Google Rich Snippets: Displaying Reviews and Ratings in Your Website Search Display
Are you wondering how to achieve enhanced SERP displays? If so, you’ll definitely enjoy this piece. Ever since their introduction back in 2009, Google Rich Snippets have allowed customers to take a sneak peek preview of their Google Search results. This adds more information to the listing and it allows people to find exactly what they are truly looking for.
Of course, this extra information could include a range of different things, depending of the content of the page. With this, it could include navigation breadcrumbs, event information, movie information, and customer reviews. We will focus on the latter.
There are, however, a lot of things that you’d want to take into account. Let’s dig a little bit deeper.
Google Rich Snippets are not Rich Cards
Rich cards are commonly represented as the logical next step forward for a snippet – its natural evolution. However, they are something particularly different and they tend to take another place in the marketing ecosystem.
The idea behind rich snippets is to use structured informational markup in an attempt to produce SERP displays which are enhanced. They are designed to present the content of the mage in a way which is far more appropriate and meaningful to the average user.
Rich Snippets and Google’s Ranking
Now, Google’s rankings are undoubtedly amongst the most important part of your entire inbound marketing process and, as such, it’s obviously of serious importance to see if your Google Rich Snippets have an effect.
The hint is that (one day) rich snippets might make it as a serious factor into the ranking algorithm. However, as of yet, Google has made it clear that these particular additions do not affect ranking.
This isn’t something that should make you ignore them. Google Rich Snippets are a flawless way to display customer reviews and generate serious off-SEO benefits for your online-based business. This is something that you ought to account for.
With this in mind, it is also quite critical to understand that displaying customer reviews directly under your product’s landing page, for instance, is a great way to bring in more people.
It’s a Combination
Google Rich Snippets are obviously beneficial but this is true in a combination of different ways. Right off the bat, they enhance the SERP display of your search results. They make your venue far more presentable.
Think of it as the description of your services but only here you are also allowed to directly introduce customer reviews. You get to seriously enhance the Word of Mouth marketing approach in a comprehensive and hassle-free manner. It’s a passive approach which is particularly helpful.
This will trigger off-SEO and marketing benefits for a continuum of time without you having to do anything in addition. Keep in mind that the wide majority of people are going to distrust a review which is older than 3 months so make sure to constantly update your rich snippets.