Ten Google reviews is the number that changes everything for a local tradie. Under 10 reviews, you look new. Over 10, you look established. At 25+, Google starts showing your star rating in the search snippet — which roughly doubles your click-through rate on local searches.
Here’s the playbook to get your first 10 in 30 days without being weird about it.
Week 1: Set up the plumbing
Before you ask anyone for a review, make it easy for them to leave one. Do these three things in the first 48 hours:
- Get your Google Business Profile review link. Log into your GBP dashboard → Home → “Get more reviews” → copy the short URL. It looks like
g.page/r/CXXXXXX/review. This is the link that opens the review form directly. - Save it as a text template on your phone. iPhone: Settings → General → Keyboard → Text Replacement. Android: Settings → System → Languages & input → Personal dictionary. Map a shortcut like “rvwlnk” to paste the full review URL instantly.
- Add a “Leave a Review” button to your invoice template. Every invoice goes out with the link. Every. Single. One.
Week 1: The list of 30
Write down 30 recent customers from the past 3-6 months who were happy. Don’t overthink it. People who called you back for a second job. People who referred a mate. People who thanked you more than once. That’s your target list.
Rank them by how comfortable you’d feel texting them. The most comfortable 15 go first.
Weeks 1-2: The text (not email)
Email reviews from tradies get ignored. Text messages get read within 3 minutes, 98% of the time. Send the text from your personal mobile, not an automated number.
Here’s the exact template:
“Hey [Name] — [Your first name] from [Business]. Hope the [bathroom / hot water / rewire] is still going strong. Quick favour: if you had 30 seconds to drop me a Google review, it’d help me out massively. Link: [paste]. No stress if not — cheers mate.”
Three rules that make this work:
- Reference the specific job they had done — proves you remember them
- Say “30 seconds” — sets a realistic time expectation
- Give them permission to say no (“No stress if not”) — counterintuitively, this dramatically increases the yes rate
Send 5 per day across Week 1 and Week 2. Don’t batch 30 at once. Spacing them out makes the review flow look organic to Google (and actually is organic).
Week 3: The handwritten note
Reviews that come in via a handwritten note feel wildly different. The hit rate is lower but the reviews are longer and more detailed.
On your next 5 completed jobs, leave a small card:
“Thanks for having us out today, [Name]. If we did right by you, a quick Google review is the best way to help a small business like ours. [QR code that links to review URL]”
Print 50 of these on business-card stock for $20 at Officeworks. Use a free QR code generator. Done.
Week 4: Pattern check and ask for hard ones
By day 22 you should have 5-7 reviews if you’ve done the above. If you’re at 2 or 3, something’s off — usually the link isn’t sending properly from your texts. Test it on your own phone: tap the link, does the review screen actually open?
For the final push: ask the 3-4 customers you’re genuinely closest to. The ones who would’ve been happy to help but you were too shy to ask. Those are your best reviews — specific, long, and convincing.
What not to do
- Don’t offer a discount or gift card for a review. Against Google’s ToS. They’ll nuke the review (and potentially your profile) if detected.
- Don’t ask family. Google’s algorithm can tell. Fake-looking reviews get filtered out and no longer count toward your rating.
- Don’t batch-submit via a tablet at your shopfront. Same IP, same device fingerprint, looks fake. Customers review from their own phones or nothing.
- Don’t reply to every review with “Thanks for the 5 stars!” Generic. Reply with something specific about their job. Shows future readers you actually remember each client.
After the first 10
The second 10 is easier than the first. Once you’ve got the rhythm, set a rule: every time you finish a job, send the review text before you’ve even left the driveway. Reviews compound. 50 reviews of 4.9 stars is almost impossible for a competitor to catch, even with bigger ad budgets.
Want to automate the SMS send without losing the personal feel? It’s one of the services included in our review automation add-on. $190 one-off to set up, then it runs forever.
Or if you’re starting fresh and want the reviews and the website ready to show them off, we’ll build it both in a week.