How do I get more Google reviews for my contracting business?
Ask every customer, at the moment the job wraps up, with a direct link. That one habit outperforms every review tool and reputation service sold to contractors. Text the link while the customer is still admiring the finished work and most happy customers will do it; wait until tomorrow and most won't, not out of malice but because life moves on. Steady beats bulk: a review or two every month for a year builds more ranking power than fifty in a burst, which Google's filters treat with suspicion anyway. And never buy reviews or offer incentives for them: both violate Google policy and FTC rules, and both can get a profile suspended.
The mechanics
Google gives every business profile a short review link; find it in your profile dashboard under 'Ask for reviews.' Save it as a text snippet on your phone: 'It was a pleasure working on your kitchen. If you're happy with how it turned out, a quick Google review helps us more than you'd know: [link].' Send it at completion, in person or by text, ideally while you're still in the driveway. Crews can carry it as a QR code on a card for the customers who prefer that. The whole apparatus costs nothing; the discipline is the product.
Make it a system, not a memory
Owners who rely on remembering to ask collect reviews in streaks and droughts, and droughts are what a stale profile looks like from the outside. Wire the ask into how a job closes instead: the review text goes out with the final invoice, whoever ran the job owns sending it, and once a month someone checks that it's happening. That's the entire machine. And it's precisely the kind of operational habit we set up for clients, because review velocity is one of the strongest prominence signals the map pack has.
Bad reviews, and the shortcuts that backfire
You will eventually take an unfair review. Reply publicly, calmly, once: future customers read the reply, not the complaint, and a professional response to a hothead is free advertising. Never argue in the thread. What actually kills profiles is the shortcuts: bought reviews, review swaps with other businesses, gating (screening customers so only the happy ones get the link), and incentives. Google's detection has gotten aggressive and the penalty (filtered reviews or a suspended profile) costs far more than the shortcut ever earned. Fifty honest reviews built over two years is a moat a competitor can't buy.
Related answers, tools, and proof.
Got a question we haven’t answered?
Ask us directly: a real person answers, and we’ll give you the same straight version you just read, applied to your business. Or start with a free grade of where your site stands.