REVIEWS & SEOSEPTEMBER 2016

How do reviews impact consumers?How reviews impact site SERPS Reviews stars in Google – how does that work?Bad reviews, reviews tips and brand

AGENDA

REVIEWS & SEO

SOME OF OUR CLIENTS

REVIEWS & SEO

THE DIFFERENCE

WHERE DO REVIEWS F IT IN TO THE PURCHASE DECIS ION-MAKING PROCESS?

REVIEWS & SEO

REVIEWS & SEO

O F C O N S U M E R S R E A D O N L I N E R E V I E W S B E F O R E V I S I T I N G A B U S I N E S S .

90%

www.invespcro.com/blog/the-importance-of-online-customer-reviews-infographic/

REVIEWS & SEO

O F C O N S U M E R S T R U S T O N L I N E R E V I E W S A S M U C H A S P E R S O N A L R E C O M M E N D AT I O N S

88%

www.invespcro.com/blog/the-importance-of-online-customer-reviews-infographic/

REVIEWS & SEO

C U S T O M E R S A R E L I K E LY T O S P E N D 3 1 % M O R E O N A B U S I N E S S W I T H “ E X C E L L E N T ” R E V I E W S .

31%

www.invespcro.com/blog/the-importance-of-online-customer-reviews-infographic/

REVIEWS & SEO

O F C O N S U M E R S W I L L TA K E A C T I O N O N LY A F T E R R E A D I N G A P O S I T I V E R E V I E W72%

www.invespcro.com/blog/the-importance-of-online-customer-reviews-infographic/

REVIEWS & SEO

HOW & WHY REVIEWS IMPACT YOUR SEARCH RESULTS

C H A N G I N G FA C E O F G O O G L E ’ S S E R P S A L G O R I T H M – R A N K I N G FA C TO R S

REVIEWS & SEO

DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGIES

PAID SEARCH

REVIEWS

SOCIAL

DISPLAY

CONTENT

PAID SOCIAL

REVIEWS & SEO

On-page signals - 21%Link Signals -18.3%External Loc. Signals - 15.1%My Business Signals 14.7%Review Signals - 9.8%Behavioural/Mob. Signals - 6.9%Social Signals - 5.8%Personalisation - 8.4%

SOURCE: MOZ REVIEWS & SEO

OVERALL RANKING FACTORS

CREDIT: RAND FISHKIN, MOZ

CRITERIA FOR MODERN CONTENT INVESTMENTS:

One-of-a-kind – appears nowhere else on the web

Relevant – contains content engines can interpret as on-topic

Helpful – resolves the searcher’s query in a useful, efficient manner

Uniquely Valuable – provides information that’s unavailable elsewhere

Great UX – is easy & pleasurable to consume on any device

Likely to Spread – convincingly answers the question: “Who would amplify this content and why?”

REVIEWS & SEO

6 WAYS REVIEWS BOOST YOUR SEARCH RESULTS

Fresh UGC – Reviews are essentially crowd-sourced relevant content

Boost long-tail keyword traffic – Reviewers should be buyers – who use the same language as your targets

Reviews boost the social conversation – your product pages should get shared, but so should your reviews

Google favours highly rated sites – Both for review quantity and high rating

Receive visible star ratings – 17% improvement in CTR

For products – improve ranking for [product name] + review

REVIEWS & SEO

PULL CLIENT REVIEW STRATEGIES

REVIEWS & SEO

REVIEWS & SEO

R E V I E W C E N T R E – AV E R A G E S TA R S

REVIEWS & SEO

C H A U C E R D I R E C T S E R P S

safe driver insurancesafe driver insurance#1 on Google for ‘safe driver insurance’

REVIEWS & SEO

REVIEWS & SEO

O N - S I T E R E V I E W I N T E G R AT I O N

REVIEWS & SEO

O N - S I T E R E V I E W I N T E G R AT I O N

REVIEW STARS – HOW DOES THAT WORK?

