Hundreds of booking app reviews, and still invisible on Google

If you take bookings through Fresha, Booksy, Treatwell or a similar app, you've probably built up a wall of glowing reviews there. Customers leave them straight after an appointment, the app asks for you, and it feels like proof that you're doing well. You are. The problem is that Google can't use most of it.

Why your booking app reviews don't count on Google

The star rating and review count on your Google listing only include reviews left on Google itself. Reviews on a booking app live on that app's pages. When someone nearby searches for what you do, Google decides who to show using its own picture of your business: how well your listing matches the search, how close you are, and how well known and well reviewed you look on Google.

So a business with a handful of Google reviews can look stronger to Google than you do, even if you have far more happy customers.

A real Teesside example

When we checked a Stockton barber in October, it had about 1,400 reviews on Fresha. On Google, it wasn't in the top 20 for “barber Stockton” at all. The Website button on its Google listing opened its Facebook page, so even the people who did find it on Google had nowhere to see the services, prices or that mountain of reviews.

That's a busy, well-loved business that most new customers searching on Google will never see.

What it's costing you

Your regulars already know where to book. The people you're missing are the new ones: someone who has just moved to the area, someone whose usual place has closed, someone searching on their phone for the first time. They pick from the businesses Google shows them, usually in the map's top 3, and they rarely scroll.

Every week your listing looks thinner than it really is, some of those customers book with the business above you.

Getting it set up properly

The fix isn't about working harder for reviews. It's about making sure Google sees the business you've already built: a Google profile that's complete and in the right category, a simple way for customers to leave a Google review that sits alongside your booking app, and a proper website that Google can read, rather than a Facebook page.

Jack Thomas, who runs The Teesside Guide, does exactly this for local businesses as Oakpress Studio. His Search Fix (£149) sorts out your Google profile, listings and website basics in 5 days, and the Grow plan (£99 a month) adds a review link and QR card so new Google reviews keep coming. If you'd like to know where you stand first, he'll do a free Found Check of your business, searched from your own town.