The modern customer in Singapore considers many factors before choosing a website to visit and one of them is the website listing. This among other factors of SEO in Singapore contributes to a high SERP ranking on Google.com.sg.
The website listing is a significant aspect of digital marketing in Singapore and it motivates users to click on your website. With that said, how do you get star ratings in the Google search results? In this article, we will look at the process you can get the website’s star ratings step by step.
Encourage User Reviews
You need to have user reviews on your pages before Google can display them in the search results. Irrespective of whether you have reviews on various platforms, getting them displayed on the search results is not easy. Google has a set of rules for the reviews that will be used on your snippet.
The reviews must:
- Be readily available on a page on your website
- Refer to a specific service or product that are not related to the adult industry
- Have the names of valid users
- Be collected from your website and not from third-party service or platform
The bottom line is that you need to have a star rating displayed on at least one of the pages on the website. You will, therefore, need to encourage users to leave reviews on your website. The reviews on Yelp or Google Business do not count.
Here are actionable tips you can use to ask for reviews:
- Email a link to a customer at least a week after making a purchase
- Post a link in your social media accounts
- Include a link on emailed invoices, receipts, or newsletters
- Send thank you emails to the customers who leave reviews
- Encourage customers to leave reviews and rate the product or service on the product pages that have on-page CTAs
While Google maintains that the reviews must be on a single product or review, you can get away with having the business reviews. As good as this hack might sound, it could lead to you losing your review snippet because of it.
Display the Reviews on Your Website
There are several ways that you can display reviews on your website. The biggest challenge comes when you manually code the reviews into your pages via the content management system (CMS). The process includes adding each review to the page and then marking it up.
This method takes much time especially if you have many reviews. On the other hand, you could use WordPress plugins such as WP SEO Structured Data Schema to simplify the process. Moreover, you could use third-party apps such as Yotpo and TrustPilot, but they are overly expensive and you might not have the budget for it.
In addition, you will also need to display the ratings. The easiest way is to include a five-star rating system since it is an easier markup process. With the reviews and ratings in place, ensure that you are providing the correct information to Google.
Review Your Schema Markup
You will also need to tell Google where to find the reviews on your website. You need basic markup knowledge or an app that will automate the process for you. However, it is important that you double-check the markup to ensure that it is correct.
Better yet, you can use Google’s structured data testing tool. Each part of the review should have a unique HTML tag from Schema.org. The LocalBusiness schema markup has a variety of fields that you should include and it is important that you input as much information as possible. However, if you are missing any of the markups, Google will not know how to read the reviews.
You should have the following:
- Company name
- Your address and contact information
- The type of business
This information should be displayed prominently on your website especially in the footer of every page. Google and site visitors will interpret it as a sign that your company is trustworthy.
Best Practices to Get Your Ratings Listed
Following the steps above does not mean that Google will include your website listing immediately. It might take a long while or it will not happen. However, here are a few best practices you should consider to increase your chances of getting your website listing and star ratings listed.
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Follow Google’s Rules to the Letter
Failure to follow the rules will result in Google overlooking your ratings altogether. You should, therefore, strive to review Google’s documentation for review snippets. If you are not sure of how to go about any of the rules, ensure that you do your best to follow them. You could also engage an expert in digital marketing in Singapore to help you out.
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Do Not Add Reviews in the Homepage
Review snippets are specifically designed for your products and services. Having reviews on the homepage shows that the reviews are for the business and not the products or services. While it could be a strategy to increase trust with your website visitors, Google sees it as a violation of the rules.
Moreover, there are chances that the schema markup will not work as intended. For this reason, ensure that the reviews are found on the service and product pages.
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Regular Site Updates
Regular site updates will force Google to check your site more frequently and this ensures that you get up-to-date ratings on your review snippets. This is more valuable to new websites. Moreover, searchers will not only look at the website listing, but they will consider the number of people who have rated your services or products.
For example, if you run an e-commerce website, you ought to add and update products often. For other types of websites, you need to include a blog or add a new page occasionally.
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Increase Domain Authority
Increasing the authority of your domain is easier said than done since it takes time. However, a higher domain authority means that you are more likely to get website listing and star ratings in the Google search results.
Domain authority is determined by a variety of factors including:
- SEO-friendliness of the site
- The quality of your content
- The number of inbound links from other sites
- Social sharing signals
These are only a few of the factors, but the most important is your backlink profile. However, the authority of the sites linking to your pages will also increase your domain authority and website listing. Being a high authority domain also comes with higher SERP rankings, more organic traffic, and Google will feature your content on featured snippets.
The best way to increase domain authority is to improve your overall SEO and to publish relevant and valuable content.
Adding Reviews To Your Website To Boost Google Ratings
Reviews are major determinants of success or failure in online sales platforms as they act as trust and quality indicators. Most businesses have little control of the reviews they receive due to them being user-generated. Schema markups, however, allow business owners the ability to showcase positive reviews in Google SERPs, Google Ratings as well as rank up on Google.
