Never have reviews and testimonials been such an effective way to prove your business is awesome, is trustworthy and delivers on its promises.

Now, with Google Places prominently displaying reviews, it’s more important than ever that you get people talking about your business and get great reviews. However, that means you need to put in the work and effort to get authentic reviews and testimonials from your customers as often as possible.

By encouraging your former or current customers to leave their honest (and hopefully positive) feedback, you can motivate your new customers to visit your site and buy from you.

Let’s take a look at 3 quick and easy ways you can take advantage of Google Places – this powerful marketing tool – and get better reviews for your business.

What is Google Places for Business?

As we explained here Google Places for Business is a local marketing service that connect local businesses with shoppers. It enables any business with a physical location to display information such as address, map, videos, photos and more.

A Google Places profile will also include reviews from your customers that refer to the quality of your products and services, the quality of the support you provided, the overall purchasing experience and general trustworthiness.

3 simple ways to get better Google Places reviews

Google Places reviews can be a fantastically powerful marketing tool so you should try and encourage your customers to share their feedback on your page.

Here are three simple ways to do that:

1. Ask for a review after each transaction

This is a very efficient practice – simply ask a customer who has made a purchases from your online or physical store to take a few minutes and share their feedback about the product they bought, the help or information they were provided with in making a decision and so on. You can either include the URL to your Google Places review page at the bottom of the printed receipt or ask for the shopper’s email address and send him an email a few days later asking him for his feedback.

2. Reward reviews

Google Places reviews is a form of word-of-mouth marketing, right? So, if one customer is telling your potential customers that they love your product, that your staff is extremely helpful, that your prices rock and that your store is trustworthy, then maybe you need to do something extra to encourage other customers to write honest reviews on your page.

I don’t mean paying your customers to write good reviews. Don’t ever do that! I mean rewarding them after they’ve written the review. For example, if you have a loyal customer who keeps coming back to your store and has also written a good review, you might consider offering him a voucher, a special discount or free shipping on his next order simply to say thank you. Chances are he’ll tell his friends about your nice gift and those friends will visit your shop, buy your products and write other nice reviews and so on.

3. Got positive reviews? Show them off!

If customers have written so amazing reviews, don’t keep them on your Google Places page alone. Show them off – maybe produce a nice video or slideshow showcasing some of them.

Are you using Google Places for Business? What are you doing to get customers to write reviews on your page? Make sure you share your best tips with us in a comment below.