How to get more Google reviews for your trade business

I’ve built a lot of websites for tradespeople around Ireland, and there’s one thing I tell nearly every single one of them on our first call: your Google reviews matter more than almost anything else you’ll do online. More than your logo, more than your van wrap, more than the fancy wording on your homepage.

Why? Because reviews are the difference between someone finding you and someone actually ringing you. Let me explain how it works, and then I’ll give you a dead-simple system for getting more of them without ever feeling like a pushy salesperson.

Why reviews matter so much

There are really two reasons, and they feed into each other.

The first is trust. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. They’ve got a leak, or a wall that needs painting, or an extension they want wired. They don’t know you from Adam. They search “electrician near me”, and up come three or four businesses. One has 4 reviews. One has 87 reviews and a 4.9 rating. Who are they going to ring? Every time, it’s the one with the reviews. People trust other people far more than they trust your own marketing. A wall of genuine reviews from real customers in their own area does more selling than any clever line I could ever write for you.

The second reason is ranking. Google decides who shows up in that little map box at the top of the results — what people in the trade call the “map pack” or the “three-pack”. Reviews are one of the biggest signals Google uses to work out who deserves to be up there. More reviews, better ratings, and reviews that arrive steadily over time all push you higher. I go into the full picture of how this works in my guide to local SEO for tradespeople in Ireland, but the short version is: reviews help you get seen, and being seen is half the battle when you want to get more trade jobs in Ireland.

So reviews build trust and they get you in front of more people. That’s why I bang on about them so much.

How many do you actually need?

Plenty of lads worry they need hundreds. You don’t. For most local trades in Ireland, getting yourself into the 20 to 50 range will already put you ahead of most of your competition, because so many tradespeople never bother asking at all.

The honest target is simple: a few more than the other crowd in your town. If the busiest plumber in your area has 30 reviews, you want to be heading past that. And here’s the bit people forget — it’s not a one-time job. A steady drip of fresh reviews matters more than a big pile of old ones. Ten reviews from the last three months tells Google (and the customer) far more than fifty from four years ago.

The goal isn’t a number. It’s a habit.

The best moment to ask

This is the single most important thing in the whole post, so I’ll keep it short and clear.

Ask when the job is just done and the customer is happy.

That moment — you’re packing up, the kitchen’s spotless, the radiator’s finally warm, they’re delighted with the work — that’s when goodwill is at its absolute peak. They’re standing right there, grateful, looking at the result. A day later they’re back to their normal life and you’ve slipped their mind. A week later, no chance.

So don’t post the job off and hope. Catch them in that good moment.

How to ask without it being awkward

I get it — Irish people aren’t always brilliant at asking for a pat on the back. But asking for a review isn’t bragging. It’s just part of running the business. Here’s how I tell people to do it so it never feels weird.

Do it in two simple steps.

1. Mention it in person

Right at the end, while you’re wrapping up, just say something natural:

“Listen, if you were happy with how that went, a quick review on Google would be a massive help to me. I’ll fire you a text with the link so it’s easy.”

That’s it. No big speech. You’re not demanding anything — you’re letting them know it would help, and that you’ll make it easy. Most people genuinely want to help a tradesperson who did a good job. They just need a nudge and a link.

2. Follow up with a text

This is the part most people skip, and it’s the part that actually works. People mean well in the moment but life gets in the way. So later that same day, or the next morning at the latest, send a short text:

“Thanks again for having me out. Here’s that review link if you’ve a spare minute — really appreciate it: [link]”

Short, friendly, no pressure. If they don’t do it, leave it. Never chase. One ask in person, one text. That’s the whole system.

Make it one tap

Here’s where most trades lose people. If your customer has to open Google, search your business name, scroll down, find the right button — they’ll give up. Every extra step loses you reviews.

The fix is a direct Google review link. Inside your Google Business Profile there’s an option to share a review link — it’s a short web address that takes the customer straight to the review box with the stars ready to tap. That’s the link you put in your text. One tap, five stars, a line of text, done.

If you’re not sure how to find it, it’s worth sorting once and then saving it as a text template on your phone so it’s ready to send after every job. And honestly, your website for tradespeople in Ireland should have that link built in too, so the whole thing is joined up. When I set up sites for lads — like the painters and decorators I work with over on the painters in Ireland page — I make the review link easy to grab so asking becomes second nature.

What to do about a bad review

It’ll happen eventually. Someone has a bad day, or a genuine mix-up, and you get a one or two star. Don’t panic. One poor review sitting among twenty good ones actually makes the good ones look more believable — nobody trusts a perfect five.

The rules are simple:

• Reply, always. A reply shows everyone reading later that you’re a professional who cares.
• Stay calm. Never argue, never get defensive, never go at it line by line. The reply isn’t really for the angry customer — it’s for the next hundred people who read it.
• Be human. Something like: “Sorry to hear you weren’t happy, John. That’s not the standard I aim for. Give me a call and I’ll see what I can do to put it right.”

That kind of measured reply often impresses future customers more than the complaint puts them off. A calm, decent response can genuinely win you work.

Never, ever buy fake reviews

I’ll be blunt. Don’t buy reviews. Don’t get your cousin in Cork to leave one for a job that never happened. Don’t sign up to some service promising you fifty reviews for a few hundred euro.

Google is very good at spotting fakes — a cluster of reviews from accounts with no history, all landing the same week, will get flagged. Best case they get wiped. Worst case your whole profile gets suspended and you vanish from the map entirely. All that ranking, gone. It’s not worth the risk, and real customers can usually smell a fake review a mile off anyway. Genuine reviews, gathered slowly, are the only ones that last.

The simple system, start to finish

Here it is on one page:

• Every job, when it’s done and the customer’s happy, mention the review in person.
• Same day, send a friendly text with your direct review link.
• Never chase beyond that one text.
• Reply to every review, good or bad, calmly.
• Keep it steady — a few a month beats a big batch once.

Do that on every job and you’ll quietly pull ahead of nearly everyone in your area. It costs nothing but thirty seconds of your time per job.

If you’d rather not wrangle the technical side — the review link, the Google profile, the website it all hangs off — that’s exactly the sort of thing I sort for tradespeople, whether you’re in Dublin or out in the likes of trade websites in Kildare. With Ranksy I build the site and the local SEO together for €99 a month, your first 60 days are free, and there’s no card required to start. But even if you never talk to me, please just start asking for reviews. It’s the cheapest, most powerful thing you can do for your business this year.