Learn How to Show Google Product Ratings on Your Listings

Google Shopping is the epitome of modern marketing, where merchants deal directly with consumers ready to buy products. A Google search that displays these ads or listings is the first step in any market research from a consumer’s side. Clearly, aiming and making use of this opportunity to sell products is the reason behind Google Shopping’s explosive success.

Also, in any market research, ratings and reviews act as deal breakers from the consumer’s perspective. It has been proven that 82% of people make purchasing choices based on reviews. Thus, to learn how to show Google Product Ratings on your listings, we have compiled information from various sources for your benefit. It is necessary knowledge for all e-commerce merchants to be able to beat their competitors and derive sales. Let’s start from the basics.

What Are Google Product Ratings?

They are a verified rating system on Google that guides potential customers along the lines of ratings and reviews from previous buyers. It goes from 1 to 5 stars and stands very prominently on the product listings, along with the number of reviews. The consumer can further go into detail about the product, even apart from the price, and have enough information to help make a choice.

Not every product has these ratings since it depends on the merchant if they integrate product ratings into their listing for the customers to see. It is a much-ignored practice because of the complexity of its procedure, and yet it can incur great returns to the seller.

Difference Between Seller Ratings & Product Ratings

The key difference between Product Ratings and Seller Ratings is that the former is considered a representation of an individual product while the latter tells us about the business as a whole.

Why Are Google Product Ratings Important in your listings?

As marks of social trust in a product provided by previous buyers, Google Product Ratings help guide prospective buyers in their shopping decisions. Many times, they are the factor that makes them place their trust in a particular product in lieu of another. The reason behind this is that way the ratings stand out. They have been proven to increase the conversion rate and lead people to the product’s online store. Thus, they bring business as well as traffic to the merchant.

Ratings are extremely important in Google Shopping for two major reasons:

• They increase the effectiveness of Google shopping ads, leading to an increase in business prestige and recognition.
• It is a prominent customer trend to sort products in terms of rating and go for one with better ratings and reviews than its competitors.

It goes without saying that maintaining good ratings with quality products and efficient services is an absolute must when it comes to Google Product Ratings.

Requirements To Show Google Product Ratings On Your Listings

There are certain steps that need to be fulfilled before a merchant can attempt to show Google Product Ratings on their listings. Any online merchant needs to pass eligibility criteria, follow some Google policies, and apply to the Google Merchant Centre first before it can move on to the process. We have listed these steps in detail below.

Eligibility Criteria

• You need a Google Merchant Center account foremost with some ads running on it to be eligible.
• There are 104 countries that support Google Product Ratings, of which some are in the beta stage and some which require a Business Registration Number (BIN).
• There needs to be at least 50 reviews on all your products for the ratings to be shown in your listings in Google Shopping, while each individual listing needs to have 3 reviews or more to be shown in Google ads.
• Working with aggregators or collecting reviews yourself means different responsibilities since, in the latter case, you must regularly send data to Google Merchants Center while the third-party aggregators do it for you.
• GTIN numbers are extremely important for Google to identify your product and assign it its reviews and ratings. Among many other identifiers that can be used by the company or third-party aggregators, GTIN is generally the preferred one.

Google’s Product Ratings Policy

There are certain Google policies that need to be adhered to for the product ratings to be visible on your listings.

• Merchant has to share monthly updates of all their reviews and ratings. It is even advisable to do it more frequently for a better consumer experience. Thus, you would need to send your review feeds to Google on a regular basis (through an aggregator or yourself)
• The review feed must be optimized to follow content guidelines like keeping confidential information hidden, discarding spam, not showing illegal information, including both positive and negative reviews, etc. For a full list of regulated content, visit here.
• The feed should be the merchant’s responsibility and should be collected and owned by them. One can either use third-party aggregators approved by Google and Google Shopping Feed apps for efficient functioning or manage the data collected themselves. The purpose of this blog is to clarify these options.
• The review feed must be high in quality for proper processing by Google. Ambiguity should be specifically avoided for honest and clear ratings.
• Images used should be solely user generated, must be high quality and relevant, not have distracting overlays, and should use filters at a bare minimum.

