Promoting your products and services is important when you have a business. One of the best ways to do this is by creating Google review widgets for your website. In this article, we’ll cover what these are, how to create them, and how they can help increase business.
Google Business Profile
Google Business Profile (previously known as Google My Business (GMB)) is a service by Google to help list key details related to a local business so that users can get them without visiting a website.
And the interesting part is Google lets customers add reviews. These reviews are usually shown on the Google search page.
Whether you have a website or not, you should actually care about these reviews.
Why?
Because people heavily rely on online reviews to decide whether do business with you or not. According to a report by Bright Local, 84% of people trust other customers’ reviews and testimonials as much as they rely on word-of-mouth recommendations.
Since individual reviews are displayed on Google, it will impact your business, whether it’s an online business or an offline business.
By generating more reviews on your Google Business listing with positive sentiment, you can boost not only your brand reputation but also other aspects too.
Luckily for you, there’s a way to get reviews on Google and showcase them on your website.
That is why you should add a Google Reviews widget to your website.
In this article, you will learn how to add a Google Review widget for website free (and customize them).
4 Reasons to Embed Google Reviews Widget on Website
There are many reasons why adding a Google reviews widget on your site can be beneficial. Here are some of them:
Boost Search Engine Rankings
Embedding Google reviews widget code on-site can encourage more people to review your business.
More genuine user reviews mean more user-generated content and keywords on the embedded page. This ultimately helps in improving SERP (Search Engine Result Page) rankings. In addition to, more reviews on your Google My Business page means more trust (and popularity).
Regulate Brand Reputation
Google customer reviews widget builds a strong brand reputation by bringing transparency between users & brands. Most services listed below allow users to sort reviews based on the time post, star rating, and sentiment. So, it slowly builds the brand reputation, which is something hardly achievable by other means.
Request happy customers to leave a review while asking unhappy customers to provide feedback that you can address and correct privately before they write a bad review. Furthermore, you can automate the review collection process with SMS and email requests.
Ask your satisfied customers to write a review and ask your unsatisfied customers for private feedback first to decrease the number of negative reviews written publicly.
Moreover, the services listed below let you moderate reviews on your site so you can further regulate your brand reputation.
Put Together Social Proof
Publishing Google’s authentic & reliable customer reviews widget to your website acts as social proof for your brand. You can set up a dedicated customer reviews page or embed a testimonials slider widget on your business website and showcase genuine reviews to emphasize the social proof.
Or simply add a Google Reviews rating badge on your site that link to the Google business profile.
UGC = Trust & Loyalty
Website content can easily be manipulated. That is why User Generated Content (UGC) gets a higher value in marketing your services.
Displaying the UGC Google review widget build customer’s trust & loyalty to your brand. Google Review widget is a great way to showcase and share customer reviews of your business.
It’s not only an effective way to communicate with customers, but it also helps you gain valuable insights into how people are using your products or services.
Best Google Review Widgets to Use Today
Elfsight Google Reviews Widget
Elfsight is an online service that provides 80+ powerful widgets, tools, and plugins to use on your website.
For example, you can add a social feed aggregator, all-in-one reviews widget, Instagram feed section, all-in-one-chat plugin, customizable pricing table, job board, Google Play reviews, and subscription form on your site by using Elfsight without needing any coding or design skills.
Its free Google reviews widget is another powerful tool filled with many customization options and settings.
Key features:
- Responsive Google review widget designs – No matter which device your visitors are using, the Google reviews section will be user-friendly
- Demonstrate detailed reviews – Unlike other review platforms, Google reviews will display the author’s name, picture, and a link to Google account for even more fresh reviews.
- Automatic updates – Elfsight Google Reviews widget is created to fetch all the new reviews instantly and update the site, so it not only displays fresh reviews but also works as a dynamic content section which, according to many, improves SEO.
- Attract customer feedback – Ask your website visitors to write a review on Google.
- Localize – Change the front-end of the Google places review widget with your language
- Boost search engine rankings – Schema.org markups (enabled by default) inform search engine bots such as Google bot that user reviews are added on the web page where the Google review widget is embedded so that it may get special modifications on Google.
- Filter reviews – Want to hide all the bad reviews from your website? No problem, Filtering options let you decide which (and how many) reviews to be shown. Furthermore, you can highlight specific Google Reviews based on the author.
- Install on any platform – No matter which CMS or website building platform you use, Elfsight provides a very simple and the most straightforward way to install and guides you with step-by-step tutorials.
Embed Google Reviews widget on website
Use the free widget builder below.
Or create your account on Elfsight from here, search “Google Reviews” app from the widgets catalog, and customize it.
Here is a short video that shows how to customize your Elfsight’s Google places review widget.
Demo
Google Reviews widget created for Disneyland resort, CA.
