How do I get more Google reviews for my trade business?

Ask every customer, straight after the job, with a direct link to your review form sent by text. Make it one tap, keep the message short and personal, and send one friendly reminder if they forget. Doing that on every job, not just the ones that went perfectly, is what makes reviews add up.

Can I offer a discount for a Google review?

No. Google's rules don't allow incentives for reviews, including discounts, freebies or entry into a prize draw. Reviews collected that way can be removed, and repeated breaches can put your Business Profile at risk.

Can I only ask happy customers for reviews?

No. Google calls this review gating and doesn't allow it: you can't filter out unhappy customers before asking. Send the same request to everyone. If something went wrong on a job, invite them to reply to you directly as well, so you get the chance to fix it.

Do Google reviews help a tradie rank higher?

Google says the number of reviews and your rating are part of how prominent a business is in local results, alongside relevance and distance. Just as important, reviews are what a stranger reads before deciding which tradie to call.

Should I reply to Google reviews?

Yes, to the good and the bad. A short thank-you on positive reviews shows you're active. A calm, specific reply to a negative one is read by every future customer who sees it, and often does more for you than the review did against you.

How to get more Google reviews as a tradie

Most happy customers will leave a review if you ask at the right moment, in the right way. A practical guide for Australian tradies, done the way Google allows.

Most customers will leave a review. They just never get asked.

If you’ve been in the trade a while, you’ve probably had dozens of customers say “great job, mate” at the door. Very few of them went home and left a Google review on their own. That’s not because they weren’t happy. It’s because nobody asked, and by dinner time they’d forgotten.

Reviews matter for a tradie in two places. They’re part of how Google decides who shows up in the map results when someone searches “electrician near me” or “plumber [suburb]”. And once you’re there, they’re what a stranger reads before deciding which of the three businesses on screen to ring. A competitor with more recent reviews often gets the call, even if your work is better.

The good news is that getting more reviews isn’t about clever marketing. It’s about asking every customer, at the right moment, in a way that takes them ten seconds.

Ask while you’re still on site, or straight after

The best time to ask is when the job’s just been finished and the customer is relieved: the hot water’s running, the lights are on, the fence is up. That feeling fades fast. A request that arrives two weeks later with the invoice competes with everything else in their inbox.

Ask in person first, it doesn’t need to be a speech: “If you’re happy with how it went, a Google review really helps a small business like mine. I’ll text you the link.” Then send it before you’ve packed up the ute.

Send a direct link, by text

Every step between your customer and the review box loses some of them. “Search for us on Google and leave a review” is several steps. A link that opens your review form directly is one.

You can get that link from your Google Business Profile: look for the option to ask for reviews or share a review form, and copy the short link it gives you. Save it on your phone.

Send it by text rather than email. People read texts, usually within minutes, and a text from the tradie who was just at their house doesn’t get lost the way an email does. Keep it short and use their name:

Hi Sarah, thanks for having us out today. If you’re happy with the job, would you mind leaving us a quick Google review? It really helps. [link] Cheers, Dave

One friendly reminder is fine. Five isn’t.

Plenty of people mean to leave a review and forget. A single follow-up a few days later, just as polite as the first, picks up a good share of them. Stop as soon as they’ve left one, and don’t keep chasing someone who hasn’t replied after a couple of reminders.

Ask your past customers too

If you’ve been working for years, you have a backlog of happy customers who were never asked. A short text to recent customers from the last few months, with your review link, is one of the fastest ways to lift a thin profile. Keep it honest: thank them for the work, say reviews help, and leave it at that.

What Google doesn’t allow

There are a few things that seem harmless but break Google’s rules, and can get reviews removed or put your Business Profile at risk:

Paying for reviews or offering a reward. No discounts, free callouts, gift cards or prize draws in exchange for a review.
Only asking happy customers. Filtering out the ones you think are unhappy before asking is called review gating, and it isn’t allowed. Ask everyone the same way.
Writing reviews yourself, or getting mates and family to. Fake reviews also mislead consumers, which the ACCC takes seriously under Australian Consumer Law.
Asking staff to review the business. Reviews have to come from genuine customers.

Asking every customer in the same honest way is both the rule and the thing that works best.

Reply to every review

Replying shows people there’s a real business behind the profile. Keep it short. Thank people by name on good reviews and mention the job if you can (“Glad the switchboard upgrade went smoothly, Tom”).

For a bad review, don’t argue in public. Acknowledge it, keep it factual, and offer to sort it out offline. Future customers read your reply more closely than the complaint, and a calm, reasonable response often reassures them more than another five-star review would.

Make it automatic, so it happens on every job

The hard part isn’t knowing any of this. It’s doing it after every job when you’re tired, running late and already thinking about tomorrow. That’s why reviews pile up for some tradies and not others: the ones with lots of reviews ask every single time.

You can make that the default. On our Organic Growth System, you tap once in an app when a job’s done and the customer gets a text with your review link, with friendly reminders that stop as soon as they leave one. Every customer gets the same request, so it stays inside Google’s rules. Google review requests explains exactly how it works, and it runs alongside missed-call text back so the calls you can’t answer from a roof still get a reply.

If you’d rather do it by hand, that’s fine too. Save your review link, write your text message once, and send it on every job for the next month. You’ll see the difference on your profile.

Reviews are one part of the picture. For the rest, see how to get more jobs as a tradie.

How to get more Google reviews as a tradie (without the awkward ask)