How to Get 5-Star Reviews for Your Business

Here is the entire secret to getting more 5-star reviews: ask for them.

That is it. Most small business owners do excellent work and then never ask the happy customer to say so in public. The review never shows up, and the next person searching for your service finds a competitor instead.

The Ask I Use

I keep it short and I say the same thing every time.

My business thrives on 5-star reviews. If you have loved our service, would you leave a review so others can find me?

Then I send the review link right behind it. No long explanation, no apology for asking. Happy customers are usually glad to help; they just needed someone to hand them the link.

Make Asking Automatic

I confess that I am not consistent at this. Sometimes I am great at remembering to ask and I get a burst of reviews. Then I go months without asking anyone.

The fix is to stop relying on memory. I put the whole request into my phone's text replacement settings, so when I type the letters "larev" (for Leave A REview) my phone fills in the full message and the link. Asking now costs me five keystrokes.

• Find your review link and save it somewhere you can reach in seconds
• Write your ask in one or two sentences, in your own voice
• Add it to your phone's text replacement settings with a shortcut you will remember
• Pick the moment you will use it, usually right after a customer thanks you
• Put a recurring reminder on your calendar so a busy month does not wipe out the habit

Anatomy of an Awesome Review

It helps to understand what a review is actually doing for you. When you search for something, Google has one job: understand what you want and show you the best possible result. If Google sends you somewhere irrelevant, you blame Google. To protect their own reputation, search engines need to hand you great results.

So how does a search engine decide which business to recommend? Reviews. If someone searches for "business lawyer" and a client left me a 5-star review that says "go to Surge Law for an excellent business lawyer," Google now has a reason to believe I am a safe recommendation.

The best reviews mention the specific service the customer received. I have tried coaching people on what to write, and honestly it does not work. People write what they want to write. We can dream, right? Ask anyway, because a short review that says nothing specific still beats no review at all.

Reviews are one piece of getting found. If you want the rest of the marketing and operations basics in plain English, our guides and articles cover what we see working for small businesses.

Return the Favor

Reviews are enormously important for small businesses, and they cost the person writing them about ninety seconds. Since you are a small business owner or a fan of small businesses, remember to support your fellow founders by leaving them reviews too. The bakery, the mechanic, the bookkeeper you love. Go say so in public.

The Next Step

Set up the text shortcut today, then use it on the next customer who tells you they are happy. That one habit will do more for how customers find you than almost anything else you could work on this month.

If you want ongoing help with the business side of running your company, not just the legal side, that is what the Momentum Membership is built for. Or book a free consultation and tell us what you are working on.