How To Increase Google Star Rating

Jan 16, 2023

A high Google rating is a badge of honor for most businesses. Problem is, many business owners and managers have no idea how to increase it. Because of this, they have a lot of customers, but their Google ratings simply don’t reflect that fact.

So how can businesses increase their star rating?

Read on to learn the best way to generate positive reviews, how to use a Google review calculator, and why you should start managing your reviews right now.

What Are The Benefits Of A High Google Rating?

A large majority of consumers check reviews on Google before deciding on making a purchase. This is why having a higher star rating will give you a significant edge over your competitors, while making your business stick out in consumers’ decision-making processes.

Here are major reasons why you should always strive to amp up your star rating:

1. Increased customer trust

In the internet era, personal recommendations are almost phased out by online reviews. It’s easy to see why - online feedback is such a powerful trust factor because it’s a reflection of actual customer experience.

Due to the fact that reviews can be written by anyone, they bring a new level of impartiality and transparency into your online presence. This translates into increased customer trust.

2. Better local ranking

By generating positive reviews, you can increase the star rating of your business - an essential ranking factor in local searches. This is a great way to boost your SEO efforts, especially if you rely on customers in your local area for the most part.

3. More sales

Guess what happens when you increase the trustworthiness of your business and also raise your local ranking? You get to close more sales.

According to a Harvard study, just a one-star increase in your rating will increase your revenue between five and nine percent.

But how long will it take to get there?

Let’s find out!

Google Review Calculator

To have a better idea of how many new reviews you have to generate to increase your rating, you should use a simple Google review calculator. That way, you can understand how each review contributes to your overall score.

The formula is: (review score x the number of reviews) divided by the total number of reviews.

This means you’ll multiply each star review by the same number of reviews.

For instance, if two customers left you two stars, you multiply those numbers (2 stars x 2 reviews = 4 points), or if you have ten four-star reviews, you have 40 points (4 stars x 10 reviews = 40 points).

Do the same for all the reviews and add up the score. If, say, your total points count up to 161 and you have a total of 39 reviews, divide the points by the overall number of reviews. In this case 161/39 = 4.1.

That’s it - you can use this Google review calculator to gain a better idea of how many five-star reviews you’ll have to generate to improve your rating. For example, if your current rating is 4.1, you can easily use the same calculation to see what your score would be if you generated five more 5-star reviews.

How To Encourage More Positive Google Reviews

If you sit around waiting for reviews, you’d wait for years to get enough to improve your score. Thankfully, you can take a proactive approach.

Try doing the following:

1. Just ask for feedback

In contrast to unhappy customers who will lose no time in expressing their dissatisfaction, happy customers are more restrained. In other words, they won’t leave a positive review unless you remind them.

2. Discover the right timing

To achieve the best results, you should figure out the optimal time when your customers are most likely to leave a review. For instance, when you ask them in person, they may simply forget to do it once they get home.

This is why you should preferably ask them when they’re at their happiest via SMS or email to lock down that 5-star review.

3. Tell them how much their opinion matters

By taking the time to explain to someone how much their feedback helps improve your service, they’ll probably comply with your request.

For example, when sending them a text with a review link, write something along the lines of:

Your feedback helps us improve our product/service - leave a review at______.

4. Share your best reviews

If you already have a high rating and many positive reviews, you can use them to generate even more. Showcase the best reviews on your website or post testimonials on social media and your customers will most likely be inspired to follow suit. It’s human nature to avoid going against the grain, after all.

How To Maintain Your Google Rating?

When you increase your star rating, you’re only halfway there. To maintain a positive brand image online, you have to monitor any new review that comes in and respond in a timely fashion.

Many people pay attention to how a business responds to reviews, and most reviewers expect to see a response to their write-ups.

For positive reviews, this is easy. But for negative ones, you have to work a bit harder. Start by learning how to come up with a perfect response, so you may turn a negative review into a positive one.

You also need to monitor your online reputation to spot and report any fake or troll reviews. This is a common tactic your competitors may use to decrease your online rating in hopes of taking your customers.

Luckily, you can report these reviews and Google will most likely remove them for you.

How Technology Can Help You Simplify The Entire Process

Once you plug your current reviews into the Google review calculator, you may find that it will take a lot of time to bump up your rating. Alternatively, you may not have enough time to manually send out these reviews and log in to multiple review sites every day to respond to customer feedback.

If that’s the case, you can automate most of the review management process with our automation tool - ReviewArm.

By using this tool to improve your star rating, you can not only automate sending out review requests via text or email but also keep track of feedback on multiple review sites. That way, you’ll never miss an opportunity to land a glowing review or connect with your customers.