Google Search recently announced it is rolling out Store Ratings to more countries, which enables customer review scores to appear as part of the search results. These store ratings have been available for US searchers for years and are now expanding to Australia, Canada, India and the United Kingdom.
Google defines store ratings (formerly known as ‘seller ratings’) as a way to “help searchers find businesses that offer high quality customer experiences, helping to build trust and enabling more informed purchasing decisions. As a result, store ratings can help merchants improve the performance of ads and free listings and drive more qualified customers to their landing pages”.
Store ratings can be found in the Google shopping search results and searchers can click on the store rating to access detailed information about a business, including reviews, shipping, return policies and more, all of which can influence prospective shoppers.
This is what they look like:
Google explains how this can be done: “if you’re a Merchant serving these countries and don’t already have store ratings enabled, you can participate in a free Google Customer Review program or gather reviews on various independent review websites. If you already participate in either of these, your relevant results are already eligible to appear with a store rating”.
You can read more about how to participate in a free Google Customer Review program or gather reviews.
Any additional way to get more visibility in the search results or products in Google Search can help drive more traffic and sales to a website and business. Store ratings may help to do that and earn more income from your site, so getting store ratings is certainly worth considering.
If you want to know more about how the use of Store Ratings on Google can help your business, please get in touch.