How to get your first ten Google reviews

Going from ten reviews to fifty is a process. Going from zero to ten is a cold start, and most businesses stall there for years because nothing about an empty listing encourages anyone to be the first.

Why the first ten are disproportionately hard

Three things work against you at once. Nobody wants to be the first reviewer, because writing into an empty space feels exposed. You have no habit yet, so asking does not happen unless you consciously decide to. And an empty listing does not surface in the results that would bring you the customers who might review you.

The good news is that ten is a genuinely low bar, and once you are past it the psychology flips: people join a conversation far more readily than they start one.

Before you ask anyone

Do not start collecting until your profile is actually finished. Reviews amplify a listing that is correct. They will not rescue one that is miscategorised or half empty, and you only get to make a first impression on the people who click through.

1. Check the primary category is exact rather than approximate.
2. Fill hours, phone, website, service area and description.
3. Add six to ten recent photos, taken on a phone, of the actual place and the actual work.
4. Have the review link ready to paste. If you are not sure where to find it, see how to find your Google review link.

Week one: the people who already like you

Every business has a handful of customers who would say something nice if asked. Not friends and not family, who should never review you, but genuine customers you already have a relationship with. Text or email them individually, not as a batch, with the link and one sentence about why it matters.

Expect roughly a third to actually do it. Six personal messages tends to yield two reviews, which is why you send more than you think you need.

Week two: set up the in-person prompt

This is the part that keeps working after the first push runs out. Something physical at the point of service: a stand on the counter, a card in the ute, a tile on the bench. It removes the gap between someone deciding to leave a review and actually doing it.

Which one depends on how you trade. There is a breakdown in where to put a review stand so people actually use it.

Weeks three and four: ask everyone, the same way

Pick one moment in your service where the ask happens, and make it the same moment every time. After the coffee is handed over. After the invoice is signed. After the cut is finished and they have seen it.

Ask every customer at that moment, not the ones who look happy. Screening for the happy ones is review gating, Google bans it, and the ACCC treats it as misleading conduct. It also does not work as well as people expect, because the customers you skip are often the ones with the most specific things to say.

What not to do in the first ten

• Do not ask staff to review you. Employee reviews are a conflict of interest under Google’s policies.
• Do not offer anything. No discount, no free coffee, no prize draw. Google bans incentivised reviews outright. See asking for reviews without breaking the rules.
• Do not buy them. Bought reviews get removed in sweeps, and Google can put a warning banner on your public profile. Your ABN carries the exposure.
• Do not panic about a four star. An early four star review makes the fives look real.

A realistic timeline

A business with reasonable foot traffic that asks consistently gets to ten inside a month or two. A mobile trade doing three or four jobs a day gets there faster than a specialist doing two a week. What matters is not the rate, it is that the asking is a routine rather than a campaign, because that is the thing that carries you from ten to a hundred.