How to Link Google Reviews to Your WordPress Website
Getting reviews on your website can be pretty valuable. Studies show that people are more likely to make purchase decisions on-line if they’ve read several positive reviews. Essentially, good reviews can greatly increase your sales, and the importance of these reviews simply cannot be overstated.
If you’re running a business or selling goods online, it’s fairly obvious how reviews from customers can be extremely helpful. But what about those that are writing about your company or product in a more general sense?
For example, perhaps you sell organic food, and someone isn’t sure whether or not to trust your products. Having several reviews that state otherwise could certainly help them make a better decision. Or, let’s say you’re a plumber, and one of your customers has a bad experience with one of your jobs. They could write up a review detailing their bad experience. But, maybe they weren’t completely satisfied with the service they received, and they would’ve liked a different kind of plumbing product from yours. In this scenario, you would want to have several reviews that speak favorably of your products or services.
In today’s world, reviews can be found online through numerous platforms. Some of the most popular ones are Google, Yelp, and Facebook. Basically, any site that allows for user-generated content will have several reviews available for your perusal.
With so much information available online, it’s becoming increasingly more important to make sure that your website is doing its part to educate your potential customers. This means that, aside from just having content, you’re also trying to make sure that the reviews you have available are as accurate as possible. And, to better serve your readers, it’s important to try and link as many reviews as possible to your website.
Linking Google Reviews to Your WordPress Blog
Fortunately, with the help of some technology, linking the reviews to your site is fairly easy. Let’s say you’ve managed to get some reviews up on Google, and you want to link these reviews to your WordPress site so that your readers can peruse them. First, you’ll need to log into your Google account and head to the reviews section. From here, you can either copy the individual review URLs or you can click on the little icon that looks like a chain link.
On the next screen, you’ll see a message that looks like this:
In the upper-right corner, you’ll see a small star icon. This icon is to indicate that this review is affiliated with something called the “Google Review Trust Badge.” If you click on this badge, you’ll be taken to a page that shows you the reviews that have been linked to your site. Essentially, this page lets Google know that these reviews are legitimate and adds an extra layer of credibility to your content.
Improving Readability And Credibility Of Reviews
Even if someone is reading your reviews without having any connection to your website, you can still improve the readability and credibility of the reviews by making sure that they’re formatted well and cited correctly. In the example below, you can see that this review has been poorly formatted. Not only is it hard to read, but it looks like the author simply copied and pasted some of the review’s content without properly thinking through the wording or using proper grammar.
Additionally, this review provides very little in the way of credibility. After all, the reviewer never actually ate at the restaurant, so how can they truly say that it’s a good place to eat? Instead of using your website’s URL in the review, this author chose to hide it in a little box, preventing any potential link-back to their site. In general, reviews that are less than 5 star-rated aren’t very beneficial, as users aren’t usually qualified to give an accurate review.
Once again, with so much information out there and the importance of reviews continually rising, ensure that your website is contributing its part to the conversation. In the case of our restaurant example, simply having several good reviews would greatly increase its chances of being selected for further analysis by potential customers.
Linking From Other Sources To Reviews
Sometimes, a product or service will become so popular that it will be ranked highly on multiple review platforms, like Google and Yelp. In these cases, it’s important to make sure that these reviews are still connected to your website or blog. This is because, if a customer happens to come across a review from another source while conducting research online, it’s often difficult to figure out which review to trust. In the case of our example product, not only does it have several good reviews on Google, but it’s also been mentioned on several other review sites.
In the case of our restaurant example, we can see that this product has been covered on several news websites. Essentially, in addition to the reviews on Google, this product has an additional layer of credibility because it’s been mentioned in articles about food, drink, and nightlife in general. In some cases, the review sites will even provide you with a little link back to your site, as you can see below.
When trying to establish or build credibility, reviews can be a valuable asset. However, just because a product or service has several positive reviews, it doesn’t mean that it’s a good choice for everyone. It’s important to understand that each person or situation is different, so it’s up to you to figure out what will work best for you and your business.