Schema Markups Definition
Websites have been using schema markups in SEO to help improve their competitive advantage. The development of this semantic vocabulary by Schema.org has allowed websites to improve traffic. The schema markup code simply communicates with search engines on how to understand and display additional information from web pages; then relays it to the end-user.
There exist 571 different schema types with each performing a specific function. However, the majority of these schema types are useful in improving your content in the Google SERP. These schema types work in different ways depending on how you want your content to be enhanced.
Despite schema.org being the founder of the schema markup code, Google developers have also played a great role in providing instructions on how to use schema markups. Understanding how to use schema markups will come in handy when using the code to enhance content on your website.
Using Schema Markups for Ratings and Reviews
This article mainly focuses on schema markups used to improve reviews and ratings. There exist multiple schema markup options that can help you take advantage of your reviews in the SERPs; thus, improving the visibility of your website.
These numerous possibilities for enhancing your website are there due to the variety of online products that can be reviewed and rated through Google. Google supports ratings and reviews for creative materials including artwork, and music, businesses, products, among others.
Types of Schema Markups used for Reviews
There exist two types of review schema markups, namely:
- Single Review
- Aggregate Review/Rating
Single Rating
Using schema markups for single reviews is quite straightforward. The process involves adding only a few items to the code. These items include:
- The product
- The review agency
- The author
- The date the review was published
- The Rating
- The publisher
The only complication that exists when using the single rating markup is defining the scale of your rating. One may choose the Google default 5-point rating system or a custom rating system.
Below is how an individual review shows up in search results.
Aggregate Ratings
The aggregate review markup is mainly used in instances where you have multiple reviews and have already calculated an average rating.
This markup differs from the single rating markup due to the increased review count. Just like the single review markup, one can use a custom rating system or the default 5-point rating system recommended by Google.
Below are some examples of how your website will look on the SERP after using the aggregate rating markup.
Creating and Implementing Review Schema Markups
There exist various tools for creating schema markups with the most widely used being Google Structured Data Markup Helper. There also exists the option of using a web developer to create markups for your website.
This article, however, will introduce you to a couple of free tools that can be used to generate review scheme markups for your website. Using these free tools will allow the collection of the needed information to create markups as well as the ability to insert markup reviews to your website directly.
1a. Schema Creator for Review for Single Ratings
Schema Creator provides the easiest way of generating the code. To get the code, you simply need to add the title of the review in the name section, a summary of the review in the description box, and a URL for the review.
Other information required to get the code include
- Author
- Publishing date
- Item reviewed
- Review body
- Rating scale (can either be the 5-star scale or a custom scale)
1b. Web Code Tool Form for Aggregate Rating Markup
Creating a code using the Web Code Tool form is easy as you simply need to fill out
- The item under review
- Rating
- Number of votes for a specific review
- Total number of reviews
You then copy and paste the code into your website.
2. Google Structured Data Testing Tool
Not all structured data is pickup by crawlers. The Google Structured Data Testing Tool is used to ensure data validity; therefore, increasing the possibility of being picked up by crawlers. Although data gotten from the web code tools and schema creators will be what you need, there is a need to make further changes to ensure the schema is robust and more precise.
Using this testing tool ensures that any changes to data are correct.
3. Put the Code in Your Website
You can implement the code on your website in two ways. You can either forward the code to your web developer who then implements it to your website. Alternatively, you can add the code to the HTML window in WordPress.
The code may also require some adjustment before implementation. This may include adding cosmetic features such as breaks (<br>). It is also crucial to ensure the validity of the code by using a structured data testing tool.
Expectations after Implementation
Schema markup has minimal influence on your rankings and organic visibility. However, using scheme markups affects your traffic by influencing organic CTR. Reviews help a website to stand out; thus, a likelihood of an increase in traffic.
To track the changes after implementing the code, simply track your page’s performance in Google Analytics
Other Schema Markups
Other than review schema markups, there exist other markups that you can use to ensure improved traffic to your website. Schema markups are quite diverse, and using any of these tools will surely help you stand out in search engine results.
A disadvantage with schema markup is the high technical ability required to get the code and put it on your website. There also exist other tools that you can use without any specific skill set. The advantage of using review markup is that the language remains constant; therefore, no need to constantly update the code.
If you are keen to display reviews and ratings on Google search listings please contact a Singapore SEO services provider like MediaOne.
Conclusion
Getting a website listing on Google will take time, even when you follow the best practices above. However, using plugins and third-party services will take away the need to manually add the reviews on your product or service pages.
Moreover, having social proof that your products and services are being used by people is a strong sign that your site is worth looking visiting. Besides, this will increase your click-through rate. For this reason, take the time to show Google.com.sg that you have great products and services.
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