Putting your Google and Yelp reviews on your page

Written for a business owner, not a developer. Every click is spelled out. Nothing here needs you to write code.

Part 1. Google, about 10 minutes

Before you start

Sign in to the Google account that manages your business listing, and stay in that account the whole way through. If you are signed into several Google accounts in one browser, use an Incognito window so you do not pick up the wrong one.

You will need a credit or debit card. Read "Will I be charged?" below before you worry about that.

Step 1. Open the Google Cloud console

Go to console.cloud.google.com

First time there you get a welcome screen. Tick I agree to the Terms of Service, untick the email updates if you do not want them, and press AGREE AND CONTINUE.

If it offers you a tour, or a "Get started" wizard asking what you want to build, close it. Nothing in it matters here.

Step 2. Create a project

A project is just a folder Google keeps your settings in. Yours can be called anything.

1. At the very top of the page, next to the words Google Cloud, there is a dropdown. It says Select a project, or shows a project name already. Click it.
2. In the window that opens, top right, click NEW PROJECT.
3. Project name: type something you will recognise. "My Reviews" is fine.
4. Location or Organization: leave it as No organization.
5. Press CREATE and wait about 10 seconds.

Step 3. Set up billing

Go to console.cloud.google.com/billing and press CREATE ACCOUNT, or Add billing account.

First screen. Choose your Country, which you cannot change later, tick the terms box, and press CONTINUE.

Google may ask "What best describes your organization or needs?" or something similar. That is a marketing question. Any answer works and nothing you pick changes what you get. Choose whatever is closest and move on.

Second screen, and this one does matter.

• Account type: Individual or Business. Choose Individual if the card is in your personal name. Choose Business if you want invoices in the company name and the card is the company's. This choice is permanent. It cannot be changed afterwards, you would have to create a whole new billing account, so take the extra ten seconds here.
• Name and address must match the card's billing address.
• Payment method, your card details.
• Press START MY FREE TRIAL or SUBMIT AND ENABLE BILLING.

Google places a small temporary authorisation on the card, usually around one dollar, to check it is real, then refunds it.

Then link it to your project. Back on the billing page, check your project is listed as having a billing account attached. If it is not, open the My Projects tab, find your project, click the three dots on the right, choose Change billing, pick your billing account and press SET ACCOUNT.

Will I be charged?

Almost certainly not.

• New Google Cloud customers get 300 dollars of free credit for 90 days.
• After that, Google gives a free monthly allowance on every type of call.
• We ask Google about your business roughly once a day. That is around 60 calls a month against an allowance of 1,000.

If you want certainty, set a spend alert. Open Billing, then Budgets and alerts, then CREATE BUDGET, name it anything, set the amount to 1 dollar and press FINISH. Google will email you long before any real money is involved.

Step 4. Turn on the Places API (New)

Go to the Places API (New) page.

1. Look at the project name in the top bar. If it is not your new project, switch to it with the dropdown and reload the page.
2. Press the blue ENABLE button.

There are two Google products with nearly identical names. The one you want is titled Places API (New). The older Places API will not work with us, so use the link above rather than searching for it.

If the button says MANAGE instead of ENABLE, it is already on. Move on.

Step 5. Create the API key

Go to console.cloud.google.com/apis/credentials.

1. At the top, press + CREATE CREDENTIALS.
2. Choose API key from the small menu.
3. A box appears headed API key created with a long string starting AIza. Press the copy icon beside it.
4. Paste it somewhere safe right now, a note or an email to yourself. You can always come back for it, but this saves a trip.
5. Press CLOSE.

Step 6. Lock the key down, 30 seconds and worth it

Still on the Credentials page, click the name of the key you just made.

• Under API restrictions, choose Restrict key.
• Open the Select APIs dropdown and tick Places API (New).
• Press OK, then SAVE at the bottom.

That means a leaked key cannot be used for anything else on your Google account. Leave Application restrictions set to None. Google says restriction changes can take up to five minutes to take effect.

Step 7. Connect it to your page

1. Sign in and open your tag, then Manage, then Customer Reviews.
2. Find the Google row and press it.
3. Paste your API key into the first box.
4. Business name, typed exactly as it appears on Google Maps, including Inc, LLC or an ampersand if your listing has them.
5. City, the city on your Google listing.
6. Press Find my business.
7. Click your business in the list of results. That is what connects it.

