Your Google Business Profile has a healthy set of reviews, and your website says nothing about them. A visitor comparing you with two competitors has to leave your site, search your name and scroll through Maps to find out what customers think. You would rather they saw a few of those reviews on your home page.
You can show Google reviews on WordPress in three honest ways: a widget plugin that pulls them in, a simple badge or link that sends people to your profile, or a few quotes placed by hand with care. Each has a cost, and a couple of the common shortcuts can turn a trust signal into a problem.
Three ways to show Google reviews on WordPress
| Method | What the visitor sees | Main trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Review widget plugin | A live list, carousel or badge with star ratings and reviewer names | Extra scripts on the page, an account connection to keep working |
| Link or button to your profile | A “Read our reviews on Google” button, perhaps with your average rating written beside it | Nothing updates by itself, and visitors leave your site to read |
| Hand-placed quotes | Two or three short reviews styled as quotes | Easy to get wrong: they go stale and must be quoted exactly |
Before choosing, look at where a review would actually help. On a service page, one review that mentions that service does more than a carousel of twenty. On the contact page, a short line with a link to your profile is often enough. As with any addition, the questions in our guide to deciding how to add a new feature to WordPress apply here too: what it is for, what it loads, and who will look after it.
Option 1: a review widget plugin
Search the plugin directory for “Google reviews” and you will find several widget plugins, free and paid. They work in broadly the same way. You connect the plugin to your business, it fetches reviews from Google, and you place a block or shortcode wherever you want them to appear.
Setting one up
- Take a backup, or work on a staging copy if you have one.
- Install the plugin and open its settings. Read how it connects to Google before going further (more on that below).
- Find your business. Most plugins ask you to search by name or paste your profile’s place ID or Maps link. Check that the address it finds is yours, not a business with a similar name.
- Choose a layout: a list, a slider, a small badge with your average rating, or a grid.
- Set the filters you are allowed to set. Many plugins let you hide reviews with no text or show only recent ones.
- Add the plugin’s block in the block editor, or paste its shortcode into a Shortcode block. On a block theme you can also place it in a template part, such as the footer, through Appearance → Editor. In a classic theme, a widget area under Appearance → Widgets works the same way.
- Check the page on a phone. Carousels in particular can be cramped or hard to swipe on small screens.
How the plugin talks to Google
This is the part worth understanding before you install anything. Plugins get reviews in one of a few ways. Some ask you to create your own API key in Google Cloud, which usually means setting up a Google Cloud project with a billing account. Some connect through the developer’s own servers, so your site depends on their service staying online. Some sign in to your Business Profile account directly.
Each route can stop working. API keys get restricted or deleted, a developer’s service can change its terms, and account connections can expire when someone changes a password or leaves the business. When that happens, the widget usually shows old reviews, an empty box or an error message. Put a reminder in your calendar to look at the widget every month or two.
The cost to page speed
A review widget often loads its own scripts, styles and fonts, plus reviewer profile photos. On a home page that is already busy, that adds weight. Test the page before and after with a speed test, and if the difference is noticeable, use the lighter badge layout or show the widget on one page only. The Website Speed hub covers how to measure that properly.
Option 2: a badge or link to your profile
This is the plainest choice, and it is often the best one for a small business. Add a Buttons block that says something like “Read our reviews on Google” and link it to your Business Profile. Your profile shows its own share link, which you can copy, or you can link to your business on Google Maps.
If you write your average rating next to the button, remember that it is a snapshot. A line saying “Rated [x] on Google” stays on the page long after the rating has moved. Either update it when you review the site each quarter, or leave the number out and let the link do the work.
Option 3: quoting a few reviews by hand
Placing two or three reviews yourself, using the Quote or Pullquote block, keeps the page light and puts the most relevant words where they help. It needs more care than the other two methods.
- Quote exactly. Do not tidy the grammar, shorten it in a way that changes the meaning, or merge two reviews into one.
- Say where it came from. “From a Google review, March” with the reviewer’s first name or initials is clear and fair. Do not present a Google review as a testimonial written for you.
- Think about the reviewer. They posted publicly on Google, not on your site. Using their full name and photo on your own page is a step further than they took. First name and initial is the polite default, and asking first is better still.
- Do not cherry-pick dishonestly. Choosing a review that mentions a service is fine. Arranging quotes to suggest you never get complaints, when your profile shows otherwise, misleads people who will check.
Google has its own terms for content taken from Maps and its APIs, including rules on attribution and on storing or copying that content. Read them yourself rather than relying on anyone’s summary, ours included, and if you are unsure whether something is allowed, link to your profile instead of copying. If you want reviews you fully control, collect them yourself and show them as testimonials, which is the subject of the post on showing testimonials you collected yourself.
Review stars, schema and what not to promise yourself
Some widget plugins add structured data that marks the reviews up as ratings for your business, in the hope of getting stars beside your site in search results. Google has said it does not show review stars for businesses that publish reviews about themselves on their own sites, so this markup is unlikely to do what the plugin implies. If the plugin has an option to add review schema, leaving it off is the safer choice. Your SEO plugin’s business details are the better place for structured data, as explained in the post on LocalBusiness schema for a small business.
When the reviews misbehave
- The widget shows nothing. Open the plugin’s settings and look for a connection or API error. Reconnect the account or check the key in Google Cloud.
- It shows another business. The place lookup matched the wrong listing. Paste your own Maps link or place ID instead of searching by name.
- The page got slower or the layout jumps. Switch to a smaller layout, or load the widget on fewer pages.
- A bad review appears on the home page. Do not panic and do not delete the widget in a hurry. Reply to the review on Google first; a calm public reply often reassures readers more than a wall of five-star quotes.
- You want it gone. Remove the block or shortcode from each page first, then deactivate and delete the plugin. If you delete the plugin first, the shortcode text can be left showing on the page.
Showing reviews is one half of the job; the other half is getting them. That belongs to a separate post, on asking customers for Google reviews within the rules, and it is part of the wider picture of how to manage a WordPress website as an owner.
Frequently asked questions
Can I show only my five-star Google reviews?
Most widget plugins let you set a minimum rating, and choosing your best reviews is common. Be aware that visitors can see your full profile in seconds. A display that hides every critical review can look less believable than one that includes a fair mix, so many owners set a modest filter rather than a strict one.
Why does my widget show only a few of my reviews?
The public review data Google provides to most tools is a selection, not your complete history. Some plugins work around this by connecting to your own Business Profile account, and some collect reviews over time as new ones appear. Check the plugin’s documentation to see which method it uses before expecting the full list.
Will new Google reviews appear on my site automatically?
With a widget plugin, usually yes, but not instantly. Plugins fetch reviews on a schedule and often cache them, so a new review may take a while to show. Hand-placed quotes and a rating written next to a button never update by themselves, so they need checking whenever you review the site.
Can I reply to Google reviews from my WordPress site?
No. Replies are made in your Google Business Profile, signed in as the owner or a manager, and then appear under the review on Google. A widget on your site only displays what is already there, so a reply you post on Google will usually show up in the widget the next time it refreshes.
A profile link and one or two well-chosen quotes are enough for most small sites, and a widget can always come later. Where a review plugin is already installed and throwing errors or dragging the page down, our WordPress support team is happy to look at the setup and talk through whether to repair it, replace it or drop it.
Next in this series: How to Add a Cookie Banner in WordPress That Works