Application for Google Product Ratings

One would need to apply and be approved by Google to join their Product Ratings program.

• First, apply here to begin the process. You would also be making your choice to use a third-party aggregator or collect the review data yourself.
• Then, go to Google Merchant Center and find ‘Product Ratings’ in the ‘Manage Programs’ section. Here, you just need to click on ‘Get Started’.
• Wait for Google’s approval, which takes under two weeks. Once you get their thumbs up, you are ready to go!

How To Show Google Product Ratings On Your Listings?

There are three methods, all having their own pros and cons, to show Google Product Ratings on your listings. The choice has to be made according to the needs of the business and its ability to adapt to the processes.

Google Customer Reviews

The first method approach was made by Google to simplify the process and works vehemently towards that aim.

One just has to:

• Go to Google Merchants Center and go to ‘Growth’.
• Then, find ‘Customer Reviews’ from the ‘Manage Programs’ section.
• Simply click on ‘enable’ and accept the terms and conditions.
• Voila! Your program is working!

While you do get a glowing Google-certified review badge, there is some coding involved to integrate it with your reviews, which needs a developer at hand. Also, it offers limited and uneditable surveys, which consumers can easily opt out of, thus reducing the chances of actually getting ratings for the products. Furthermore, since you can’t customize the review form, you can’t send follow-up emails and reminders for product ratings and get accurate feedback.

There is an absolute requirement for GTINs of your products for this method to work.

Through Third-Party Review Aggregators

One of the most used methods to show your product ratings requires the use of third-party applications that collect the data on your behalf and send it ahead to reflect on your listings. Here is the list of aggregators approved by Google itself.

Bonus: We have prepared a separate blog on Shopify product review apps, that you can checkout for more insights!

The benefits are numerous, with the aggregators automating the process and customizing it to suit your brand voice and value. They are also easy to set up with Google Merchant Center. One can even use a feed app and integrate it with these aggregators to further simplify and enhance the process.

The only downside is that they are not free. You will need to spend money to get them working, but that’s not a big deal if you have a marketing budget through which you can directly increase your sales further.

Manual Method

It is exactly like it sounds. You manually create XML files of all your reviews and ratings collected from various other sites based on your GTINs and other product identifying codes and then send it all to Google.

The only upside of this method is that it is free because, otherwise, it involves a lot of work. It is the reason the other two methods were made to make it possible for merchants to actually get the process done.

And it is for online merchants that it is important to show Google Product Ratings on their listings. Since Shopify is one of the largest portals to hold online stores, we will devote a section to deal with the process in regard to it.

How To Display Shopify Product Reviews On Google Shopping Ads?

There are only two methods to show a Shopify store’s product ratings on Google Shopping Ads-

• One has to do it manually through a developer because it requires abundant coding.
• The other alternative is to simply use third-party aggregators from the Shopify app store or product feed management apps that offer the product review integrations

Honestly, both methods require you to hire someone to integrate your Shopify store with the Google Merchant Centre, but the latter does not involve sending your data manually at intervals. This is why most e-commerce stores automate the process completely to focus more on their business.

There are many applications, like Loox, Yotpo, Okendo, etc., that can be good options for your business. One has to remember, though, that each application has a different process of integration, which can be easily accessed through established customer service teams.

There are many faults and flaws when it comes to the Google Merchant Center and how tardy the processes can be for businesses. It is limited in its approach and, many a time, inaccessible for merchants without developers or prior coding knowledge. Thus, there is an absolute need, if one can afford, to take advantage of these aggregators for the very purpose that they are made.

Moreover, to reap the benefits of third-party aggregators, many merchants use Product feed applications, which help integrate the aggregators and simplify the process even further. This is done to pass over complicated features of focused software while still holding the customizing power in your hands. One such application is AdNabu’s Google Shopping Feed, which holds recognition as being ‘Built for Shopify’ and manages third-party aggregators with its Product review app integration feature.

