How do I get stars in Google search results?
Golden stars in Google, you have probably seen it in the search results of other websites. They stand out in the search results and you want that with your website. Reviews are of course extremely important for a business these days. In this article I explain how you can get these stars among your pages.
What exactly are the stars in Google?
The stars fall under the term "rich snippets"; this is information that says something about, for example, a product, organization, recipe or video. The stars can be used to indicate the rating of a product or service. The image below shows an example of the stars in google.
By using these rich snippets, Google can better read the content of your page. This is also positive for the search results. Rich snippets are therefore not only used for these stars, but also for various other forms of products or services.
What is the advantage of stars in Google?
The advantage of the gold stars under your website is that it stands out more and radiates more confidence. Not all websites in the search results have this. A website with a good rating will therefore have a higher click-through rate.
A higher click-through rate is even more advantageous!
Because more visitors choose your website, Google sees that your content is more relevant or attractive than that of other websites. This is then rewarded with higher positions in the search results.
Increasing the click through rate (called CTR or click through rate) is also a form of search engine optimization.
What does it take to get these stars in Google?
- Reviews of your product or service
- Schema.org markup
- Implementation on your website
Reviews of your product and/or service
To make these stars visible in Google for your website, you must first have collected a number of reviews. From these reviews comes an average that you can use to demonstrate the rating of your product. The rules regarding these reviews are constantly changing. Currently, a minimum of 5 reviews is required.
An additional requirement is that the rating must also be displayed on your website. Showing (good) reviews is already good for extra trust with your visitors or potential customers.
Schema.org markup
In this example you see a piece of 'markup' code from Bol.com. In this code, several details are made clear through the Schema.org markup. Details such as the type (organization), the name (bol.com), url, average rating, highest and lowest possible rating and the number of reviews.
By passing on all this information to Google, the assessment of your product or service can be properly indexed by Google. The stars in Google therefore come from the data provided. Using this method ensures that your website can be found in an organic (free) way.
How can I implement this information on my website?
If you don't have that much knowledge of creating websites, it can be difficult to get this information on your website. For these people, I recommend asking a specialized website developer.
The schema.org markup can be placed in the head of your page. After placing this small piece of code, it can take a few days before it is definitively visible in the search results.
Update Google (2021)
In September 2019, Google introduced a new update in which they will no longer show stars for organizations and local businesses. Since companies could enter these themselves, they are not reliable. Do you already have this information in your website? No problem, Google isn't going to penalize them. They only stop showing the appropriate gold stars. With this update, Google is focusing more on products.
Automatically updating your review
It is also possible to update the assessment automatically. This can be done, for example, by means of the Google My Business API. Via the link you can read more information about the requirements to make this link with your website. This solution requires reviews on your Google My Business page. A Google My Business page also works very well to get higher positions in Google locally.