Local · 08 July 2026

How to Get More Google Reviews: A Kent Business Guide

By Gabbi Robinson · 5 min read

If you run a business in Kent, you've probably had this moment: a customer says something lovely in person — "you've been brilliant, I'll recommend you to everyone" — and then never quite gets round to putting it in writing. Meanwhile, a competitor down the road with half your experience has forty glowing reviews and the top spot on Google Maps. Learning how to get more Google reviews isn't about gaming anything; it's about making it easy for happy customers to say publicly what they already say to your face.

I work with trades, wellness and hospitality businesses across Ashford and the rest of Kent, and reviews come up in almost every conversation. So here's my honest, no-jargon guide to building a steady stream of them.

Why Google reviews matter so much for local businesses

The numbers back up what we all do instinctively. According to BrightLocal's Local Consumer Review Survey, around seven in ten consumers regularly read online reviews when browsing for local businesses — and only 4% say they never look at them. Google is far and away the platform people check most, well ahead of Facebook or Yelp.

For a plumber in Ashford, a beautician in Canterbury or a café in Folkestone, that means your Google Business Profile is often the first impression you make — before anyone even reaches your website. Reviews do three jobs at once: they build trust with people who've never heard of you, they help you rank higher in local "near me" searches and on Google Maps, and they give you a bank of real customer language you can reuse on your website. (If you'd like the full picture on ranking locally, I've written a separate guide to local SEO in Kent.)

A five-star review from a real customer in your town is worth more than any advert you could buy.

How to get more Google reviews (without begging)

The single biggest reason businesses don't have many reviews is simple: they don't ask. Customers aren't being unkind when they forget — life just gets in the way. Your job is to make leaving a review take less than a minute.

• Ask at the moment of delight. The best time is right after the job's done, the treatment's finished or the plates are cleared — when the customer is at their happiest. A day later, the moment's gone.
• Use your direct review link. Google gives every Business Profile a short link that takes people straight to the "leave a review" box. Text it, email it, pop it in your invoice footer. Never make someone search for you.
• Try a QR code. For cafés, salons and shops, a small card or sticker by the till — "Enjoyed your visit? Scan to leave us a review" — works quietly all day long.
• Make it routine, not a campaign. One ask per happy customer, built into how you finish every job. Steady beats sporadic: a trickle of recent reviews looks far healthier to Google (and to humans) than thirty in one week and then silence.

And a gentle word of warning: never buy reviews, and don't offer discounts or freebies in exchange for them. It's against Google's rules, and faking or commissioning reviews is now explicitly against UK consumer protection law. One dodgy shortcut can undo years of honest work.

Reply to every review — yes, even the awkward ones

Replying to reviews is the most underrated part of all this. A short, warm thank-you shows prospective customers that there's a real person behind the business who cares. It also signals to Google that your profile is active.

Negative reviews sting — I know. But a calm, courteous reply is one of the most persuasive things a future customer can read. Acknowledge the problem, apologise where it's deserved, explain what you've changed, and offer to put it right offline. You're not really replying to the unhappy reviewer; you're showing the next hundred readers how you handle things when they don't go to plan. A business with forty-eight five-star reviews and two graciously handled complaints is, if anything, more believable than a spotless record.

Put your reviews to work on your website

Once the reviews start coming in, don't let them sit on Google gathering dust. Pull your best ones onto your website — on the homepage, next to your prices, on the page for the service they mention. Real words from real customers ("turned up on time, tidied up after themselves, price exactly as quoted") do more selling than anything you or I could write.

This is something I build into every site I make: review snippets placed where they answer the exact doubt a visitor has at that moment. If your current website has no reviews on it at all — or worse, a "testimonials" page last updated years ago — that's low-hanging fruit. It's also the kind of small content change my hosting and care plan covers each month, so your freshest five-star reviews are always on show.

Start this week: find your review link, ask your next three happy customers, and reply to every review already on your profile. Do that consistently for a few months and you'll have built something no competitor can copy — a public record of being good at what you do, told by the people of Kent themselves.