Product Review Integration For Your Google Shopping Feed On Shopify

AdNabu is a product on the Shopify app store made for merchants who want to simplify the process of managing their Google Shopping Feed (and other marketplaces) and optimize the customization experience. It helps in better handling of online advertising campaigns and listings on various channels like Google, Facebook, Pinterest, and many other such platforms on the World Wide Web.

It is known for its ‘Built for Shopify’ badge provided by Shopify itself to certify that it is specially designed for Shopify store users. The app manages to provide everything related to various shopping feeds in one place, helping users manage many facets of their stores at a glance with a few clicks. With features like keyword generation, AI feed optimization, multi-language, currency support, etc., it does more than just simplify. It brings the control of your business into your hands in a manner that one can handle with ease.

For us, though, the feature in purview is its product review integration.

Product Review Integration By AdNabu

It allows you to integrate various product reviews aggregators with the Google Shopping Feed application, helping in simple access and customization of product and review feeds in one place. The feature becomes the backbone of showing Google product ratings on your listings by further simplifying the automated process and bringing optimizing power into your hands.

Everything to do with Google Merchant Center is integrated with the reviews aggregator apps and made accessible to the user. You can also track your listings, sync the data at intervals, or remove and add at will through this feature. It is the reason most of the major apps listed below have made integration with the Google Shopping Feeds app possible.

FYI: It takes Google generally 8 to 11 weeks to verify and show your reviews on your listings. It all depends on how much time it takes for it to go through all your domains for security purposes, and it might happen even earlier.

Reviews Aggregator Apps On Shopify

Each aggregator app has its own method of installation, and the same goes for its integration process with the Nabu for Google Shopping Feed. Below are some of these reviews that have an affinity with both Shopify and the Feed app.

Junip

It is a fairly recent application that has been taking users by storm with its absurd simplicity and attention to mobile users. Plans depend on the order amount.

Yotpo

Yotpo is known for its user-friendly interface, along with its remarkable retargeting. It makes up for its expensive plans with a number of features that guarantee satisfaction.

Judge.me

It has been in the market since 2015 and garnered much trust from its users, with more than 17,000 reviews on the Shopify app store. Houses two plans, a free one and one that costs $15.

These are just some examples from a list that also contains applications like Opinew, Loox, Reviews.io, Growave, Stamped.io, and Okendo.

Here is the list of integration processes for all these apps. For most, one simply has to raise a ticket with the customer service team, and they do the rest!

Conclusion

Google Product Ratings is a much-ignored aspect of product listings that is lost on many online businesses. They have been statistically shown to help directly generate sales and are thus an extremely valuable tool. Any and every online store depends on reviews from their customers to create trust in their store and products, even in the form of hearsay. This is simply a more sophisticated form of hearsay that provides valuable input to potential customers.

Therefore, one must learn how to show Google product ratings on your listings as an important business practice to indulge in, which must be done in the most efficient manner, as shown above,

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

How to update Google product ratings on your listings?

Google Products Ratings need not be updated when processed through Google Customer Review or a third-party aggregator app since the process is automated. In the case of the manual method, you would need to create an XML file of all the data and send it for review to Google on a regular basis.

How to set up Google product ratings for PLAs?

PLA or Product Listing Ads is but another name for Google Shopping ads. One needs to follow the same methods and criteria as it takes to show Google product ratings on your product listings.

Which apps are best to show Shopify product ratings on Google Shopping listings?

Apps that are certified by or available on the Shopify app store are the way to go. Names like Loox, Stamped.io, Okendo, etc., stand out since they work with AdNabu’s Shopping Feed, which is itself ‘Built for Shopify’ certified and optimizes the process greatly.

What is the best way to show Google product ratings on your listings?

The best way depends on the business type and the ability to afford third-party aggregators. Most people prefer this way as it automates the process completely. Some people prefer Google Customer Reviews because it is free and still automates the process despite there being no scope for customization or retargeting. Few people also use the manual method if they have the necessary time and their data is not much to collect and send to Google.