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Editor’s note: This nonfiction was primitively published successful 2018. It has been updated for accuracy and to bespeak modern practices.
Everyone knows that merchandise reviews are indispensable for eCommerce sites. They boost conversions and, erstwhile implemented properly, tin besides positively interaction your integrated SEO.
Most importantly, your customers expect them. In fact, astir 9 retired of 10 customers marque the effort to work online reviews earlier making a purchase.
But these benefits beryllium connected you really having reviews — and not conscionable a few.
In today’s eCommerce ecosystem, you request consistently afloat reappraisal sections, crossed astir oregon each of your products, to thrust sales. Empty merchandise reappraisal sections tin beryllium seen arsenic a distrust origin for your marque and tin harm conversions.
Herein lies the problem: Customers expect and usage reviews — but don’t thin to permission them.
Sourcing capable lawsuit feedback to capable retired your tract tin beryllium precise difficult.
But there’s a solution: syndicated reviews.
In this blog, we’ll sermon the pros and cons of utilizing syndicated reviews for your eCommerce tract — including their interaction connected hunt motor optimization, conversion complaint optimization, and much — to assistance you marque the close determination for your online business.
Let’s get started.
What are Syndicated Reviews?
Thanks to syndicated reviews, brands and retailers nary longer request to trust solely connected their ain customers to person extended reappraisal sections.
Instead, they tin usage reappraisal syndication services, which stitchery reviews from merchandise manufacturers (and sometimes different retail sites) to show connected your eCommerce site.
Popular reappraisal syndication bundle includes:
But Mike, you mightiness ask, isn’t copy-pasting reviews from antithetic sites considered duplicate content?
Sort of.
When implemented poorly, syndicated reviews tin beryllium work arsenic “duplicate content” and tin person a antagonistic interaction connected your product leafage SEO, harming your hunt rankings and integrated performance. But, successful reality, the likelihood of your tract being negatively effectual is really little than you think.
That doesn’t mean that syndicated reviews don’t travel with different considerations, too.
We’ll locomotion you done the communal pros and cons below, truthful you tin determine for yourself.
Pros of Syndication
First, let’s commencement with the positives.
Obviously, the biggest vantage of syndicated reviews is that you don’t person to pursuit down your customers for their opinions connected your products. You tin easy and much rapidly populate your merchandise reviews, which tin beryllium a cardinal origin successful your eCommerce conversion rate (as we’ll sermon below).
1. Increases Your Revenue
Research shows that the much reviews you person connected your eCommerce site, the much apt your customers volition beryllium to marque a acquisition — and the higher your gross volition be.
According to PowerReviews, erstwhile shoppers are exposed to merchandise pages with 1 oregon much reviews, conversion rates assistance by 52.2%. Even much impressive: When products scope 101 reviews oregon greater, those rates summation by much than 250%.
Source: PowerReviews.As expected, an summation successful conversion rates besides leads to an summation successful revenue. Consider these figures from estimation absorption level Womply:
- Businesses with much than 82 full reviews gain 54% much successful yearly gross than average.
- Businesses with 200 reviews oregon much gain astir doubly arsenic overmuch gross arsenic average.
Remember that correlation does not ever adjacent causation. After all, larger sites with importantly much shoppers often person a overmuch easier clip sourcing caller reviews. This, successful turn, helps aboriginal sales. For smaller sites oregon those caller to merchandise reviews, getting adjacent a mates of reviews per merchandise is simply a chore.
In a way, it’s the classical chicken-and-the-egg question: Which came archetypal for these businesses — gross oregon reviews?
Regardless, determination is simply a acquisition to larn here. By pulling successful syndicated reviews from different platforms and marque websites, you tin boost your wide reviews and perchance summation your gross astatine the aforesaid time.
And, due to the fact that syndication volition summation the fig of reviews per circumstantial product, you whitethorn spot an summation successful conversion rates, too.
2. Adds Value Product Keywords
User-generated content (UGC) is important to converting customers. According to BazaarVoice, 66% of shoppers accidental photos from erstwhile shoppers interaction their decision-making process
However, user-generated reviews besides contiguous an SEO vantage — the earthy summation of invaluable keywords to your merchandise pages. See the Amazon illustration below, wherever the lawsuit reviews for an espresso instrumentality includes high-value keywords similar “coffee” and “easy to use.”
Cons of Syndication
Now, let’s get into the trickier broadside of syndicated reviews: the effects connected SEO.
You’ll find conflicting opinions connected whether syndicated reviews volition harm your SEO efforts. In our experience, the effects are fewer and acold between, for galore reasons — mainly, that truthful galore sites are utilizing this strategy and Google is good alert of the intent it serves.
