Google Ads is a great tool for small businesses to get new customers and grow their business.  Reviews are not only important for local search, they are also a factor in getting your ads to show up more often on Google.

Reviews can be left by people who have purchased from you or used your service, as well as those who haven’t but would like to. Reviewing other businesses has been shown to increase the likelihood of receiving reviews

Tips for reviewing

  • Pick a star rating
  • Write what you liked about the company
  • Provide specific details about your experience with them
  • Include any additional information that might help someone else decide if they want to work with this company or not

What is a Google Seller Score?

Google’s Seller Score is how Google shows how good your reviews are. The highest number of stars you have with a review, the better it is. If you have an average rating that is 3.5 stars or higher, you are doing well. A point to keep in mind is that better seller ratings display higher in search results reaping the benefits of building a strong reputation.

Better seller ratings also have higher conversion rates, which can influence the ROI of your AdWords spend. Google states Seller Ratings can boost your text ads’ CTR by up to 10%, which can make a big difference to any company battling with their competitors on Google ads.

How reviews impact your ad’s ranking on Google

Looking past seller ratings, we can see in a study by Brightlocal (below) how your average review score on Google impacts your click-through rate. You can see that a 5-star dealer can expect to get 24% more clicks than a 3-star dealer.

The obvious benefit is that you get more clicks to your website, but ad campaigns that get a higher click-through rate get a higher quality score from Google and are thus rewarded with a lower cost per click. The bottom line here is that a 4.5-star dealer can spend significantly less to get the same amount of clicks that a 3.5-star dealer would get, and why would anyone purposely want to spend more for the same end benefit?

When there aren’t many reviews available (less than 10), companies tend to rank higher because it means there are fewer competitors; however, once there are more than 10 reviews available, companies will start ranking lower because it means they’re competing against other established brands.

How to collect more reviews

There are several services you can use – push notifications to existing clients, email marketing, and even paid services that specialize in customer outreach (like Birdeye). Regardless of which method you choose, review collection is more important than ever!