Set Up Your Google Business Profile So Customers Can Actually Leave a Review

Plenty of businesses lose reviews before they've asked for a single one. The Google profile was never claimed, half the details are missing, or a happy customer goes looking for where to leave a review and gives up.

This is the foundations post. Set your Google Business Profile up properly once, and every review request after that has somewhere good to land. It's an afternoon's work, not a project. If you're still deciding whether reviews are worth the effort at all, start with why reviews matter.

Google renames its menus often, so this guide describes what to look for rather than every click. Where the steps matter, we've linked Google's own help page.

Step 1: Claim and verify your profile

Your Business Profile is the panel that shows up on Google Search and Maps when someone looks you up: your name, stars, reviews, phone number and hours. Many businesses already have one they've never claimed, because Google or a customer created it.

Start at Google's page for adding or claiming a profile and search for your business. If a profile exists and no one manages it, you can claim it. If someone else already manages it, like a former staff member or an old web agency, you can ask them for access through Google.

Then verify. Google decides which methods you're offered. It might be a phone call or text, an email, a video, or a postcard, and you can't pick. Google says its checks can take up to 5 business days, sometimes longer. If you're waiting on a postcard code, don't change your name, address or category in the meantime, or the code can stop working. Google's verification page has the details.

Verification matters for reviews in one very practical way: you can't reply to reviews until your profile is verified.

Step 2: Get the details right

These are the details customers check before they call, book or walk in.

• Name. Use your real business name, the one on your signage, invoices and uniforms. Google's guidelines don't allow extra information in the name, such as services, locations or taglines. "Smith Plumbing" is fine. "Smith Plumbing Emergency Plumber Brisbane 24/7" isn't. Same goes for "Harbour Café" versus "Harbour Café Best Coffee Mooloolaba".
• Category. Pick the category that most specifically describes your main business. Google asks you to use as few as possible.
• Address or service area. If customers come to you, show your address. If you go to them and don't see customers at your address, remove the address and set a service area instead. That's most tradies, plus mobile services and consultants who go to their clients. You can add up to 20 areas, and Google suggests keeping the whole area within about two hours' drive of your base.
• Hours. Your regular customer-facing hours, kept up to date over holidays.
• Phone. A local number you control, not a call centre.
• Website. Your own site, if you have one.
• Photos. A few real photos of your work, your team, your rooms, your dining area or your vehicle. Real beats stock.

Does a complete profile change where you show up? That's a separate question, covered in how reviews affect your local ranking. This post is about making sure the customer who finds you can act.

Step 3: Find your review link and QR code

Google gives you a short link that opens the review box for your business, and a QR code that does the same thing.

To find them, open your Business Profile, go to Read reviews, then choose Get more reviews. From there you can copy the link or save the QR code as an image. Google only makes the QR code on a computer, not a phone, so do this bit at a desk. Google's page on review links and QR codes shows the current steps.

Test the link on your own phone before you send it to anyone. Customers need to be signed in to a Google account to leave a review, so it's worth knowing what they'll see.

Step 4: Put the link where your customers already are

A link sitting in a settings page does nothing. Put it in front of people at the moments they're already thinking about you:

• A text after the job, visit or booking, while it's fresh. When and how you ask makes as much difference as where.
• Your email signature.
• Invoices and receipts.
• Your website, as a "Leave us a review" link on the contact page or in the footer.

And the QR code goes where people are standing:

• The counter, front desk or reception.
• The van or ute, for the customer at the end of the job.
• Printed receipts, appointment cards, take-home cards or table cards.

Step 5: Reply to what's already there

Before you ask for more reviews, reply to the ones you have, the glowing ones and the hard ones. People read your replies as closely as the reviews. A page of unanswered reviews looks like nobody's home. If there's a tough one sitting there, here's how to respond to a negative review without making it worse.

Your replies are public, and Google checks them against its content policies before they appear.

Common traps

1. Duplicate profiles. Google wants one profile per business. If you find two, don't make a third. Use Google's help for duplicate profiles, so your reviews end up in one place.
2. Your home address on show. If you run the business from home and visit customers, hide the address and use a service area.
3. Stuffing the name. Adding your suburb or services to the business name breaks Google's guidelines.
4. Offering something for a review. Google prohibits discounts, freebies or other incentives in exchange for reviews.
5. Asking customers what to write. Don't ask for a particular rating or for customers to mention a staff member. Ask everyone the same way and let them say what they like.

Where Gold Reviews fits

Once your profile is set up, the hard part is asking every time. That's the part Gold Reviews does. After each job, visit or booking, your customer gets a short text, and every customer gets the same choice: leave a Google review, or send feedback to you privately. Choose Google, and they land on your review page, no searching. See how it works.

Ten founding spots are open at $29 a month, locked in while you stay subscribed, with everything in the Growth plan.

Google changes its Business Profile menus and rules from time to time. If a step looks different, check Google's own help pages linked above.