Phil Dossett, Author at Engage Digital

If it was just for informing your new website visitors of what past customers think of your quality products, how easy the website was to use, or how wonderfully you resolved problems, then displaying reviews and ratings on your website would be worth it.

Shopping online; assuming the flowers will be delivered, hoping that the shirt fits, praying the headphones will meet your expectations, takes a leap of trust from your customers – the more they see you, engage with you or read positive reviews about you, the more they will trust your brand and your ability to deliver.

CXL research showed that review stars in search engine results significantly improve click-through rates, by as much as 35%.

Reviews provide that level of trust and confidence – in fact, 63% of customers are more likely to make a purchase from a site which has user reviews. They may not take your word that you have outstanding service or that your product does what no one else’s does, but they will be believe happy (or disgruntled) customers.

So, while Customer Reviews are great for business in general they’re also very influential with Google. If your site shows on a Google results page with a 4 or 5-star rating, all other things being equal, it’s going to get more clicks than sites with no stars at all. Visitors will be heading your way with a positive impression of what you offer before they even click.

Some businesses see an increase in click through rate as much as 20-35% after implementing star ratings in their search results.

Many SEO experts also believe that good star ratings and reviews will also help improve your search position, if only because people are more likely to click a result showing a star rating and therefore a higher click through rate and traffic volume will rank you higher with Google anyway.

Product Reviews vs Seller Reviews

Product review stars are different than seller ratings. Product review stars pertain to the products themselves while the seller review stars reflect a business’ standing.

A product review typically reads something like “I loved the solid craftsmanship of this product” while a seller review is more likely “Awesome company to deal with – great customer service.”

The stars that display in Google Organic search results are almost always product reviews.

How to Get Star Ratings in Google Organic Search Results

To get star ratings on your Google Search results listing you need to use “schema.org markup” or structured data. This is the code that google will read and interpret when indexing your website. It clearly labels your content and tells Google that your business name or phone number or review copy is exactly that and not just random words on a page. Adding review markup code to a product page will allow that product to show stars in search results.

Note that there are two types of review schema markups available:

Single review with a single rating. When you use schema markups for individual reviews, things are straightforward. You have several items available to add into your code – the product reviewed, the review body, the author, the date published, the review rating, and the publisher.
Aggregate ratings. If you have multiple reviews available and an average rating calculated, you can use the aggregate ratings markup which adds rating and review count options.
Check your work for errors with Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool.
To ensure that Google indexes your changes, resubmit your XML sitemap in Google Search Console.
Check your results within a few weeks through an organic keyword search.

Writing Review Schema Markups

You’ll need to add markup code to a product page that will look something like this:

<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Product">
<img itemprop="image" src="product-image.jpg" alt="Product Name"/>
<span itemprop="name">Product Name</span>
<div itemprop="aggregateRating" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/AggregateRating">
<span itemprop="ratingValue">4.5</span>
out of <span itemprop="bestrating">5</span>
based on <span itemprop="ratingCount">32</span>user ratings.
</div>

Check out the full list of schema types here. Google gives their own rundown of how to use Review rich snippets here, plus look up other Content Types in their sidebar menu.

There are several ways to write the review schema markup and get it on to your website:

Insert code yourself with the assistance of Google Structured Data Markup Helper
Use a number of free tools like Raven’s Schema Structured Data or for aggregate rating markup check out Web Code Tools form.
Or employ the help of a Grand Web Developer 🙂

After you have that code on a product page, you should:

Check your work for errors with Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool.
To ensure that Google indexes your changes, resubmit your XML sitemap in Google Search Console.
Check your results within a few weeks through an organic keyword search.

Strangely, given it’s reputation for authenticity, Google is not requesting proof of accuracy of these review statements at present. It’s likely that Google will change this stance eventually so we don’t recommend falsifying review information. And don’t use review rich snippets on your home page – google deems this as an “unnatural” place to find a product review.