Still, to beryllium safe, support the pursuing risks successful caput if you’re considering utilizing this reappraisal strategy.
1. May Increase Risk of Duplicate Content
The oft-quoted hazard of syndicated reviews is that Google mightiness work them arsenic duplicate contented and penalize your site.
But, erstwhile they’re implemented properly, we’ve recovered small (if no) effect connected SEO rankings.
Google has ever been cagey astir the interaction that utilizing syndicated reviews mightiness person connected a site’s rankings. Its Webmaster Guidelines simply suggest that marketers “syndicate carefully,” due to the fact that Google volition lone amusement 1 mentation of the contented to users successful each hunt — which whitethorn oregon whitethorn not beryllium the mentation your marque prefers.
Google’s advice:
- Ensure that each tract connected which your contented is syndicated includes a nexus backmost to your archetypal article.
- Ask those who usage your syndicated worldly to usage the noindex meta tag to forestall hunt engines from indexing their mentation of the content.
Most platforms that syndicate merchandise reviews study small to nary effect connected their client’s websites. Take BazaarVoice, which states:
“Bazaarvoice syndicates contented crossed hundreds of brands and retailers and is not acrophobic astir duplicate contented causing issues. When contented is duplicated oregon syndicated betwixt a marque and a retailer (in either direction), it is beneficial due to the fact that it provides a bully idiosyncratic experience, causes nary issues with spouse hunt engines, and accounts for the hold successful syndicated content.”
When successful doubt, talk with your eCommerce SEO squad for their opinion.
2. Makes Your Site Indistinguishable
On 1 hand, syndicated reviews make accordant merchandise ratings crossed websites, leveling the playing tract for online retailers.
Reevo, different merchandise reappraisal platform, sums it up arsenic so:
“A merchandise reviewed connected Retailer A’s website whitethorn amusement 5 stars, portion the precise aforesaid product, reviewed connected a antithetic retailer’s tract by antithetic people, whitethorn amusement 2 stars … For brands, this tin beryllium a large problem, due to the fact that the types of educated consumers who are astir influenced by reviews are besides the astir diligent successful their research. Finding wildly antithetic reviews and scores for a merchandise volition marque them instantly suspicious, and devalue immoderate spot people displayed alongside the reviews.”
On the different hand, erstwhile your merchandise ratings look similar everyone else’s, your tract loses the payment of lasting retired among your competition. In our opinion, this is the bigger hazard to your integrated performance.
If radical crook to your tract due to the fact that they spot your marque and privation reviews from radical that consciousness the same, they’ll expect antithetic ratings. However, if you see syndicated reviews from different tract on yours, those reviews mightiness beryllium from radical who usage the merchandise otherwise oregon person antithetic standards.
In addition, the higher your ratio of unsocial reappraisal contented to syndicated oregon repeated content, the much competitory your website volition beryllium successful Google’s eyes.
Bottom line: Having antithetic prima ratings and reviews tin assistance your tract basal out.
And, if your tract is filled lone with syndicated reviews, you won’t.
Case Study: Syndicated Reviews successful Action
On smaller sites, the bulk of reviews recovered connected a fixed merchandise leafage whitethorn beryllium syndicated. But, should those reviews ever beryllium removed, the interaction connected conversion rates and postulation tin beryllium overmuch much outsized than for sites that focused connected generating original, high-quality reviews from their customers.
For this example, we’ll usage Electronic Express, a tiny electronics retail site. Back erstwhile we archetypal evaluated their tract successful 2018, they incorporated syndicated reviews. In this older screenshot, you tin spot each of the reviews for their Bose situation dependable speakers were primitively posted connected Bose.com — and were not archetypal to Electronic Express.
Even though the leafage contained nary archetypal reviews astatine the time, it inactive ranked good successful Google hunt results: #10 for “bose wireless situation dependable speakers” and #12 for “bose wireless situation sound.”
As acold arsenic first-page results for those aforesaid searches, the SERPs populated with listings from the marque (Bose), arsenic good arsenic overmuch larger retailers, including Best Buy, Target, and eBay. While it’s hard to vie with these larger sites, astatine the time, Electronic Express ranked higher than different smaller retailers that didn’t usage syndicated reviews and adjacent larger retailers similar Walmart offering less reviews.
However, 4 years later, the SERPs archer a precise antithetic story, reflected successful the merchandise page’s melodramatic driblet successful integrated postulation successful April 2021. (Coincidentally, the driblet successful postulation occurred the aforesaid clip arsenic Google released its archetypal product reviews algorithm update.)
As of August 2020, the merchandise leafage inactive included syndicated reviews — but, today, determination are nary reviews astatine each to beryllium found, syndicated or original.
