How to Create Your Own Google Review Link

For local businesses, Google Business (aka Google Maps listings) reviews are key. They are one of the first things that show up when someone Google’s your business name or, in some cases, the products/services you offer in your area. Prospective customers will use these reviews to determine whether or not they will buy from you. So the question becomes, how do I create my own Google review link for my company? I’m going to walk you through a step-by-step of this in this post.

Getting customers to write a Google review can be a challenge. One of the reasons behind this is because Google doesn’t really make it easy to write a review. If you were to craft an email requesting for your customers to write a review on Google, you would have several steps of instructions on how to do so. The email would be a mile long (which everyone hates) and the customer would likely delete it.

To avoid this, the steps below show you how to create a direct link to your Google reviews page; making the process much easier for your customers. The easier the process the more likely the customer will write the review.

IMPORTANT! Before proceeding, your business must have a business listing on Google. If you do not have a listing on Google, fear not. It is very simple to get started. Click here to create your business listing on Google now.

How can I link to Google reviews?

Thanks to Google’s Place ID Lookup Tool you can easily link to your Google reviews page! Here’s how it’s done in 5 steps:

  1. Go to Google’s Place ID Lookup Tool.
  2. Enter your business name.
  3. Copy your place ID.
  4. Enter your place ID into this specific URL (Listed below)
  5. Send your review link to your customers.

Here is a quick video explaining how to link to your Google reviews:

Before I get into explaining the details of how this is done, I wanted to re-enforce the importance of Google reviews. More than ever, people are looking for reviews before deciding to purchase, or visit a place. Having more 5-star reviews than the competition can make or break a business. Everyone who wants to grow their business needs to focus on gaining more Google reviews.

5 STEPS TO CREATE A LINK FOR CUSTOMERS TO WRITE GOOGLE REVIEWS:

STEP 1: GO TO GOOGLE’S PLACE ID LOOKUP TOOL

Google’s PlaceID Lookup Tool lets you find the unique identification code for your business. This is what Google uses in their maps to differentiate you from other businesses in the area. For us, it will help route customers to our reviews.

STEP 2: ENTER YOUR BUSINESS NAME

Enter your business name into the designated field. Make sure you enter your business name exactly how it is shown on your Google business listing, as it that is what the PlaceID Lookup Tool will pull. See the screenshot below for example:

GOOGLE’S PLACE ID LOOKUP TOOL ENTER YOUR BUSINESS NAME

GOOGLE’S PLACE ID LOOKUP TOOL ENTER YOUR BUSINESS NAME

STEP 3: COPY YOUR PLACE ID

Once your business is displayed, your place ID will be listed under your business name. It will appear as a string of letters and numbers, about 25 characters long. Copy this code and paste it somewhere safe, like a word or pages document.

GOOGLE’S PLACE ID LOOKUP TOOL COPY YOUR BUSINESS ID

GOOGLE’S PLACE ID LOOKUP TOOL COPY YOUR BUSINESS ID

STEP 4: ENTER YOUR ID INTO THE FOLLOWING URL

Next you will want to take your Place ID and enter into the following URL to create your full, usable link:

https://search.google.com/local/writereview?placeid=PASTE PLACE ID HERE

When using the above link, the url with the place ID should end up looking like this:

https://search.google.com/local/writereview?placeid=ChIJv4SF3a_K5YgRdGQa_eMOoZI

PRO TIP: Since the URL is long and impossible to remember, you should run the link through a URL shortening tool. Seeing that Google has discontinued their URL shortening tool, we recommend using Bitly.

Here is what the URL looks like after using Bitly’s free URL shortening service:

GOOGLE’S PLACE ID LOOKUP TOOL SHORTEN THE URL WITH BITLY

GOOGLE’S PLACE ID LOOKUP TOOL SHORTEN THE URL WITH BITLY

Our new URL is https://bit.ly/2RiicaG. That’s much better, and shorter, than the previous, https://search.google.com/local/writereview?placeid=ChIJv4SF3a_K5YgRdGQa_eMOoZI.

STEP 5: SEND THE REVIEW LINK TO CUSTOMERS (GET CREATIVE!)

Now that you have a short link for customers to use to review your business on Google, you can send it out to customers. Here is exactly what they’ll see when they click the link:

GOOGLE’S PLACE ID LOOKUP TOOL LEAVE A REVIEW ON GOOGLE

GOOGLE’S PLACE ID LOOKUP TOOL LEAVE A REVIEW ON GOOGLE

Please note: this window will only appear in their browser allowing them to easily leave a review if they are signed into their Google account.

PRO TIP: Before ending this post, I wanted to give you one final idea on this. Just sending links often doesn’t work. I recommend using an image asking for reviews. The visual will help encourage people to click the link. Here’s an example:

Beautiful, right??? If you want to use that image, feel free. Here’s the direct link for it: https://creatingabrand.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Click-here-teo-leave-us-a-review-on-Google.png

As I mentioned at the beginning, it is important to begin collecting Google reviews from your customers. It is what will cause you to stand out and gain more traction.

What is one creative way will you be sharing your new Google Business Review link?