₦airaland Forum

I run a photography studio in Port Harcourt. A few months ago I searched for my own business on Google — typed in the exact service I offer in my area — and my competitor appeared first. Newer business than mine. I have been shooting since 2011. They opened maybe two years ago.

The difference? They had 243 Google reviews. I had 117.

That was the moment I understood something I had been ignoring for years.

When someone in Port Harcourt, Lagos, or Abuja searches for a salon, a dentist, a photographer, or any service — Google does not show them the best business. It shows them the business with the most reviews and the most recent activity. A business with 50 reviews and a 4.7 rating will always show before a business with 10 reviews and a 4.9 rating. Volume beats perfection.

The problem is that getting Google reviews from Nigerian customers is genuinely hard.

Happy customers say they will leave a review and never do. Unhappy customers leave one immediately. So without a system, the review count barely moves — and the competitor who figured this out first keeps pulling ahead on every Google search.

I spent time solving this problem for my own studio and eventually built a system that sends an automated WhatsApp message to customers after each transaction — not immediately, but a couple of hours after, when they are still happy about the service. The studio went from 117 reviews to 168 in under two weeks. I did not ask a single customer manually during that period.

I am sharing this because I think a lot of Nigerian business owners do not realise how much business they are losing to Google search without knowing it. The customer searches, finds a competitor, calls them, books them, and the other business owner never finds out that customer existed.

A few questions I want to hear opinions on:

1. Do you actively manage your Google Business Profile for your business?
2. Have you ever gotten a customer specifically because they found you on Google Maps?
3. Have you tried asking customers for Google reviews and found they never follow through?

Drop your experience below. Genuinely curious how other business owners here are handling this.

Koredejlateef:
I run a photography studio in Port Harcourt. A few months ago I searched for my own business on Google — typed in the exact service I offer in my area — and my competitor appeared first. Newer business than mine. I have been shooting since 2011. They opened maybe two years ago.

The difference? They had 243 Google reviews. I had 117.

That was the moment I understood something I had been ignoring for years.

When someone in Port Harcourt, Lagos, or Abuja searches for a salon, a dentist, a photographer, or any service — Google does not show them the best business. It shows them the business with the most reviews and the most recent activity. A business with 50 reviews and a 4.7 rating will always show before a business with 10 reviews and a 4.9 rating. Volume beats perfection.

The problem is that getting Google reviews from Nigerian customers is genuinely hard.

Happy customers say they will leave a review and never do. Unhappy customers leave one immediately. So without a system, the review count barely moves — and the competitor who figured this out first keeps pulling ahead on every Google search.

I spent time solving this problem for my own studio and eventually built a system that sends an automated WhatsApp message to customers after each transaction — not immediately, but a couple of hours after, when they are still happy about the service. The studio went from 117 reviews to 168 in under two weeks. I did not ask a single customer manually during that period.

I am sharing this because I think a lot of Nigerian business owners do not realise how much business they are losing to Google search without knowing it. The customer searches, finds a competitor, calls them, books them, and the other business owner never finds out that customer existed.

A few questions I want to hear opinions on:

1. Do you actively manage your Google Business Profile for your business?
2. Have you ever gotten a customer specifically because they found you on Google Maps?
3. Have you tried asking customers for Google reviews and found they never follow through?

Drop your experience below. Genuinely curious how other business owners here are handling this.

Thanks for this!

It helps