The Google Reviews widget (Add > Business) shows the business's Google reviews and star rating on the site. Until you fetch real reviews, it shows sample reviews so you can design it.
Steps
- Drag Google Reviews onto the page.
- Click Manage Reviews.
- Check the Google Business Profile link. If you leave it blank, the client's Google Business Profile link from ContentForge is used.
- Click Get reviews. The reviews load and show on the live site straight away. Later, use Refresh reviews to fetch them again on demand.
- Choose what to show:
- Show reviews with: a minimum star rating, or Any rating.
- Number of reviews: up to 50.
- Only reviews with written comments, Show the average rating, Show dates and Show reviewer initials.
- Show a "Write a review" link, with your own link text.
- Use Edit Design for the layout (carousel, grid, list or badge), colors and text. Every option is explained under Design panel below.
- To show a different number of reviews on phones or tablets, switch the editor to that screen size, then in Edit Design > Layout set Number of reviews. Desktop keeps its own number. Click the screen-size marker next to the setting to go back to the desktop number.
Design panel
Click Edit Design. The sections run in this order.
Layout
- Layout: Carousel (default), Grid, List or Badge.
- Carousel: a sliding row of review cards.
- Grid: review cards in rows.
- List: one review under another.
- Badge: a small card with just the average score, the stars, the review count and the "Write a review" link. No reviews show. Good for a header, a footer or beside a form.
- Number of reviews: 1 to 50, per screen size. Hidden for Badge. On desktop it's the same number as Number of reviews in Manage Reviews (default 9). Switch the editor to tablet or phone to set a different number there.
- Reviews per row: 1 to 4, per screen size. Carousel and Grid only. Default 3 desktop, 2 tablet, 1 phone.
- Visible text lines (0 = all): 0 to 10. Default 5. Longer reviews are cut to this many lines.
- Badge alignment (Badge): Column (default: follows the column's Horizontal alignment), Left, Center or Right. Set it per screen size: switch the editor to tablet or phone and pick another. Click the screen-size marker next to it to go back to the desktop choice. The floating toolbar's Alignment button sets the same thing.
- Rating alignment (Carousel, Grid, List): where the average rating and the "Write a review" link sit. Auto (default) centers them; or Left, Center, Right, per screen size.
Cards & Stars
- Card background: default white.
- Star color: default Google yellow.
- Corners: 0 to 32 px. Default 12. Also rounds the Badge.
Title, Reviewer Name and Review Text
All start closed. Each has the standard text controls (Font, Size, Text color, Format, Alignment, Text shadow), explained in Widget design panel basics:
- Title: size up to 56 px. Default 28, bold, centered. The title text itself ("What our customers say" by default) is set in Manage Reviews.
- Reviewer Name: up to 28 px. Default 15, bold.
- Review Text: up to 28 px. Default 15.
Spacing and Animations & Effects
The usual closing sections. See Widget design panel basics and Animations and effects.
Automatic weekly refresh
Sites that use the widget refresh their reviews about once a week. If a refresh fails, the old reviews stay on the site and it tries again later. A manual refresh also resets the weekly clock. Refreshing costs no credits.
Review widget for a site hosted elsewhere
The review widget you make with Create Widget on a client's details (the snippet you paste into a site that isn't on Mount Olympus) refreshes its reviews about once a month, each client on its own date. If a refresh fails, the old reviews stay up and it tries again a few hours later. If the client has no Google Business Profile link, the widget isn't refreshed until you add one. The pasted snippet never needs changing. Refreshing costs no credits.
Good to know
- All Google Reviews widgets on a site share the same set of fetched reviews.
- The average rating, the review count and the "Write a review" link follow the section behind them, so they read on a dark or brand-colored section as well as a light one. Names, dates and review text follow the card color instead, so a white card on a dark section keeps dark text.
- Number of reviews in Manage Reviews sets the desktop number. The phone and tablet numbers are set in Edit Design. A Reviews page made by Create with Zeus shows 24 reviews on phones.
- Only your agency team can fetch or refresh reviews. Client people can still edit the widget's look if they have the right permission, but they don't see the link box or the Get/Refresh button.
- Make sure the client's Google Business Profile link is set on their client record, so new sites pick it up automatically.