How to Get Seller Ratings Stars on Adwords

Seller ratings are an automated extension type that showcases advertisers with high ratings. While we can get Product Rating stars in organic search results for “free”, bar the time and resources required for review collection and schema markup, until 2017 we had to subscribe to an aggregation service for Seller Rating stars to appear with Adwords. However, Google now bases seller ratings on several sources, including:

Google Customer Reviews, a free program that collects post-purchase comments on behalf of advertisers.
Aggregated performance metrics from Google-led shopping research.
Shopping reviews and ratings from google-approved independent review websites including:
- Shopper Approved – recommended – feature rich and great value – talk to Grand about extra special deals
- Verified Reviews – another strong option
- Reseller Ratings
- Trust Pilot
- Yotpo

Before signing up to a service, make sure to check if the plan includes both Seller Ratings for Adwords, Google Shopping (PLAs) ratings and Product Reviews – and only pay for what you need.

Seller ratings will only show when a business has at least 150 unique reviews and a average rating of 3.5 stars or higher.

Google Customer Reviews for Free

Once installed in to your Checkout process, Google Customer Reviews will offer a survey opt-in that allows your customers to provide feedback about their shopping experience on your site. You stipulate a time allowance for shipping and Google automatically sends a survey email after the expected delivery.

You can also add a Google Customer Reviews badge to your site helps which identifies your site with the Google brand and increases customer trust.

Check whether your ecommerce platform like Magento, Shopify and BigCommerce has a preconfigured app to take care of the cart integration.

Once enough ratings and feedback have been collected:

Seller Ratings are displayed under your Google Shopping (Merchant Center) Dashboard
Seller Ratings will qualify to appear on your Google Shopping Ads and Adwords ads
An aggregate rating can be displayed on your website within the Google Customer Reviews badge

Google Customer Reviews vs Paid Aggregators

The plus for Google’s own Customer Review process is that its free and relatively easier to pin to your ecommerce checkout but you have little control over the message copy and design of their independent approach.

The advantages of the subscription-based review aggregators are that they provide convenient and well-designed onsite review callouts and badges, with automated email review request systems, plus the reputation and trust of their relevant businesses. Services can also cover Product reviews for organic search results. A paid Google-approved provider gives you more opportunity for automation and customisation and integration into your website with review and ratings callout display. Plus, the paid systems can work across multiple channels including Google, YouTube, Yahoo, Facebook, Bing and Twitter. They can be set to collect Seller Reviews, Product reviews and Local Reviews.

Product Reviews for Service-based Websites

Note, if you have a service based business you can get product reviews for free since you’re not going to syndicate anything into Google Shopping. For example, finance companies can create service pages like “personal loans,” “car finance,” and “home mortgages”. Each of these service pages would act as their “product” reviews.

Check if you have a Seller Rating

Go to the following URL: https://www.google.com/shoppin…
Replace “address.co.nz” with your domain (do not put http or www in front).

Key Takeaways…

Seller Reviews and star ratings for your business, displayed by Google in paid and organic search results and Maps, provide valuable information to customers and help them make purchasing decisions. They can help your business stand out more prominently than your competitors. Businesses must accumulate at least 150 reviews in the past 12 months from approved sources for Seller Reviews to show.
Product Reviews show star ratings in Google Shopping ads and Product Listing Ads (from approved reviews) and organic search results (from website schema). You must have a minimum of 50 reviews across all your products. A product must have at least 3 reviews for star ratings to show on Shopping Ads, though products with fewer than 3 reviews are eligible to show star ratings on the Shopping property.
If you sell products on your website make sure you take advantage of Product Schema & Review Schema. And for that matter other schemas like Organisation, Person, Local Business and Restaurant.
Actively request reviews and ratings from customers – automate this process within your website, request reviews within the website and via email, filter out consumer complaints where practical and spread reviews over Google+, Google Customer Reviews and approved review aggregators.
Check your Product Review schema work for errors with Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool.
Create a link for customers to write reviews from Google Places
Pursuing Google+ reviews could still be the easiest way to at least ensure that you have star ratings for branded searches.
Star Ratings on Google Adwords requires a little more authenticated work but can be produced for free by requesting customers to write reviews via Google Places and by using Google’s automated Customer Reviews within a shopping checkout.
Google Approved review aggregators offer other features including automated campaigning of customers, website banners and review displays plus their independent trust status but their subscription services can be expensive.

