Businesses and service providers will undoubtedly like it if their products or services are highly reviewed. Not only does this give them a great mental boost, but public reviews allow prospective customers to see them.
As a result, the business is likely to receive their custom. However, many businesses will also like their services or products reviewed critically too, as it allows them to reflect on their practices and fix any potential problems they may have.
One such way businesses can be reviewed is via Google. Google is of course the most visited website everyday in the world – so utilizing what Google can offer is very beneficial.
However, because nobody is demanding you write a review, could you potentially be paid to complete Google reviews?
We’ve looked into it and decided to write this handy article for you to answer all of your biggest questions.
Read on to learn more.
Google Reviews: Potential Pay Day?
Unfortunately, Google doesn’t pay you for completing reviews on their platform. Reviews are meant to be unsolicited and a completely neutral choice made on behalf of the customer.
It is in fact, against the terms of use for reviews to be completed by someone who has received compensation for doing so.
The person who completes the review may be banned from using the service, along with the business or other person that has paid for the review to be completed.
This does not necessarily mean that you can’t earn from completing Google reviews though, it just will not be in the “traditional” sense of receiving a payment for completing work right away.
So, let’s look at how you may be able to earn from writing reviews.
Earning Money From Writing Reviews
If you are a good writer – your review will be authoritative and extremely readable. It will be very helpful to prospective readers and the business itself. Resultantly, your review could be highly enticing for potential employers.
In other words, some businesses may read your review and decide that you are the person to hire, perhaps as a freelancer, for a neutral review on a particular business that will be featured on their platform.
Review writers can do very well financially from this, although it may take some time to get to the level of “serious” money.
There is another way that you can use these skills to generate some income for yourself though, and that is by using your own platform.
Using Your Platform For Reviews
As we mentioned, it is best to use your own platform for your reviews and potentially earn from this. As an established review writer, your website may end up ranking well on Google – which allows you serious opportunities.
You can offer critical review services, which is completely fine to do so and does not breach Google’s terms of use.
For extra revenue, you can feature sponsored content specifically for a business such as video, imagery and audio. Connect this with a very good quality review and you’re well on your way to start making some dough from reviews.
Not only that, you can earn from traffic to your website by utilizing your platform for ad space. Just be careful that your use of advertising does not detract from the quality of your reviews.
Can You Earn Money By Being A “Local Guide”?
Google local guides is a community of review writers for Google maps. These reviews critically examine places of interest and places such as hotels, motels, restaurants, cafes and other local businesses.
This community however does not pay you for your work, although you can earn points over time which may result in Google “compensating” you with merchandise or extra storage space on your Google drive.
Having said this though, over the last year or so – their incentives have started “winding down”, and many local guide reviewers are seeing rewards now being inconsequential things like newsletter access.
Is It Illegal To Write A Bad Review?
No. There’s nothing in law that prevents you from writing a heavily critical review, if this is what you mean by “bad”. There’s also nothing wrong with writing a poorly written review – although this won’t be of benefit either.
However, you must be careful by what you are saying, particularly if you have no evidence for certain claims. Slander/libel can be extremely damaging and you may be in big financial trouble if a business starts legal proceedings against you for this.
The law for libel will differ slightly from country to country, but you’d be advised to practice caution in any case.
Is It Illegal To Write A Fake Review?
Not necessarily.
It’s not a criminal offense to write a fraudulent review, but it can become complicated if there was a reason for writing a fake review – and of course, as we previously stated, you could end up in a civil lawsuit for libel if what you claim is false and detrimental to the business.
If your business receives a fake Google review, you can report it as a policy violation and select the reason why. Google normally is able to flag fake reviews prior to publication anyway, but rarely one will get through.
If for any reason you cannot remove the review, you can respond to the review and explain to other readers that this person is a fake reviewer.
This happens more often on other reviewing platforms like Tripadvisor – so knowing how to perform your own “damage control” is important to your business.
The Bottom Line
Whilst you cannot specifically earn money directly from writing Google reviews, you can still earn money eventually by tactically planning how you write your reviews and where.
Businesses can benefit largely from well written reviews, so focus on the quality of your writing and over time, you should see serious results.
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