SEO
7 Ways To Use Google Trends For SEO & Content Marketing
Google Trends is a surprisingly useful tool for keyword research, especially when using advanced search options that are virtually hidden in plain sight.
Explore the different Google Trends menus and options and discover seemingly endless ways to gain more keyword search volume insights.
Learn new ways to unlock the power of one of Google’s most important SEO tools.
The Value Of Google Trends
While Google Trends is accurate, it doesn’t show the amount of traffic in actual numbers.
It shows the numbers of queries made in relative percentages on a scale of zero to 100.
Unlike Google Trends, paid SEO tools provide traffic volume numbers for keywords.
But those numbers are only estimates that are extrapolated from a mix of internet traffic data providers, Google Keyword Planner, scraped search results, and other sources.
The clickstream data usually comes from anonymized traffic data acquired from users of certain pop-up blockers, browser plugins, and some free anti-virus software.
The SEO tools then apply a calculation that corresponds to their best guess of how that data correlates with Google keyword search and traffic volume.
So, even though paid SEO tools provide estimates of keyword traffic, the data presented by Google Trends is based on actual search queries and not guesses.
That’s not to say that Google Trends is better than paid keyword tools. When used together with paid keyword tools, one can obtain a near-accurate idea of true keyword search volume.
There are other functions in Google Trends that can help dial in accurate segmentation of the keyword data that helps to understand what geographic locations are best for promotional efforts and also discover new and trending keywords.
How To Use Google Trends For SEO
1. Get More Accurate Data By Comparing Keywords
Google Trends shows a relative visualization of traffic on a scale of zero to 100.
You can’t really know if the trend is reporting hundreds of keyword searches or thousands because the graph is on a relative scale of zero to one hundred.
However, the relative numbers can have more meaning when they are compared with keywords for which there are known traffic levels from another keyword phrase.
One way to do this is to compare keyword search volume with a keyword whose accurate traffic numbers are already known, for example, from a PPC campaign.
If the keyword volume is especially large for which you don’t have a keyword to compare, there’s another way to find a keyword to use for comparison.
A comparison keyword doesn’t have to be related. It can be in a completely different vertical and could even be the name of a trending celebrity.
The important thing is the general keyword volume data.
Google publishes a Google Trends Daily Trends webpage that shows trending search queries.
What’s useful about this page is that Google provides keyword volumes in numbers, like 100,000+ searches per day, etc.
Example Of How To Pinpoint Search Volume
I’m going to use the search phrase [how to lose weight] as an example of how to use Google Trends to get a close idea of actual search volume.
The way I do it is by using known search volumes and comparing them to the target keyword phrase.
Google provides search volumes on its trending searches page, which can be adjusted for what’s trending in any country.
On this particular day (September 22, 2022), the actress Ana De Armas was trending with 50,000+ searches, and the American ex-football player (keyword phrase [Bret Favre News]) was trending with 20,000+ searches.
Step 1. Find Search Trends For Target Keyword Phrases
The target keyword phrase we’re researching is [how to lose weight].
Below is a screenshot of the one-year trend for the target keyword phrase:
As you can see, it’s a fairly stable trend line from September 2021 to September 2022.
Then I added the two keyword phrases for which we have a close search volume count to compare all three, but for a 24-hour time period.
I use a 24-hour time period because the search volume for our comparison keywords is trending for this one day.
Our target keyword phrase, with a red trend line, is right in the middle, in between the keyword phrases [Ana De Armas] (blue) and [Bret Favre News] (yellow).
What the above comparison tells us is that the phrase [how to lose weight] has a keyword volume of more than 20,000+ searches but less than 50,000+ searches.
The relative search volume of [how to lose weight] is 50% of the keyword phrase [Ana De Armas].
Because we know that [Ana De Armas] has a search volume of approximately 50,000+ searches on this particular day, and [Bret Favre News] has a search volume of 20,000+ queries on the same day, we can say with reasonable accuracy that the keyword phrase, [how to lose weight] has approximately a daily search volume of around 30,000 on an average day, give or take a few thousand.
The actual numbers could be higher because Google Trends shows the highs and lows at particular points of the day. The total for the day is very likely higher.
The above hack isn’t 100% accurate. But it’s enough to give a strong ballpark idea and can be used to compare with and validate extrapolated data from a paid keyword research tool.
