How to get more reviews for your Local Services Ads
Of everything that decides the order of Local Services Ads, your reviews are the part you can change fastest. Proximity is geography, verification is paperwork, budget is money — but review volume and rating are habit, and habit is free.
The habit, in one line
- Ask at the end of every job, on the doorstep, while they’re pleased with you.
- Make it one tap — a short review link, sent by text before you drive off.
- Reply to all of them, especially the bad one. Future customers read the reply.
Why a steady trickle beats a burst
Twenty reviews in a week followed by nothing for a year looks exactly like what it is. A handful every week, month after month, tells Google and the customer the same story: this business is busy and people keep being pleased. Recency carries weight, so the reviews you collected in 2023 are quietly doing less for you than the one you get on Friday.
The ask that actually works
“Could you leave us a review?” gets nods and nothing. What works is specific and immediate: say what it helps with, say how long it takes, and hand them the route. “Would you mind leaving a quick Google review? It’s the only way small firms like us get found — I’ll text you the link now, takes about thirty seconds.” Then send it before you leave the drive.
If you run a team, the ask has to be part of the job, not an extra. Put it on the job sheet with the sign-off. In my own cleaning company that single change is most of the reason one brand has more than 550 five-star reviews.
Handling the bad one
A perfect 5.0 across two hundred reviews reads as suspicious; a 4.8 with a considered reply to the one complaint reads as real. Reply the same day, no defensiveness, one sentence of ownership, then what you did about it. You are not writing to the reviewer — you are writing to the next thirty people who read it.
What not to do
Don’t buy reviews, don’t incentivise them, don’t ask only the customers you think will be kind, and don’t let a third-party tool post on your behalf. Review manipulation is one of the few things that can cost you the whole profile, and rebuilding from a suspension is far more expensive than earning the reviews honestly.
Reviews are also your conversion rate
Ranking third with a 4.9 and 200 reviews often beats ranking first with a 4.3 and eleven, because the customer is choosing, not Google. That’s the part most people miss: the same work that lifts your position also lifts the percentage of people who pick you once they see it.
If your ad is showing but the phone isn’t ringing, reviews are the first place I look — see why your Local Services Ads aren’t getting calls.
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