How to Acquire Better Web Reviews to Attract Prospective Clients

(This advice is updated for 2024. It has changed since 2022.)

Say you’re getting started or expanding your advocacy practice, and you need a lawyer to help you with your contracts. You don’t know one personally but friends have given you a few names, so now it’s time to do some research into who might be able to help you.

You start by doing a search for “small business attorney, Anytown” – and you come up with several names of attorneys.

Now what? My guess is that among those attorney names in your search results, you’ll see that some (maybe all) of them have star ratings next to them:

So – my question to you is this: which one of those attorneys would you choose to learn more about, or might even contact right away?

Yes, of course, you’re going to choose the most highly rated lawyer(s) to determine whether they can help you. Why would you choose one that had poor ratings or the fewest stars?

That’s exactly the thinking of anyone who goes looking for an advocate or care manager. Their first reaction, when they see star ratings, will be to reach out to whomever impresses them immediately – and that’s what the stars do.

So that’s what we, as Smart Practice! aficionados, want to do. We want to beef up our star ratings and reviews.

How to Ask Clients for Ratings and Reviews

There are just a few steps to making this work well. It’s not difficult. It just takes consistency.

1. Be sure to ask every client and/or family member you have worked with to rate and review your work. When they have been been pleased with your service and their outcomes, they will be VERY happy to do so! You’ll make them feel honored that you asked. Win-win.
2. Once they have agreed to rate and review your work, direct them to the place you wish them to do so – even sending them that specific link. Go ahead and mention that you’d appreciate a 5-star rating! Ask them to let you know when it’s finished. Even give them a deadline – maybe a week – to complete it. You can ask them by email, text, or phone. If you ask by phone, then follow up with email or text with that link.
3. Check back a few days or a week later to be sure it’s complete. If not, provide a slight nudge. If you’ve nudged a few times and you’re not seeing results, then don’t nag further. Fingers-crossed they’re telling folks verbally how great you are even if you don’t see stars.

Use your discretion here.
If the experience – yours or theirs! – wasn’t excellent, you may not want to ask at all. They may rate and review you on their own, but there’s no sense in asking if you aren’t certain they’ll give you an excellent rating.

Where Should They Post? Maximizing the Reach and Effect of Your Star Ratings and Reviews

See those stars afforded the lawyer listings above? You might wonder how they got there, to show up in the search at all.

The answer is: it depends. Unfortunately, there is no ONE place to submit a rating and review or testimonial that will then be reflected in every place a prospective client might search. If they used Google for a search, then there is one answer. If they used Bing or Yahoo, there is another answer. If the searcher was already searching inside a directory of professionals, then there is yet another answer.

Here are a few recommendations for making sure the most people find the best ratings for you and your practice:

As of the date of this post, the vast majority of advocates and care managers are found through some form of Google search. Whether or not using Google is your preference doesn’t matter. It’s what the majority of searchers use, and therefore needs to be where the bulk of your efforts will go.

Getting your star ratings to show up on Google will take a bit of set-up, but once you’ve done that you’ll need only to direct clients to the link Google will give you. Be sure to make it easy for them by providing them with your link.