Features
Elfsight Google Reviews widget for the website provides many features. Here are some of them:
- 6 Google review widget layouts – List, Masonry, Grid, Carousel, Floating Badge, Embeddable Badge
- Autorotate reviews – Get visitors’ attention by autorating each review
- Enable/Disable the “Write a review” button – Place the call-to-action to post a review on your Google My Business page
- 3 review styles
- Customize elements – Change font including font family, color, header, navigation controls, rating color, and border easily
- Custom CSS – Customize the widget the way you want
- Translate – Localize your widget
The best part is you can create unlimited Google Reviews on Elfsight and embed them on different parts of your website and funnel.
Pricing
Elfsight’s Google Reviews Widget has three paid plans, including one free plan.
- Lite – FREE – One website, one widget, and 200 views limit
- Basic – $5/month – Unlimited websites, 1 widget, 5,000 views, Elfsight logo removal
- Pro – $10/month – Unlimited websites, 3 widgets, 50,000 views/widget, Elfsight logo removal
- Premium – $20/month – Unlimited websites, 9 widgets, Unlimited views, Elfsight logo removal
Elfsight lets you create a Google Reviews widget for free. But, if you want more features and remove the Elfsight logo from widgets, you should upgrade to a premium plan. If you subscribe to one of the ‘All Apps’ packs, you will get access to other widget types such as Yelp Reviews, Facebook Reviews, Testimonials Slider, and Instagram Testimonials.
CommonNinja Google Reviews widget
CommonNinja is an online service that provides HTML widgets for websites for free. Its widgets catalog consists of over 80 widgets, from user engagement to website components. Amazon reviews widget and Trustpilot reviews aggregator are some of the other review widgets for websites.
CommonNinja’s Google Reviews widget is free to use and provides different responsive layouts, colorful skins, and many customization options.
Key features:
- Flexibility to tailor the appearance of your reviews – CommonNinja’s Google Reviews widget creator provides three review types:
- Carousel – Display a series of rotating testimonials with next and preview buttons and the ability to manipulate the autorotation of Google reviews content.
- Grid – Present a grid of reviews
- List – List reviews one by one straightforwardly
- Filters – Filter reviews by minimum rating, keyword (include or exclude), or showing only reviews with text. In addition to filtering options, you can sort reviews by “New to Old,” “Old to New,” “High rating to Low,” or “Low rating to High.”
- Automatic updates – CommonNinja will automatically fetch new reviews once every 24 hours if you enable the ‘Automatic updates’ option under General Settings.
- Manage visibility of elements – CommonNinja allows you to manipulate the visibility of items of the Google reviews plugin with a click of a button. For example, you can show or hide these elements:
- Header – that includes Google Business logo, overall rating, number of ratings, etc.,
- Header Button – The Call-to-action button to leave a review on your Google Business listing. You can edit the text on the button. (i.e., Leave a review)
- Search box – Allow users to search specific reviews.
- Filter – Allow users to filter reviews by reviewed time and rating.
- Customization – CommonNinja provides customization options such as color pickers, font customization, and background image selector to edit the look and feel of your Google Business Reviews widget. You can also use the “Custom CSS” to insert your own CSS codes to change the appearance.
Here’s a video tutorial on how to customize CommonNinja’s Google Review widget.
Demo
Pricing
CommonNinja’s Google Review widget is free to use. However, the free plan is limited to 5 visible reviews per widget, two unique embeddable Google review plugins per account, and 300 pageviews.
- Free – 300 monthly pageviews, 2 widgets, 5 reviews per widget
- Basic – $5/month – 2,000 monthly pageviews, 10 widgets, 12 reviews per widget, editorial control
- Pro – $10/month – 35,000 monthly pageviews, 25 widgets, 50 reviews per widget, editorial control
- Business – $15/month – 3,000,000 monthly pageviews, 50 widgets, 100 reviews per widget, editorial control
Other pricing packages such as “All-in-One” provide access to 80+ widget types such as logo slider, WhatsApp Chat, and image carousel.
TagEmbed Google Reviews Widget
TagEmbed is a service like Elfsight that provides different widgets to power a website. Its Google Review Widget is simple to use and lets you track performance.
Key features:
- Responsive designs – Widgets will look amazing on every device type
- Customization – From theme catalog to designs & layouts, TagEmbed allows you to customize Google business review widget as you want to resonate with your brand
- Manage Your Content With Filters – Showcase all reviews or only positive ones with the free Google Reviews widget by TagEmbed
- Analytics – Monitor the Google widget’s performance on your website
- Quick updates – Create your widget and embed free Google reviews widget on the website and let TagEmbed fetch all the latest reviews and showcase
- Custom CSS – Customize the widget the way you want with endless possibilities
You must subscribe to a paid plan to use TagEmbed’s Google Reviews widget. The basic plan, which costs $11/month, lets the widget have a maximum of 10,000 views per month. Higher plans include more allowances in terms of views.
Embedsocial Google places review widget
EmbedSocial’s Google places review widget is equally equipped with powerful features to customize the widget. Watch the video below for a short demo.
