How do I get more Google reviews?
Ask every customer in person, on the day the job finishes, and give them a short link straight to your review page. There is nothing else to it. The two things that stop it working are leaving it a week and asking by text, and asking everybody at once.
Get the short link first
Google gives every profile a review link. It is in your Business Profile under the option to ask for reviews, and it opens the review box straight away, skipping the listing page. Save it as a QR code on your phone and put it on your invoice. Asking someone to "find us on Google and leave a review" loses most of them at the finding.
The timing matters more than the wording
The moment is when the job is finished, they are happy with it, and you are standing in front of them. A day later they are back at work and it is gone. Ask then, while your phone is in your hand, and offer to send the link there and then.
What to say
Plainly, and without apologising for asking. Something like: "If you are happy with how it has turned out, a review on Google genuinely helps me. Shall I send you the link?" People say yes to that far more often than tradespeople expect, because most customers are pleased and simply have not thought of it.
Answer every one of them
Reply to the good ones briefly and the bad ones carefully. A calm, specific reply to a poor review does more good than the review does harm, because the next person reading is judging how you handle a problem. Never argue, and never explain the customer to themselves in public.
Two things that will get you in trouble
Do not buy reviews. They are traceable, they arrive in patterns, and Google removes them and sometimes the profile with them.
Do not offer anything in return, not a discount and not a prize draw. Paying for reviews in kind is against Google's terms whether or not the review is honest, and a competitor who spots it can report it.
A steady trickle beats a burst
Twenty reviews arriving in one week looks exactly like twenty bought reviews. Two or three a month, every month, is both more believable and more useful, because recent reviews carry more weight than old ones.
While you are here
How many Google reviews do I need?
Enough to sit alongside whoever else comes up for your trade in your town, which is usually somewhere between ten and forty. Past that, how recent they are matters more than how many.
Can I remove a bad Google review?
Only if it breaks Google's rules, meaning it is fake, abusive, or not about your business. You can report it, and it may or may not go. An honest bad review cannot be removed, so the reply is your answer to it.