Embedding your Google reviews on your website puts social proof where it matters most.
When was the last time you searched for a local business and clicked past the first three results? Neither did your customers.
That's the Google Maps side of the equation. But here's the one most businesses miss: what happens after someone finds you on Google and clicks to your website? If they land on a site with no social proof, no reviews visible, no signal that real people have trusted you, you've just lost the conversion that Google handed you.
Embedding your Google reviews on your website closes that gap. It puts your best social proof in front of visitors at the exact moment they're deciding whether to contact you.
On the reviews side, our guide to first-party vs third-party reviews goes deeper.
Embedding Google reviews on your website does three things simultaneously:
Converts visitors: Real reviews from real customers reduce friction at the decision point. A visitor who's choosing between you and two competitors is more likely to call when they can see your 4.8-star rating with 120 reviews right on your contact page.
Supports local SEO: Review schema markup (which some embed methods include) can generate star ratings in organic search results, the yellow stars that appear next to your website in Google search. These increase click-through rates significantly.
Builds trust at scale: You can't be on every sales call. Your embedded reviews can.
The businesses that convert the highest percentage of their website visitors into leads almost always have strong social proof visible on their key conversion pages, not buried on a testimonials page no one navigates to.
📊 Flento Data: Based on Flento's analysis of service business websites, pages with embedded reviews above the fold convert visitors to leads at 34% higher rates than equivalent pages without visible reviews.
🛠️ Action Step: Go to your current website and identify where your contact page, homepage, and service pages are. If you don't see reviews on those pages, you're leaving conversions on the table.
Worth reading alongside this is embed Google Maps on your website.
Google Maps provides a basic embed code for business listings, and while it's limited, it's completely free, requires no third-party tools, and takes under 5 minutes to set up.
How it works:
What you get: A Google Maps widget that shows your location and includes your star rating visible in the map card when someone hovers. It's a map embed, not a review feed, but it does show your rating and review count.
Limitations: This method shows a static map, not a scrollable review feed. Reviews aren't displayed individually. If you want visitors to see specific review text, you'll need Method 2 or 3.
Best for: Contact pages and location pages where a map is useful context alongside your rating.
🛠️ Action Step: Embed the Google Maps widget on your contact page today. It takes 5 minutes and adds both a map and your rating to the page.
Flento's review widget pulls your Google reviews directly and displays them in a customizable widget that automatically updates when new reviews come in. This is the most practical option for most businesses.
How it works:
What you get: A live feed of your real Google reviews, automatically updated as new reviews arrive. Your rating and review count update in real time. Display options include filtering by minimum star rating, choosing how many reviews to show, and customizing colors to match your brand.
Why it matters over a static embed: When your newest reviews are always visible on your website, visitors see recency signals that build additional trust. A review from last week is more persuasive than one from two years ago.
Best for: Homepage hero sections, service pages, and any page where you want visitors to read real review text from real customers.
🛠️ Action Step: If you're using Flento, set up your review widget this week and embed it on your homepage and top-performing service page.
If you want full design control and don't want a third-party widget, you can manually create a review showcase section using your website builder's native block editor. The tradeoff is manual upkeep, you'll need to add new reviews yourself.
How to do it:
Adding review schema markup (advanced): To get star ratings in organic search, add Review or AggregateRating schema markup to your page. This is a JSON-LD code block added to your page's HTML:
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "LocalBusiness",
"name": "Your Business Name",
"aggregateRating": {
"@type": "AggregateRating",
"ratingValue": "4.8",
"reviewCount": "120"
}
}
Update the ratingValue and reviewCount manually when your reviews change significantly.
Best for: Businesses that want full design control or are on platforms where widget embeds are limited.
⚠️ Common Mistake: Displaying only 5-star reviews and hiding others. Google's guidelines discourage selective review display in advertising contexts. Show a representative sample, including some 4-star reviews makes your showcase more credible, not less.
🛠️ Action Step: Choose one of the three methods above and implement it on your homepage or contact page this week.
Location matters as much as implementation. The highest-converting placements for embedded reviews:
Homepage: Below the hero section, before the main call to action. Visitors who see reviews within the first scroll are more likely to continue engaging with the page.
Contact page: Immediately above or beside the contact form. This is the highest-intent page on your site, someone who navigated to your contact page is considering reaching out. Reviews here reduce hesitation.
Service pages: Below the service description, before the CTA. A visitor reading about your HVAC service wants to know others have had good experiences with it specifically.
Pricing page: If you have one, reviews here reduce price sensitivity. Customers who see strong reviews are less likely to price-shop.
Avoid: Testimonials pages. No one navigates to a testimonials page, it's where social proof goes to die. Put your reviews on the pages where decisions are made.
💡 Pro Tip: On mobile, reviews in a horizontal carousel format take less vertical space while still being highly visible. Most review widgets offer this as a display option.
Show your most recent reviews, not just your best. Recency matters to visitors, a page of reviews from 2 years ago looks stale. Sort by most recent.
Include reviewer photos when available. Reviews with profile photos convert better than text-only reviews. Google's embed and third-party widgets typically include these automatically.
Show your aggregate rating prominently. Your overall star rating and review count should be visible even before someone reads individual reviews. A "4.8 stars from 140 reviews" display line at the top of your review section does more work than any single review.
Link to your Google listing. A "See all reviews on Google" link adds credibility, it signals that the reviews are real and verifiable, not curated.
Mobile optimization: Verify that your review display looks clean on mobile. Most businesses get more mobile traffic than desktop, a review widget that's unreadable on mobile is worse than no widget.
Flento's review widget is designed specifically for local businesses, it pulls your Google reviews in real time and displays them in formats optimized for conversion: carousels, grids, badges, and floating widgets.
The dashboard lets you filter reviews by star rating, highlight specific reviews, and customize the display to match your brand. When new reviews come in through Flento's review request system, they appear on your website automatically, no manual updates needed.
✅ Done? Automate your review collection and website display with Flento → Try Flento free
Is it legal to embed Google reviews on my website? Yes, Google's Terms of Service allow you to display reviews using Google's own embed code or through authorized API methods. Using a third-party widget that accesses the Google Places API is also compliant. What's not allowed: copying review text and presenting it as your own content without attribution.
Do embedded Google reviews improve my Google rankings? Directly, no, Google doesn't rank your website higher because you display reviews on it. Indirectly, yes, review schema markup can generate star ratings in organic search results, which increase click-through rates, which is a behavioral signal Google considers.
How often should I update my manual review showcase? At minimum quarterly, or whenever you cross a significant milestone (100 reviews, 4.9 average, etc.). More frequently if you're in an active review-building period. The most important thing is that the review count and date shown aren't embarrassingly old.
What if I don't have enough reviews to display? Start with what you have, even 5–8 reviews displayed is better than none. Focus on building your review count alongside the display setup. Flento's review request automation can help you reach a display-worthy count faster.
Can I embed Google My Business reviews the same way as Google Business Profile reviews? Yes, "Google My Business" is the older name for what's now called Google Business Profile, the reviews themselves come from the same source. Any of the three methods in this guide, Google's native embed, a widget like Flento's, or a manual showcase, pull from the same underlying review data regardless of which name you know the platform by.