Related: How To Do Keyword Research For SEO
2. Discover Insights From Time-based Trends
There are two general ways to look at the keyword data: stretched across over longer periods of time and shorter time periods.
Long Period Trends
You can set Google Trends to show you the traffic trends stretching back to 2004. This is valuable for showing you the audience trends.
- Upward Long-Term Trends: If a trend is consistently going up, this means you need to focus energy on creating content for this trend.
- Downward Long-Term Trends: If the trend line is steadily moving down, then it may be a signal that audience content consumption is changing.
For example, review this five-year trend for [WordPress] the search term, WordPress the software, and WordPress the website:
There’s a clear downward trend for WordPress in all three variations.
The downward trend extends to related phrases such as:
- WordPress themes.
- WordPress plugin.
- WordPress hosting.
There are many reasons why search trends go down. It can be that people lost interest, that the interest went somewhere else or that the trend is obsolete.
The digital camera product category is a good example of a downward spiral caused by a product being replaced by something else.
- The digital camera caused the downturn in searches for traditional analog cameras.
- The iPhone started the downward spiral of the digital camera.
Knowing which way the wind is blowing could help a content marketer or publisher understand when it’s time to bail on a topic or product category and to pivot to upward-trending ones.
Related: Content Marketing: The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide
3. Related Topics And Queries
Google Trends has two great features, one called Related Topics and the other Related Queries.
Topics
Topics are search queries that share a concept.
Identifying related topics that are trending upwards is useful for learning how an audience or consumer demand is shifting.
This information can, in turn, provide ideas for content generation or new product selections.
According to Google:
“Related Topics
Users searching for your term also searched for these topics.
You Can View by the Following Metrics
Top – The most popular topics. Scoring is on a relative scale where a value of 100 is the most commonly searched topic and a value of 50 is a topic searched half as often as the most popular term, and so on.
Rising – Related topics with the biggest increase in search frequency since the last time period.
Results marked “Breakout” had a tremendous increase, probably because these topics are new and had few (if any) prior searches.”
Related Queries
The description of Related Queries is similar to that of the Related Topics.
Top queries are generally the most popular searches. Rising Queries are queries that are becoming popular.
The data from Rising Queries are great for staying ahead of the competition.
4. Short-Term Trends Can Bring Massive Traffic
Viewing keyword trends in the short view, such as the 90-day or even 30-day view, can reveal valuable insights for capitalizing on rapidly changing search trends.
There is a ton of traffic in Google Discover as well as in Google News.
Google Discover is tied to trending topics related to searches.
Google News is of the moment in terms of current events.
Sites that target either of those traffic channels benefit from knowing what the short-term trends are.
A benefit of viewing short-term trends (30 days and 90 trends) is that certain days of the week stand out when those searches are popular.
Knowing which days of the week interest spikes for a given topic can help in planning when to publish certain kinds of topics, so the content is right there when the audience is searching for it.
5. Keywords By Category
Google Trends has the functionality for narrowing down keyword search query inventory according to category topics.
This provides more accurate keyword data.
The Categories tab is important because it refines your keyword research to the correct context.
If your keyword context is [automobiles], then it makes sense to appropriately refine Google Trends to show just the data for the context of auto.
By narrowing the Google Trends data by category, you will be able to find more accurate information related to the topics you are researching for content within the correct context.
6. Identify Keyword Data By Geography
Google Trends keyword information by geographic location can be used for determining what areas are the best to outreach to for site promotion or for tailoring the content to specific regions.
For example, if certain kinds of products are popular in Washington D.C. and Texas, it makes sense to aim promotional activity and localized content to those areas.
In fact, it might be useful to focus link-building promotional activities in those areas first since the interest is higher in those parts of the country.
Keyword popularity information by region is valuable for link building, content creation, content promotion, and pay-per-click.
Localizing content (and the promotion of that content) can make it more relevant to the people who are interested in that content (or product).
Google ranks pages according to who it’s most relevant, so incorporating geographic nuance into your content can help it rank for the most people.
7. Target Search Intents With Search Types
Google Trends gives you the ability to further refine the keyword data by segmenting it by the type of search the data comes from, the Search Type.
Refining your Google Trends research by the type of search allows you to remove the “noise” that might be making your keyword research fuzzy and help it become more accurate and meaningful.
