Customer reviews are the driving source of any marketing campaign and can boost overall conversion rate. Do you own an eCommerce website or online store? Want to show star ratings near your brand name as shown in below image? you should list your business on customer review websites from where Google is sourcing the seller ratings to display in their ads as shows in below screenshot.
Well, there are many of such business review websites online but only few of them are used by Google to fetch ratings.
In this article I will show you the way to get star ratings with the help of online business review websites trusted by Google!
Online reviews and ratings have become an integral part of the consumer buying behavior. This has given the choice to the smart customers who now consult their peer groups online to get a feedback for any product or service they are planning to use. You will be surprised to know that 86% of consumers regularly or occasionally read online reviews from such trusted websites about brand or services they suppose to buy from.
This is the reason an eCommerce brand or online retailer should consider listing at online customer reviews websites as a significant part of their brand building and marketing campaign. Below are few popular reasons customers check for online reviews before made their purchase decision.
- To consult people through reviews or ratings before buying.
- To find if the site provides authentic services.
- To get personal recommendations and to be ensure they do not make a hasty buy.
- To cancel their choice in case of negative reviews.
- To get comfortable with the product and to get assurance that they have made the right decision.
Online customer reviews build credibility for the ecommerce brand and have a lot of significance in the mind of consumers. Therefore no store should miss out the opportunity to listed on such popular and trusted online review website offers various features that can increase number of reviews and credibility of your brand in no time. Even few online review sites also suggests that the ecommerce business is secure, reliable and has excellent customer service.
Not focusing on online reviews can be your biggest mistake as online ratings and reviews directly benefits to ecommerce businesses to gain better CTR in their organic & paid search result in Google search. Yes, Google gathers seller ratings from reputed and trusted online sources which aggregate online reviews. Seller ratings shows next to the AdWords ads which defines overall customer’s experience with the particular business. This information builds trust in customers while search for relevant product in Google and increase the click through rate as compare to other listing.
But the main question is; how to get seller ratings for your brand in Google SERP?
It is pretty easy to get seller ratings for your online business when someone search for your brand in Google SERP. Google source seller ratings from various sources mentioned below:
- If you are an eCommerce brand, you can gain seller ratings by enrolling for Google trusted store
- StellaService, an independent company that analyzes the quality of your customer service through the measurement of your customer care, shipping and returns. More information about StellaService is provided in later section of the article.
- Aggregated performance metrics from Google-led shopping research.
- Ratings from Google Consumer Surveys, a market research platform which is used by Google to collect data for certain domains and businesses.
- Shopping reviews for your store domain, which include reviews from the various independent sources.
The best and easiest way is to list your brand at various independent customer shopping review websites recommended by Google from where they fetch the reviews and start showing in search result if it meets below criteria:
- Your listing must have at-least 30 valid & unique reviews in last 12 months
- The average ratings for your listing should not be less than 3.5
Here is the list of popular online customer review websites from where Google sources the reviews of businesses. Just go through them and list your business on one or multiple websites where you customers are comfortable to share their experiences:
#1 ShopperApproved.Com – Paid
This is one of the popular review platform that will provide your reviews a maximum visibility by sourcing them to popular websites and search engines including Google, Yahoo and Facebook. The website collects merchant ratings and reviews in bigger numbers which increases their credibility. They provide local reviews, merchant reviews and product reviews. They have different plans for small businesses and the corporate.
The prices start from $199 (for upto 2000 reviews) to $599 per month depending on the requirements of your business.
Once the user make a purchase, they will be redirected to review page and if they did not write a review, shopperapproved also send emails to collect the customer review for your brands.
#2 TrustPilot.Com – Paid (Offers Free Trial)
This website increases your sales opportunity by inviting real and honest customer reviews. The website provides authentic reviews. They also help your company in encouraging customer reviews through email marketing and also provide the in-depth review statistics to help you understand your customers better. The ratings and reviews that are posted on Trustpilot can also be made visible on your company website.
They also help you share ratings data to be displayed with your search results on a search engine. You will also get an ROI calculator to understand what you are making through these reviews. The plans include the Lite, the Pro and the Enterprise plan and the yearly membership would cost you from $299 to $ 549. They also provide a 14 day free trial period for the new customers.
#3 Reputation
If you are an enterprise business and looking for reputed ORM solution, reputation is for you. Recognize as Leader Enterprise ORM by G2Crowd in 2019, Reputation can offer various solutions to you.
Reputation offers various solutions ranging from online reviews to online surveys and search accelerator. You can opted for customize solutions depending upon your needs.
#4 StellaConnect
The popular site provides online ratings measurement. They will contact your customer care team and will shop your products multiple times every month that helps them objectively measure the quality of your customer service. They collect data that can deliver multiple benefits to your marketing campaigns. The company helps to provide seller ratings on Google that helps the businesses to increase stickiness and also the conversion rates across your digital properties. They also provide matrix and data to help you understand your growth online.
#5 ResellerRatings.Com
This is a portal for finding reviews in a niche category of products including consumer electronics and hardware products. The reviews are well trusted and the products can be searched through categories to get the reviews and the ratings. They also have a best and worst store rating for every product category. They run a parallel merchant blog online that helps the customers and the reviewers better understand the products.
The website has currently more than 6 million reviews posted by trusted reviewers which increases the credibility and the trustworthiness of the site. This can be best option if you are a local business and want to promote your local business listing to gain more traction. This will not only boost your local presence but will help you to handle all local businesses from a single place.
#6 ViewPoints.com
The website provides a wide range of reviews for many product categories including kitchen appliances, home appliances, laundry, garden beauty products and many more categories that are an everyday buy for customers. The brands are the one that are most people’s first choice and the authentic reviews help people make an informed choice. The companies get trust and online credibility though the reviews which make the customers get awareness about your company and products.
#7 Sitejabber
SiteJabber is another popular business review website which understands the importance of customer generated reviews and also of their impact on the business. They send review invitations to your customers and prompt them to write reviews after he/she has bought a product online. Thus they have a pool of reviews that help you to get the correct ratings. They also help you in customer retention and build a goodwill online that helps your business to gain presence and loyal customers later on.
SiteJabber offers 4 different plans from which the first and recommended plan to start is FREE plan. In free plan, you are allowed to connect 50 reviews per month. If you are planning to collect more reviews, you can go for other plan starts from $159 to $399 per month.
#8 Bizrate.com
This is mainly a product review website and the reviews and ratings shown here are trusted by most customers online. Bizrate will also show the weekly deals from some of the store which is available online with discounts and other benefits. They provide accurate product information from most E-commerce stores and websites and this helps the customer make an informed decision. You can find ratings, prices, read reviews or compare products here.
#9 Verified-reviews.com
This is a website that provides verified and extremely honest customer reviews and they currently have more than 3 million reviews on their website. They also provide a free trial period for the new businesses that want to test the ROI and their pricing plans range from $99 to $1299 per month. You can choose a plan that best suits your business by using their calculator based on the number of orders your business receives per month. Thus the website helps you get the best returns through the online campaigns.
Thus the idea of increasing the online presence of companies through the authentic customer reviews posted on trusted sites is a smart move. You can ensure your customer understands the good, bad and the non-existent brands in the category and make sure that your business gets the credibility and the exposure in the online markets so that you can reap the benefits later on.