Google Reviews & Google Business Profile

Google Business Profile basics

What to keep current on your Google Business Profile.

This is often the first thing a potential customer in Clifton, Hasbrouck Heights, Saddle Brook or anywhere nearby sees, before they ever hit your website. Worth keeping current:

• Hours, including holiday hours. This is the one people forget.
• Menu, or at least a link to it.
• Photos, updated regularly, not just from opening week.
• The right category and relevant attributes, such as outdoor seating or takeout.
• Posts, short updates about specials, events or news. These don't need to be frequent to help, but never posting doesn't help either.

Getting more reviews, the right way

How to get more Google reviews without breaking the rules.

Two policies worth knowing: Google doesn't allow incentivizing reviews (discounts, freebies or contest entries in exchange for a review) or gating them (only asking happy customers, filtering out anyone who might leave a negative one). Both can get a business profile penalized, and neither actually builds trust, since the reviews stop reflecting reality.

What works instead

• Ask at the right moment. Right after a good meal, in person, works better than an email three days later that gets ignored.
• Make it easy. A short link or QR code on the receipt or table saves someone the trouble of searching for you.
• Ask consistently, not in bursts. A steady trickle of reviews over time reads as more genuine than fifty reviews in one week, and it looks that way to Google too.