Key features:
- Responsive design
- Live Sync
- Rich snippets
- Templates and customization options
- Respond to Google reviews from one place, on multiple accounts, and receive notifications on Slack and via email on new reviews on Google
- Dedicated Reviews listing page
- Localization (Translate into 10+ different languages)
- Review badges (Showcase average ratings)
- Filters & Tags (organize Google reviews by date, rating, or filter by keywords)
- Moderation (Hand-pick the reviews and decide to show only 5-star reviews or reviews with text only)
Price-wise, Embedsocial is a bit expensive when compared with other services. Its starting plan, which is PRO, costs $29 a month. The plus side is no plan cap on monthly views, which is excellent.
TaggBox
TaggBox is another service that provides small widgets to supplement the day-to-day requirements of a website. Its Google Reviews widget for websites is like others; It lets you:
- Collect Google reviews – Limitlessly collect powerful Google reviews using your GMB listing
- Customize user reviews and design widget – Make it the way you want
- Embed Google Reviews on your website – Simply copy and paste the HTML embed code wherever you want, and reviews will be updated and look stunning on your site.
Key features:
- Customization – Taggbox goes beyond typical customization options such as changing colors and content widgets but lets you enhance performance with CTA, banner, announcements, etc., for a unique presentation.
- Real-time updates and moderation – Latest reviews will be added to your GMB Reviews widget and shown without needing any manual work from your end, giving you full flexibility to choose which reviews to display based on timestamp and rating.
- Themes – Different themes such as News Cards, Horizontal Columns, and Widget Theme allow you to design the right Google Review widget for the website and engage visitors.
- Fast and responsive – Not only are Taggbox widgets responsive, but they also do not impact the user experience on your website, even though Google reviews are dynamically loaded.
- Insightful analytics – Monitor the performance of your Google Reviews widget feed and get details such as word cloud (i.e., popular words) and sentiment statistics, and generate reports and measure KPIs to grow your local business via online Google reviews.
It costs $29 per month to start using TaggBox to create a widget to feature Google reviews. That is because each plan is packed with other features.
Review Widget
If you are looking for a free method to get embeddable code for a Google Review widget for your website, Review-widget.net is an excellent solution.
Key features:
- Translation
- Google rich snippet data
- Templates
- Reviews filter
Google locals reviews widget by Review-widget.net is free. However, some of its templates are locked out of the free plan. And Its customization options are lesser than other contenders.
Related: 7 Free countdown timer widgets for your website
Which Google Review plugin is best for you?
It depends.
If you are looking for a simple way to do it with an uptime guarantee and not spending too much money for a Google Review embed widget, my recommendation is Elfsight. Its designs are modern, and tons of customization options are available, including custom CSS.
You can also find some plugins from the WordPress repository, such as this Widget for Google Reviews plugin and CodeCanyon if your site is built on WordPress.
For other blogging platforms such as Google Blogger, Tumblr, Brizy Cloud, and Squarespace, you can use any service and embed the Google Review widget by editing the HTML code.
How to get more reviews on Google My Business
Here are a few strategies you can implement today to acquire more reviews:
- Ask your raving customers – People will most likely not post a review on Google if you do not ask to. Generate a Google Reviews link, make it short using an URL shortener, and touch potential reviewers (aka your loyal customers) via email (directly or through action-based email automation), website notification messages, text messaging such as SMS, WhatsApp, and Telegram chat or live chat.
- Incentivize – Offer digital items such as Amazon gift cards or physical items such as mugs or T-shirts for posting a review.
- Run a giveaway – Hold a contest or a competition where people can earn points/entries by completing tasks such as reviewing your business on Google. Use quality giveaway software such as UpViral. UpViral allows you to run a giveaway and milestone campaign simultaneously, and the pricing is cheaper compared with its competition. Learn more about UpViral in this article.
- Offer discounts for existing customers – Deliver coupon codes or run special offers for existing customers for the next order when they review your business on Google.
Final words on Best Google Review widgets for Website
Reviews are a strong factor when it comes to converting users into customers. People believe in genuine reviews from other people. Google Locals or Google Place introduced the user reviews feature, and businesses started using them to showcase not only their quality of service but also improve search engine rankings.
When installing the embed code, load the JS script deferred so it will not impact the page speed and will not ruin the user experience.
Start using one of the services to generate a Google Reviews widget for your website and compare conversions with and without it.
Also, check out the best Google Business Profile schedulers to automatically post your GBP at right time.
Is there a widget for Google reviews?
There is no official widget from Google. But, several services use Google API to fetch Google My Business reviews data and let you design your widget based on your requirements (ex: show only positive reviews, add CTA, etc.,)
How to embed Google Reviews on my website?
First, you have to choose a good service that lets you design a Google Review widget. Once designed, you will receive a piece of HTML code that includes a JavaScript external file and HTML code.
Place the JavaScript code at the website’s footer and place the HTML code wherever you want to showcase the Google Reviews widget. If you are using Google Tag Manager, add JavaScript code as a tag.
How do I embed Google Reviews widget to HTML website?
Copy the HTML code for the Google Reviews widget, get the JavaScript code, and place it at the footer of the HTML website, which is just above </body>.
Next, get the HTML code and place where you want to show the Google Reviews widget.
Wow! Great blog.
I am using tagembed for my squarespace website. It is working amazing.