--- title: "How to Get More Google Reviews (and Handle Bad Ones) | Frively | Websites for Local Businesses" description: "A simple system for asking customers for Google reviews, why they affect local ranking, and how to respond to a negative review without making it worse." canonical: "https://www.frively.com/blog/how-to-get-more-google-reviews" last_updated: "2026-10-16T11:05:00.108Z" --- # How to get more Google reviews, and what to do about the bad ones ![kate-shove-director-frively-ltd](/_next/image?url=%2Fapi%2Fmedia%2Ffile%2Fsmiling-black-pink-hair-piercings-128x128.png%3Fv%3D1765800145755&w=128&q=75&dpl=dpl_4qYn8ArWYa8zQWKbmS4Zzsn8vzjG) Kate ShoveCo Founder PublishedFriday, 16 October 2026 ![Illustration of a five star customer review card with a cursor selecting it](/_next/image?url=%2Fapi%2Fmedia%2Ffile%2Ffive-star-review-illustration.jpg%3Fprefix%3Dtenants%252F691b30e96e6ad8298234a312%26v%3D1790765894414&w=3840&q=75&dpl=dpl_4qYn8ArWYa8zQWKbmS4Zzsn8vzjG) # How to get more Google reviews, and what to do about the bad ones Two businesses appear side by side in the map results. One has eleven reviews and one has ninety-four. The person searching has no other way to tell them apart, so they tap the second one. Nothing about the quality of the work came into it. Reviews are the part of local visibility owners tend to leave to chance, and they are the part customers weigh most heavily. They also feed into which businesses appear in the map results in the first place, so the effect compounds. ## Why asking feels awkward, and why it stops mattering People rarely leave reviews unprompted unless something went wrong. A customer who is quietly satisfied simply gets on with their day. So the businesses with ninety-four reviews are almost never the ones with better work. They are the ones who ask. The awkwardness usually comes from asking vaguely, at the wrong moment, by a route that takes effort. Fix those three and it becomes routine. ## A system that works **Ask at the high point.** The moment the boiler fires up, the hair is finished, the accounts are filed. Not a week later by email, when the feeling has faded. **Ask in person, then make it easy.** "Would you mind leaving us a review? I will text you the link now." Said out loud and followed immediately by the link, this converts many times better than a message on its own. **Send the direct link.** Not your homepage, not a search. The link that opens the review box on a phone with the stars ready. Anything that adds a step loses people. **Ask everyone, consistently.** A steady trickle looks natural and keeps your profile current. Twenty reviews arriving in one week does not, and the freshness matters as well as the count. **Ask for detail.** A review that names the job and the town is worth more than five stars and no words, because it tells the next reader that this business does exactly the thing they need. Never offer anything in exchange, and never write them yourself. Both breach the rules that platforms enforce, and the UK rules on fake reviews now put responsibility on businesses. We covered that in [fake reviews and what the law says](https://www.frively.com/blog/fake-reviews-electrician-website-uk-law). ## The bad one It will happen, and the instinct to defend yourself in public is the one to resist. The review is not really addressed to you. It is addressed to the next person reading, and they are judging your reply far more than the complaint. Reply within a day or two. Thank them for raising it. Acknowledge the specific thing without arguing the facts. Say what you have done about it. Offer to continue offline with a name and a number. Keep it to three or four sentences. A calm, specific reply under a one-star review reassures readers in a way a wall of five stars cannot. Perfection reads as suspicious. A business handling a problem well reads as real. If a review is genuinely fake, from someone who was never a customer, or contains abuse, it can be reported. That process is slow and inconsistent, so treat it as a background task rather than the plan. ## Do reviews affect ranking? They contribute. Review count, review frequency and how you engage all feed into which businesses appear in the map results for a local search, alongside distance and relevance. Reviews mentioning a specific service or place add relevance for that search. But they sit inside a bigger picture that includes your profile and your website, which is covered in [why your Google Business Profile is key to ranking locally](https://www.frively.com/blog/google-business-profile-local-ranking). ## Frequently asked questions ### How many reviews do I need? Enough to be comparable with the businesses ranking above you locally. Look at the three in the map results for your main search. That is your target, and the gap is usually smaller than owners expect. ### Can I ask only happy customers? You can choose when to ask, and asking after a job that went well is normal. Filtering people out based on how they are likely to rate you, using a survey that only routes happy customers onward, is against platform rules. ### What if a review is from a competitor? Report it and reply publicly in a measured way, noting that you have no record of the work. Readers are reasonable, and an even-handed reply lands well. ### Should I reply to positive reviews too? Yes, briefly. It shows the profile is actively managed, and it costs a minute. ## Get a clear view of where you stand locally Our [free website assessment](https://www.frively.com/website-review) is reviewed by a person and covers your profile, your reviews and your site together, so you can see what is actually holding the phone back. [Book a strategy call](https://www.frively.com/contact) to talk it through. 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