A marketing plan shouldn’t be written and put on the shelf – that’s why we treat a client’s plan like a guidebook that continually focuses our actions and reminds us of the strategies we’re deploying to achieve your KPIs.

Our marketing process covers 11 crucial steps:

Brand Mission
Value Proposition
Buyer Personas
SWOT Analysis
Competitor Analysis
Marketing Budget
Optimised Website
Marketing Tools
Strategy Grid
Activity Calendar
Goals & KPIs

We’ll guide a client through these steps and summarise the information utilising our planning templates. It’s a 2-way process where the client imparts valuable information to us and in turn we provide workshops and tools to facilitate the planning and ongoing activity:

#1. Describe Your Brand Mission

The first step in creating a strong marketing plan is to highlight the mission statement of your company. All of your marketing efforts will revolve around fulfilling that statement for your customers.

What purpose does your company serve?
What problems are you solving?
Why are you in business?
Summarise that mission in one or two sentences.

#2. Define the Value Proposition

There are many ways to go about developing a Value Proposition, but we think the following formula cuts to the chase. It’s also great for presenting the ideas to your team or visualising how the website page might convey this:

Headline. What is the benefit you’re offering to customers, in 1 short sentence? Might mention the product and/or the customer. Does it grab attention – why should I care? What’s unique or desirable about it.
Sub-headline or a 2-3 sentence paragraph. A specific explanation of what you do/offer, for whom and why is it useful. Why should I choose you rather than a competitor’s product.
Bullet points. List 3-4 key benefits or features. Make sure the support the headline and your overall claim.
Visual. Images communicate much faster than words. Show a hero shot or an image that reinforces your main message.

Evaluate your current value proposition by checking whether it answers these questions:

What product or service is your company selling?
What is the end-benefit of using it?
Who is your target customer for this product or service?
What makes your offering unique and different?
Why would I purchase your product/service over the competitions?

Go beyond what you sell and focus on why it matters
to your customer

#3. Build Buyer Personas

Buyer Personas are semi-fictional profiles of your ideal customers derived from research and sales data from your existing customers. They define groups of our most important customers and consider demographics, behaviours, interests, and especially, goals and pain points; so that can align content and strategies with them throughout the buyer’s journey.

Match specific Persona’s to selected traffic sources and promotional hooks/lead-magnets and to certain stages within the Buyer’s Journey to personalise your messaging.

Write up your key Personas by downloading our Buyer Persona MS Word template.

#4. Conduct a SWOT Analysis

Identify Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

This bullet point table will focus us on the issues that need to be addressed for the coming year.

Use this information to address your marketing strategies.

To find your strengths answer questions like:

What does our organisation do well?
What are the things that other people say you do well?
Why did we win our last pitch or why does Distributor X deal with us?
What processes do we have in place that have made us effective?
What do we currently do that is a unique strength to our business?

To find your weaknesses answer questions like:

What could we improve in our organisation?
What is causing a constant barrier to our success?
What are we currently doing in our marketing process that could be improved?
What are the things you need to avoid?
What does our competitor do well that we don’t?

To analyse opportunities outside your business, answer the following:

What external trends could bring opportunities?
What are the current ongoing trends?
What is the market missing? What disruptive thinking could you benefit from?
What is changing in our industry that we could take advantage of right now?

Analyse the threats that may impede your success:

What obstacles are you facing on your current mission?
What are the negative aspects in the current market?
What are our competitors doing better than us?
Are there changes in our industry that could threaten our efforts?
What political, economic, or social aspects could hinder our marketing efforts?

#5. Competitor Analysis

You don’t have to be the best business in the world – you just have to outperform your competitors.

List key direct competitors in your market.
Include global operators that you’d nominate as hero’s or as a source of inspiration.
What are your competitor’s strengths and how can we negate or take advantage of them?
Determine competitor vulnerabilities, and capitalise upon those weaknesses.
What are they doing right and how could we improve on that?

Track your progress against your competitors based on industry reported sales, research, website rank tracking etc.

