything.
Why a steady flow beats a burst
Google's Business Profile help says review count and review score factor into local ranking, and that more reviews and positive ratings can improve your position. That is the ranking half. The conversion half is that a searcher choosing between two entries in the map pack reads the stars, the count and the most recent comments, in roughly that order, before deciding who to call.
Steadiness matters to both audiences. To Google, a business that collects a few reviews every month looks like one that is trading and serving people now. To a searcher, a review from last week is evidence; one from two years ago is history. A burst followed by silence gives you a count that stops growing and a "newest" date that ages in public.
Bursts carry a second cost. Google says it removes reviews that break its policies, using automated systems as well as people, and it doesn't publish how those systems decide. A sudden cluster of reviews from accounts that have never reviewed anything else is the kind of pattern experienced local SEOs see filtered, so anything unusual about timing is a risk you don't need to take.
The rules you're working inside
Google's policies for reviews are short, and two of them catch well-meaning businesses. Google's Get reviews on Google page states them plainly.
You can't offer anything in exchange for a review. No discount, no prize draw, no free dessert, no "leave us a review and we'll enter you into". Google's content policy treats a review incentivised by the business as fake engagement, and that applies whether the review turns out positive or not.
You can't gate. Review gating is the practice of asking customers how they felt first, then sending the happy ones to Google and the unhappy ones to a private form. It feels sensible and it is prohibited: Google's guidance says not to discourage or prohibit negative reviews, or selectively solicit positive ones. Every customer gets the same ask.
Two more come from the same content policy under conflict of interest: you can't review your own business, neither can your staff, and you can't post reviews of competitors. Asking, on the other hand, is not a violation. Google's own tips tell you to remind customers to leave reviews and to share your review link, so the routine below is what Google recommends, done on a schedule.
Build the routine
The routine has five parts. Decide each one once and write it down.
- Get your review link. In your Business Profile, Google provides a short link that opens the review form directly. That link goes in every ask, so a customer never has to search for you.
- Pick the moment. Ask when the value is freshest: the boiler is working, the patient can walk without pain, the invoice is settled and the customer is pleased. For a trade, that is the end of the job. For a clinic, the end of the course of treatment. For a restaurant, the next morning.
- Write one message. Two or three sentences: thank them, ask for a review, give the link. Invite them to mention what you did and which area you covered, because specific reviews help the next customer, but never script the words or suggest a star rating.
- Decide who sends it and how. One channel (a text message usually wins because the link is one tap away), sent by the person who did the work, the same day. A message from the plumber who was in the house lands differently from one sent by an office.
- Send one reminder, then stop. A single follow-up a week later is fine. A second is pestering, and nobody leaves a good review because they were nagged.
Keep it alive
Routines die when they belong to nobody. Name the person who sends the asks and the day each week they check what came in. A two-column list of asks sent and reviews received is enough to see whether the routine is working. Expect plenty of customers not to bother; a quiet majority is normal, and the goal is a few reviews every month for years, not a number to hit by Friday.
When someone says they'd rather tell you about a problem than review you, listen, fix it, and still send the same ask you send everyone, because that is the rule. When a review doesn't appear for days after a customer says they left it, that is usually Google's checks taking their time rather than something you did. And when the reviews do come in, reply to each one the same week, which is the subject of the next lesson.
What to take away
- Google says review count and rating factor into local ranking, and searchers read recent reviews before they call, so a steady flow serves both.
- Google's review policies forbid incentives and review gating; the safe routine asks every customer the same way.
- A routine has a link, a moment, a message, a sender and one reminder, each decided once and written down.
- Name who owns the routine and check it weekly; a few reviews a month for years beats a burst and a drought.
Next
Every review you earn is also a public conversation, and Responding to reviews shows how to answer each one so it wins the next customer reading it.