All businesses can be reviewed, but only certain service businesses will have all aspects of customer experience collected and shared. However, to offer Google reviews to your clients, a few things do need to be in place. Here are the keys things that your business needs to do to be eligible
You need to know Google’s policies
You must follow Google’s Terms of Service when soliciting reviews. This means you should not offer any rewards and should ask your customers whether they seem to have had a positive or negative experience.
Your business needs to be a “Place” on Google Maps.
This will give you a Google Business Profile on which customers can leave reviews.
You need to have your Google Business Profile verified.
Creating a listing on Google Maps (which automatically creates a Business Profile) does not give you control over that listing. You need to create a Google My Business account and verify ownership of your Business Profile through that account.
Features and Benefits Google Customer Reviews program.
It’s free:
Google Customer Reviews is the only way you will be able to get Google Seller Ratings (stars that show in Google Ads) without paying to collect with a Google Licensed Review Partner. For some small businesses, this is a big pull, and even though the service isn’t perfect, it does provide a way for businesses to show stars in their ads that they otherwise, couldn’t afford to.
Google Customer Reviews Badge:
You can place this optional badge on any page of your site to help visitors associate your company with Google. It will show a rating between one and five stars.
Although you won’t be able to display the feedback collected with Google Customer Reviews in full on your site, you can embed a badge that highlights your overall score. This is marked ‘Google Rating’ giving it a fair bit of authority and helping to improve trust onsite as well as in the SERPs.
Google Seller Ratings:
Seller ratings are the total rating score that appears on Search Ads, Shopping ads, and the optional Google Customer Reviews badges. They are an extension type that automatically reveals advertisers with higher ratings. The data for seller ratings are gathered from reliable customer review sources—such as Google Customer Reviews—and help customers find quality and trustworthy businesses. All the feedback collected through Google Customer Reviews counts towards your Google Seller Ratings – the stars that show below your business in Google Ads.
Google Seller Ratings boost conversion rates dramatically as customers can see you as a trustworthy and reliable merchant. As a result, you could see your PPC spending reduced by up to 17%!
Remember: To qualify for Google Seller Ratings, you must collect at least 100 reviews per country, within 12 months and have an average star rating of at least 3.5.
Google Product Ratings:
Along with Google Seller Ratings, if you set up your Google Customer Reviews to ask for feedback on specific products, the feedback collected will count towards your product ratings, which show in both paid and organic search results, including Google Shopping.
Again, these stars increase conversion and will do wonders for your online success.
Google Customer Reviews Opt-in:
This option is offered to all customers after completing a purchase on your site. In addition, all customers who opt-in may receive a follow-up email post-purchase.
Google Customer Reviews Survey:
After opting in, customers may receive this survey in an email. The survey is formatted as a brief questionnaire that helps customers rate their experience with the store.
Share a link to leave a review:
You can create and share a link for customers to leave reviews. To get customers to use the link:
- Include it in thank you emails.
- Add it at the end of a chat interaction.
- Include it on your receipts.
- Go to your Business Profile.
- Select Customers – Reviews- Get more reviews. Tip: On your computer, using Google Search, select Ask for reviews.
- Share the link with your customers directly or use the sharing options provided.
Google Customer Reviews is a valuable program for businesses that provides an opportunity to increase conversions by displaying Google Seller Ratings in Ads, but also to improve organic search ranking with product ratings. If you’re not already taking advantage of this program, we recommend doing so as soon as possible!