#6. Set a Marketing Budget

There are four ways you can set a marketing budget for the year:

Percent of Revenue. This is where the revenue that your business brings in determines what your budget will be.
Top-Down. This is where the GM or Marketing Manager decides what your marketing team will spend.
Competition Matching. This type of budget is based on trying to reverse engineer what your competitors are doing.
Goal Driven. This type of budget is based on the goals that you have set for the year. The amount you spend on each project will depend on the kind of goal you need to reach.

#7. Optimise Your Website

The website and the content within becomes the hub for all our marketing activity. And it’s crucial that your website gets the brand positioning, design and coding attention it deserves…

It’s the place to deliver a clear and unique value proposition so your prospects and customers get what’s in it for them and why they should purchase from you. That proposition is usually delivered distinctly and quickly within key landing pages through copy and images but is also disseminated in overall website design, appealing to your Buyer Personas.
An optimised website usually makes the development of landing pages, blog posts and lead capture forms a breeze. No doubt it will be built around a user-friendly Content Management System (CMS).
An optimised website will be search engine optimised (SEO) to ensure keyword ranking on google and easily found by your targets. Intelligent use of keyword research will help optimise meta titles, meta descriptions, page headlines, copy and content and overall strategic direction of your site.

Your website is the centre for content distribution, lead capture, conversion and deal closure. And it’s a key starting point for attracting traffic and nurturing leads through our conversion processes. Don’t skimp on the investment required!

#8. Setup Marketing Tools

Whether you’re using a spreadsheet or something fancier, there is a plethora of tools and apps to help us plan, optimise, execute and track our research, activity and results.

A solid marketing strategy, backed by the right technology stack for your business, will help you stay on track to achieving your goals and may include:

The tools are there to help us do a job your competition probably haven’t even begun to think about. We’re going far beyond a monthly email newsletter – we’re strategically moving your traffic, leads and customers through an intelligent sales funnel – all within a level that matches your budget and resources, of course.

#9. Build out a Strategy Grid

Build out a Strategy Grid for your business defining your business/product strategies and tactics by buying stage; Attraction, Engagement, Conversion and Retention.

This is perhaps the most important element of your marketing plan because it assesses and details exactly what you’ll do with the resources that you have.

#10. Detail an Activity Planner

While the overall tools and strategies might be in place or documented, we still need to lay out what will happen next week or next month.

Dependent on your appropriate promotional cycle (weekly, monthly etc), you need to set up a planner to detail what email campaign will be delivered on the 15^th or what promotion will run in June.

It could include a Content Publishing calendar or detail about what automation flow you’ll introduce in two month’s time.

While you should lay out a full 12 months of activity, it’s important to concentrate on the detail for the immediate rolling 3-4 months.

The activity planner can also include a list of strategic things-to-do with ideal delivery dates.

#11. Set Goals & KPIs

The last element in our marketing process is to set goals and key performance indicators. Our marketing goals should be S.M.A.R.T. This means they should be:

Specific. You should know exactly what you’d like to accomplish.
Measurable. If you can’t measure it, it’s not useful.
Attainable. Stretch yourself, but avoid setting yourself up for failure.
Relevant. Your marketing goals should be connected to clear business outcomes.
Time-based. Give yourself a deadline by which you’ll achieve your goal.

Set up a spreadsheet for these goals and combine those results with reporting from sources like Google Analytics. Track them by your most appropriate promotional cycle (weekly, monthly etc). Common KPIs include:

Revenue
Gross profit %
No. of online transactions
Active Customers
Website visitors
Leads generated
Conversion rates
New Customers

Takeaways

While a strong marketing plan must cover at least these 11 elements, we’ve found that the more concise you can write this up, the better. It’s not that detailed reports and analysis are unimportant but when we’re summarising your plans and activity the shorter you keep it, the more understanding and buy-in you’ll have from key stakeholders.

If your first Marketing Plan draft covered these elements over 2-3 pages, you have already made a significant start to a strong plan and more than likely achieved significantly more well-contemplated planning than your competitors.

Author: Phil Dossett