Therefore, astatine immoderate constituent betwixt present and then, the syndicated reviews were removed. We tin lone conjecture arsenic to the crushed why.
And, portion we can’t reason the integrated postulation driblet is owed to the syndication alone, the operation of zero merchandise reviews and the information that the merchandise is nary longer disposable online has made this merchandise leafage little than invaluable for Electronics Express.
What you can larn from this lawsuit study?
Don’t conscionable absorption connected syndicated reviews. Build up your ain inventory of archetypal lawsuit reviews truthful you tin debar imaginable drops if you get deed with a duplicate contented punishment oregon yet determine to region those syndicated reviews from your site.
Best Practices for Syndicated Reviews
If you determine that the imaginable benefits outweigh the risks, we’ve gathered a fewer champion practices for avoiding the “duplicate content” occupation and making the astir of syndicated reviews connected your site.
1. Use Syndicated Reviews to Jump Start Product Review Sections
As the lawsuit survey supra indicates, syndicated reviews shouldn’t beryllium the lone reviews your eCommerce tract relies on.
When our clients are caller to collecting and displaying reviews, we urge lone showing syndicated reviews portion they’re sourcing feedback from their customers. During this time, utilizing lone syndicated reviews volition amusement consistency crossed the tract and amended lawsuit acquisition by giving them thing to see during the acquisition process.
It typically takes astir six months to root capable responses from your customers to person accordant reviews for astir oregon each of your products.
Then, you tin integrate your ain reviews into the syndicated ones for fuller reappraisal sections.
2. Ensure Syndicated Reviews Link Back to Their Original Post
In accordance with Google’s guidelines, your syndicated reviews should ever uncover wherever they primitively came from. This way, Google tin recognize wherever the archetypal contented lives — and tin subordinate some the marque and extracurricular retailers arsenic places for applicable content.
A bully syndication instrumentality volition bash this automatically. Often this attribution is visible, similar successful this illustration from REI, which uses reviews syndicated by BazaarVoice.
3. Make Sure Reviews Are Indexed In Only One Place
Reviews aren’t conscionable aggregated from different companies. International companies and companies with ample sites tin aggregate their reviews to beryllium shown connected antithetic pages, too.
When those reviews and indexed and searchable crossed aggregate pages, this tin go a existent SEO problem.
Regardless of whether you usage a syndication service, it’s important to marque definite that each of your merchandise reviews are only indexed successful 1 place connected your ain website.
When reviews are recovered connected some class and merchandise pages, they tin beryllium work arsenic duplicate contented by Google and different hunt engines. In turn, those hunt engines whitethorn take to disregard the reviews from 1 (or more) of the pages.
If you request reviews listed successful aggregate places connected your site, marque definite that each but 1 of the pages usage the “noindex” meta tag. You tin besides halt robots from crawling (searching) definite pages by specifying those pages wrong the robots.txt file.
4. Don’t Give Your Reviews to Other Retailers
In two-way syndication, reviews travel some ways betwixt a marque oregon manufacturer’s tract and their retailers’ sites. This is cleanable for brands, who privation their products to merchantability well, careless of wherever they’re listed.
However, retailers mightiness not privation to syndicate their reviews to different retail partners oregon to providers, specified arsenic Testfreaks, that aggregate reviews from each over. After all, if your tract has spent clip and wealth gathering prime reviews, you don’t privation to springiness those to your competitors!
To support a competitory advantage, we urge that eCommerce sites not stock their reviews with these reappraisal sites oregon different retailers. That way, you’ll support your much unsocial and utile merchandise accusation to yourself.
If you determine to usage syndicated reviews, guarantee that you’re lone receiving reviews and/or sending reviews to a shaper (and not different retail websites).
Deciding What’s Best for Your Brand
When done correctly, syndicated reviews tin marque a affirmative interaction connected conversions and SEO. But they shouldn’t beryllium a replacement for sourcing reviews consecutive from your customers.
By combining some archetypal and syndicated reviews, your concern tin supply much invaluable accusation and transparency for your customers — expanding the accidental that they acquisition from your tract implicit your competitors.
Before you incorporated syndicated reviews into your strategy, marque definite you:
- Speak with your SEO and CRO teams for their opinions
- Choose the cleanable product reappraisal platform
- Create a strategy for gathering unique, archetypal reviews from your customers
Remember: Product reviews are conscionable 1 origin successful SEO and conversion success. To larn much astir optimizing your site’s merchandise pages, request a escaped audit from our integer selling teams today. We’ll measure your tract and suggest customized strategies to boost your hunt ranking and conversions.
In the meantime, cheque retired much of our adjuvant resources below:
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