Google recently introduced “Seller Ratings”, which are 4 and 5 star ratings that accompany paid search ads and are based on reviews of your site aggregated from review sites all around the Web. Google seller ratings allow people to find merchants that are highly recommended by other online shoppers. To see an example, perform a Google search for “Orthopedic Shoes.” Look for the paid search ads (at the top and on the right) that include the yellow starred ratings. These are the merchants that have met Google’s requirements for being included in seller ratings and whose reviews average 4 or more stars.

The introduction of seller ratings is important because it can significantly increase paid search traffic and click-through rates, and potentially increase conversions due to the visibility of the seller ratings and the inherent trust that is created by their presence. Seller ratings are akin to a personal referral from your peers about which merchants to purchase products and services from.

With the addition of seller ratings, your ads should receive a higher click-through rate due to the bright color of star ratings and the increased size of ads when seller ratings are added. That causes ads with seller ratings to stand out from other ads because they include elements that are not included in your competitor ads. Another big benefit is that there is not a cost per click when the visitor clicks the seller ratings to view your reviews. Ad spend is only charged when that ad itself is clicked and the searcher is directed to your landing page.

The rules from Google on which ads will include seller ratings are simple. In order for seller ratings to accompany your paid search ads, it requires 30 highly rated reviews on various review sites across the web. Your overall rating must be 4 or more stars for the links to be included with your ad. Since this feature is still relatively new, there is plenty of opportunity to capitalize on the seller ratings before other merchants get involved. As Google expands to more review sites over time and other merchants realize the significance, they will become commonplace for all advertisers.

The sites that contribute to Google Seller Ratings are not provided in detail, but a review of existing seller ratings reveals the following list of sites from which most of the reviews have been gathered:

Reseller Ratings – http://www.resellerratings.com

Bizrate – http://www.bizrate.com

Bizrate U.K. – http://www.bizrate.co.uk

Review Centre – http://www.reviewcentre.com

Viewpoints – http://www.viewpoints.com

Epinions – http://www.Epinions.com

Yahoo Shopping – http://shopping.yahoo.com

Mr. Rebates – http://www.mrrebates.com

Rate It all – http://www.rateitall.com

Rate It All – http://www.rateitall.com

Review Stream – http://www.reviewstream.com

Google Checkout Reviews – These are reviews that are available to merchants that use Google Checkout as a part of their e-commerce shopping cart.

The reason that more merchants do not have seller ratings included with their ads is because there are not 30 reviews of their site on the various review sites mentioned above. Many of the larger advertisers, like eBay, Amazon, and Macy’s, have seller ratings, but smaller merchants do not. This can provide your site with a competitive advantage for keywords on which you are bidding because other merchants will not have seller ratings which will allow your ad to stand out.

The biggest challenge is gaining the 30+ required reviews. Reseller Ratings accepts all merchants and appears to be the easiest site to add reviews and start receiving ratings instantly.

If your challenge is gaining the required number of reviews, here are a couple of suggestions:

1)      Existing Customers & Employees – Request that existing customers and employees to complete a review. These are people that are familiar with your products or services and can make an immediate review based on their experiences. They are also more likely to provide a positive review which will be helpful in the event that your site receives some unfavorable reviews.

2)      Conversion Page Request – After a person has made a purchase on your site is a good time for you to request a review. They have demonstrated their desire for your product by their purchase, and this is also an ideal time to elicit a positive review. Only a small percentage of those that complete a purchase will complete the survey, which is to be expected, but this method requests a review at the very moment they feel their best about the website.

3)      E-mail – Sending out an e-mail periodically (daily, weekly, monthly) and requesting reviews from your readership is another great method of increasing the number of reviews for your site. E-mail subscribers usually have favorable views of the products and services that you offer and simply need to convey this in a review. Including a list of the review sites would be helpful to ensure that your reviews are spread out across several sites.

These are just a couple of ideas to generate reviews for your website that will lead to seller ratings being included with your ads. The success of seller ratings heavily hinges on how quickly your website can have them included with their ads before it becomes standard for all advertisers and consumers have developed a blindness for the ratings. Based on the improvements and results that we have observed, it is well worth the effort to make sure that your site has the number of reviews available to be included in the Google Seller Ratings.

To find out more information about Google Seller Ratings and the official documentation, visit

http://adwords.blogspot.com/2010/06/introducing-seller-rating-extensions-on.html

This entry was posted on Monday, August 23rd, 2010 at 11:00 am and is filed under All Blogs, Analytics, News, PPC, Uncategorized, What's New?. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.