Done. Your rating, review count and review text appear on your page, and refresh about once a day.

Part 2. Yelp

A free Yelp developer key gives us your star rating and review count. It does not give us the written reviews, which sit behind a paid Yelp data plan.

We do not recommend paying for the excerpts. At around 299 dollars a month for three truncated snippets, Yelp's data plans are priced for companies pulling thousands of businesses at once, not for one business showing its own reviews. Connect the free key, take the rating, and spend nothing.

The rating and the count are most of the value anyway. Five stars and 189 reviews beside your name, linking through to your Yelp page, is the part visitors actually read.

How to get the key

1. Go to yelp.com/developers/v3/manage_app and sign in with your Yelp account. If it sends you to a plans page first, look for the free or trial option. You do not need a paid plan for the rating and count.
2. Fill in the app form. Almost none of it matters, it is Yelp finding out who you are.
   • App Name, anything. "My business page" is fine.
   • Industry, pick the closest. It changes nothing.
   • Company, your business name.
   • Contact Email, must be a business email address. Yelp rejects personal and student accounts here.
   • Description, one sentence is enough. "Showing my own Yelp rating on my business website."
   • Tick the Terms of Use and Display Requirements boxes.
3. Press Submit.
4. Your API Key appears on that same page immediately. Copy the whole string.

Then open Manage, Customer Reviews, Yelp, paste the key, type your business name and city, press Find my business and click your listing.

If your Yelp plan ever changes, we pick up whatever the new plan allows automatically the next day. Nothing needs reconnecting.

Part 3. Thumbtack

We cannot connect Thumbtack, and there is nothing you did wrong.

Thumbtack does not publish an API. Their only programmatic access is the Partner Platform, which is invitation only, granted case by case by their partnerships team, and built for sending leads and bookings rather than reading reviews. There is no key you can create for yourself at any price.

Third party services do scrape Thumbtack reviews. We will not use them. It breaks Thumbtack's terms, it stops working without warning whenever Thumbtack changes their website, and the account at risk would be yours, not ours.

What to do instead. Add your Thumbtack profile as one of the links on your page so visitors can go and read them, and collect reviews directly on your own page. Reviews left with you cannot be taken away by a platform changing its pricing or its mind.

Part 4. Let an AI walk you through it

If you use ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or something similar, copy the whole block below and paste it in. It will take you through one step at a time and answer your questions as you go.

For Google

I need to create a Google Cloud API key so my business reviews show on my website.
I am a business owner, not a developer. I have never used Google Cloud before.

Walk me through it ONE STEP AT A TIME. After each step, stop and wait for me to say
"done" before giving me the next one. If a screen asks me something I will not
understand, tell me exactly what to pick and why.

Here is what I need to end up with:
1. A Google Cloud project, any name.
2. Billing enabled on that project. I know a card is required.
3. The "Places API (New)" enabled. NOT the older "Places API", this matters.
4. An API key, restricted so it can ONLY call "Places API (New)".

Things I already know, do not re-explain them:
- Creating a project does not switch me into it, I have to select it afterwards.
- Billing account type, Individual or Business, is permanent, so ask me which I
  want before I get to that screen.
- Without active billing, Google returns my data with the ratings silently missing.

Start with step 1.

For Yelp

I need a Yelp API key so my Yelp star rating shows on my business website.
I am a business owner, not a developer.

Walk me through https://www.yelp.com/developers/v3/manage_app ONE STEP AT A TIME,
stopping after each step until I say "done".

What I know already:
- A free key gives the star rating and review count. The written reviews need a
  paid Yelp data plan, which I do not want.
- A Yelp advertising package such as an Enhanced Profile does NOT give API access.
- The contact email has to be a business email, not a personal one.
- The API key appears on the same page right after I submit the form.

Tell me what to put in each field of the app form. Most of it does not matter, so
give me something sensible to type rather than making me decide.

Start with step 1.

Part 5. When something goes wrong

Reviews refresh about once a day, so a new review on Google or Yelp takes up to 24 hours to show on your page.

Still stuck? Contact support with a screenshot of the screen you are on and we will tell you exactly what to press.