What Are Google Seller Ratings?
Seller Ratings, often referred to as Google Seller Ratings are ratings and reviews that are collected by a trusted Google Review Partner like Shopper Approved, and are then syndicated to Google on your behalf, and displayed on your company’s Google Seller Rating page.
When it comes to selling online, the one major challenge that every e-commerce merchant has is trying to stand out from everyone else in Google. Ultimately, whoever can visibly stand out from the crowd, wins the lion’s share of the attention, traffic, and sales. The rest get to fight over the scraps.
When it comes to maximum visibility, there is one time-tested, proven way to completely stand out from other search results, and that is to prominently display 4 or 5 Star ratings in your paid and organic listings on Google.
While there are different types of reviews, and different strategic places to add Star ratings (which we will cover in more detail later in another section), there is one particular type of review that is the fastest and easiest to collect and display: Seller Ratings.
Seller Ratings, often referred to as Google Seller Ratings, are ratings and reviews that are collected by a trusted Google Review Partner like Shopper Approved, and are then syndicated to Google on your behalf, and displayed on your company’s Google Seller Rating page.
Here’s an example of a Google Seller Rating page for 1-800-Flowers:
This data is aggregated and organized into a Seller Rating certificate by Google, to display results from strategic partners. They then take the overall Star rating and the total number of reviews and display them in several highly-visible, strategic locations, including Google Adwords ads, Google Shopping results, and Google Shopping Product Pages.
Below are some examples of how and where these Seller Ratings are displayed in Google:
The image above shows a Google Adwords ad with Star ratings. You can see in this example that 1-800-Flowers has a 4.8 Star rating with 409,038 reviews.
For Star ratings to display in your Adwords campaign, you must meet the following 3 criteria:
- You must have collected at least 100 unique ratings with review comments within the past 12 months.
- Those reviews have to be collected and sent to Google by an approved Google Review Partner like Shopper Approved.
- You have to have an average overall star rating of 3.5 or higher.
The image above is an example of a Google Shopping page. Google Seller Ratings show up as a green percentage here, with the total number of reviews displayed next to it. You can see that the 4.8 Star rating from the previous image has been converted into a ‘94% positive’ rating with the total number of reviews next to it.
This is a screenshot of a product page in Google Shopping. This page also displays Seller Ratings in a green percentage format with the total number of ratings next to it, along with a ‘Visit Site’ call-to-action button directly below it.
As you can see, adding Google Seller Ratings makes your ads and your listings in Google Search Results and Google Shopping really stand out.
To give you an idea of the difference, below is a screenshot of what a listing with Seller Ratings looks like next to several listings without Seller Ratings.
And here’s an example of a website with Star ratings in their ad, next to 3 other sites without stars in their ads. Which one would you click on?
Not only do Star ratings help your listings to stand out, but according to Google they also increase average Click-Through Rates (CTR) by 17%. This increase in click-through traffic has a positive net effect across several other key metrics, including lowering your average Cost-Per-Click (CPC) and lowering your Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC).
In addition to your Seller Ratings displaying in Google, Shopper Approved also actively displays and promotes your Seller Ratings, which show up in Google Organic Search Results as part of your Shopper Approved certificate. Not only is your Shopper Approved certificate page search engine optimized, but it also includes a special code that allows your Star ratings to display.
Below is an example of what G Fuel’s Shopper Approved listing looks like on Google...
Whenever a potential customer clicks on the link above, they go to the Shopper Approved Certificate, which displays all of your Seller Ratings (along with Product and Video Reviews), and a variety of other highly valuable, informative information that your customers can use to educate themselves on your company, and why they should trust you and buy from you.
Here’s an example of what G Fuel’s actual Shopper Approved Certificate looks like…
In addition to Seller Ratings, your Shopper Approved Certificate includes other valuable metrics that customers base their buying decisions on, like Product Satisfaction, Delivery Time, and Price Satisfaction. You can also display results for questions like, “Would you Recommend this Company to a friend, would you Buy Again from this Company, and Customer Support Satisfaction?"
Also, you can display Product Reviews and Video Reviews right along with your Seller Ratings (as shown in the example above). As you can see, Kyle N. provided a 5 Star Seller Rating, with additional ratings for Product Satisfaction, Price, Customer Service, and Delivery Satisfaction. Plus, he left product reviews for both of the products he bought, which, when clicked on, go directly to G Fuel’s shopping cart for those particular items.
Are the Number of Seller Ratings I Display Important?
Yes! When it comes to Seller Ratings, the more reviews you have, the more established and trustworthy you appear to be. In fact, the number of reviews is so important that it should be one of the most important factors in determining which review platform you use.
Shopper Approved is very unique in the review industry, because we highly specialize in two areas: review collection and review distribution. We do this by collecting up to 10x more ratings and reviews than any other review platform online, and then syndicating those reviews to more places on Google, Yahoo, and Bing than any other review platform.
There are actually 8 reasons why the number of reviews matters to your business. We’ve written an entire, in-depth article that you can read here if you like, but here are some of the highlights.
Here Are the Top 8 Reasons Why MORE Reviews Matter…
- More Trust and Credibility Online (Improved Customer Confidence).
- Higher Overall Star Ratings.
- Improved Brand Reputation.
- More Recent, Relevant Reviews (Review Recency).
- More User-Generated Content (UGC) and improved SEO.
- More Movement, Momentum, and Influence.
- More Social Proof and Higher Click-Through Rates (CTR).
- Better Employee Confidence and Easier Recruiting.
Below is an example of why the number of reviews is important. In the screenshot below you can see three different domain name companies - two with stars in their ads...
If you were to go just by name alone, you would probably pick Google, or did you even notice that they were there? If you’re like most people, what you probably did was look at the two-star ratings and notice that one of them had a 4.1 Star rating with 243 reviews, and the other had a 4.7 Star rating with 20,228 reviews. Is there any doubt which one looks more trustworthy and more popular?
One of the reasons why Godaddy has such a low star rating is because they don’t have very many reviews, and they collect reviews from Trustpilot, which is an open-source review platform, so their star rating doesn’t reflect their true reputation. NameCheap on the other hand actively collects reviews from their customers, so their star rating is naturally higher and more accurately reflects their true reputation.
The end result? NameCheap gets the bulk of the trust, credibility, popularity, and clicks, Godaddy gets an initial glance, but ultimately gets dismissed because of its low Star rating and low review count, and Google doesn’t even get noticed.
Can you see why it’s so important to not only have Seller Ratings but to collect more ratings and reviews?
Now, if you don’t think you make enough sales to collect a large number of reviews, you would be right - that is, if you tried to collect reviews with any other review company other than Shopper Approved.
Collecting more trusted, verified reviews in more places has been our mission since we first opened our doors back in 2010. It’s what we excel at. It’s what sets us apart from every other review company. And it’s what we do for thousands of companies around the world every single day, from brand new startups to the Fortune 500.
Bottom line, if you want more Seller Ratings in more strategic places in Google, then you want Shopper Approved. There is no other option even worth considering.
What about Product Reviews and Video Reviews?
In addition to Seller Ratings, there are two other types of reviews that every online merchant should be actively collecting and displaying on their website and on Google - Product Reviews and Video Reviews.
In the next two parts of this blueprint, we will go into detail about these two types of reviews, including examples and screenshots, and why they’re vital to your online success.
Other review articles:
Drive More Visibility, Traffic, and Sales
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