REVIEWS & SEO

Google only rarely shows stars in organic company brand name results today – unless the word ‘review’ is included

But it can do – in this case ScS owns the result – Trustpilot provides the review status

REVIEWS & SEO

COMPANY REVIEWS – ORGANIC SEARCH

REVIEWS & SEO

COMPANY REVIEWS – ORGANIC SEARCH

Here the word ‘review’ is included.

In this case Trustpilot owns the starred results result.

REVIEWS & SEO

COMPANY REVIEWS – PAID SEARCH

Paid search ads get stars if advertiser meets Google’s criteria

Ad links to advertiser, rating links to review site

REVIEWS & SEO

AD ‘RATING’ LINK

REVIEWS & SEO

REVIEWS & SEO

PRODUCT REVIEWS – ORGANIC SEARCH

Stars + 3 out 4 toporganic SERPS

Deploy ‘rich snippets’Make reviews clear on product pageAuthor’s name needs to valid

REVIEWS & SEO

PRODUCT REVIEWS – PAID SEARCH

Google ads show stars forresellers but not for products – except in Shopping results (taken from reseller sites)

REVIEWS & SEO

R ICH SNIPPETS

Featured Snippet

Rich snippets:Star ratingsTime to cookCalorie info

Rich snippets:Ingredients

WHY USE THEM?

To increase organic traffic – duh

Differentiation from the competition

Help search engines understand what your site and content is about

Rich snippets:InstructionsDescription

REVIEWS & SEO

ORGANIC SEARCH CRITERIA PAID SEARCH

COMPANY REVIEWS ‘SELLER RATINGS’

• Search includes brand term + ‘review’• Need >150 reviews on independent review

site• Review site owns result• Don’t forget Facebook stars!

• Need >150 reviews on independent review site• Main link as set by advertiser, ‘Ratings’ link goes to

Google aggregation of approved review site reviews

PRODUCT REVIEWS • Use rich snippets on product page• Reviews must be on product page• Reviews must have ‘valid’

reviewer name

• Google shows stars for shopping results – taken from reseller sites

• Supplier rating may show in product results

FOR COMPANY/RESELLER RATINGS YOU MUST HAVE A THIRD PARTY SITE REVIEW SUBSCRIPTION

SEEING STARS - SUMMARY

REVIEWS & SEO

AND FINALLY. . .

There’s always one!

Negative reviews are most sought out and read – these visitors are the most engaged. The want to know what can go wrong and what the company did about it.

Consumers don’t trust brands with no negative reviews

Bad reviews – point out what sucks about your product or service!

REVIEWS & SEO

BAD REVIEWS

C U S T O M E R R E V I E W S

1. Have a strategy! – Why leave your reputation to chance?2. Encourage many reviews – ‘velocity’ counts3. Track and improve your score4. Reward reviews – not ‘give rewards for good reviews’!5. Right time – right place – there’s a best time(s) to ask for a review. Find out when that is6. Use rich snippets – on your product pages to get your reviews found in search7. Reply to reviews – Apologise. Demonstrate how you dealt with the issue. Give your side of the story

if you have to.8. Keep calm and carry on! – Your tone of voice can have a huge impact in your responses.9. Sign up with the best third party review site – it hurts to pay, but you will get more, better reviews,

more feedback, more options for promoting and socialising reviews – better SERPS – and see stars!

REVIEWS & SEO

MAKING THE MOST OF REVIEWS – TOP TIPS

REVIEWS & SEO

BRAND, BRAND, BRANDH O W B R A N D C A M E T O D O M I N A T E G O O G L E ’ S R E L E V A N C Y A L G O R I T H M

We actually came up with a classifier to say, okay, IRS or Wikipedia or New York Times is over on this side, and the low-quality sites are over on this side.

Matt Cutts, Head of Web Spam at Google

Brands are the solution, not the problem… brands are how you sort out the cesspool.

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google

W H A T D O E S G O O G L E S A Y A B O U T I T ?