Google Trends data can be refined by:
- Web Search.
- Image Search.
- News Search.
- Google Shopping.
- YouTube Search.
YouTube search is a fantastic way to identify search trends for content with the word “how” because a lot of people search on YouTube using phrases with the words “how” in them.
Although these are searches conducted on YouTube, the trends data is useful because it shows what users are looking for.
A Google Trends search for how, what, where, when, why, and who shows that search queries beginning with the word “how” are by far the most popular on YouTube.
Google Trends limits comparisons to five keywords, so the following screenshot omits that word.
If your keyword phrases involve instructional content that uses words like “how to,” refining your research with the YouTube search type may provide useful insights.
For example, I have found that YouTube Search shows more relevant “related topics” and “related queries” data than researching with “web search” selected.
Here’s another example of how using different kinds of search types helps refine Google Trends data.
I did the same how, what, where, when, why, and who searches but this time using the News Search refinement.
The search trends in Google News are remarkably different than the search patterns on YouTube. That’s because people want to know the “what” and “how” types of information in Google News.
When creating content related to news, identifying the correct angle to report a news item is important.
Knowing that the words “what” or “who” are most relevant to a topic can be useful for crafting the title to what the readers are most interested in.
The above is the view of search queries for the past 90 days.
When the same keywords are searched using the 5-year perspective, it becomes clear that the “who” type keywords tend to spike according to current events.
As an example of how current events influence trends, the biggest spike in searches with the word “who” occurred in the days after the 2020 presidential election.
Every Search Type query refinement shows a different help to refine the results so that they show more accurate information.
So, give the Search Type selections a try because the information that is provided may be more accurate and useful than the more general and potentially noisy “web search” version.
Unlock The Hidden Power Of Google Trends
Free tools are generally considered to be less useful than paid tools. That’s not necessarily the case with Google Trends.
This article lists seven ways to discover useful search-related trends and patterns that are absolutely accurate, more than some search-related data from paid tools.
What’s especially notable is that this article only begins to scratch the surface of all the information that’s available.
Check out Google Trends and learn additional ways to mix different search patterns to obtain even more useful information.
More Resources:
Featured Image: Studio Romantic/Shutterstock
SEO
There’s No Such Thing as “Accurate” Search Volume
Which was not the first time I saw us being criticized for the accuracy of our search volume metric.
But here’s the kicker…
There’s NO SUCH THING as an accurate search volume:
- The volumes in Google Keyword Planner aren’t accurate.
- The “Impressions” in GSC aren’t accurate either.
- And the metric itself is just an average of the past data.
I already published a pretty detailed article about the search volume metric back in 2021. But I don’t think too many people have read it.
“Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.”
So let me address this topic from a whole new angle.
First of all, what do SEOs even mean when they ask for search volumes to be “accurate?”
Well, the less experienced folks just want the metrics in third-party tools to match what they see in Google Keyword Planner (GKP).
But the more experienced ones already know all Google Keyword Planner’s Dirty Secrets:
- The numbers are rounded annual averages.
- Those averages are then assigned to “volume buckets.”
- Keywords with similar meaning are often grouped together and their search volume summed up.
In other words, the search volume numbers that you see in GKP are very imprecise. And once SEOs learn that, they no longer use GKP as their baseline of accuracy.
They use GSC.
Ok. So the numbers in GKP are rounded and bucketed and clustered together and all that. But Google Search Console (GSC) shows you the actual impressions for a given keyword, right?
Well, did you know that a simple rank-tracking tool can easily pollute your GSC impressions?
Think of how many different “robots” might be scraping the search results for a given keyword, and therefore giving you a fairly inaccurate impression of its real (human-driven) search volume.
And besides, in order to see the actual monthly search volume your page has to be ranking at the top 10 for thirty days straight. And it should rank nationwide, just in case the search results might differ based on the location.
On top of that, I’m sure GSC is no different from any other analytics tool in the sense that it might have certain discrepancies in “counting” those impressions. I mean, go compare the “Clicks” you see reported by GSC with your server log files. I bet the numbers won’t match.
How much time do you think would pass between you selecting a certain keyword to rank for and actually having your page rank at the top of Google for it?
According to our old research, it could be anywhere from two months to a year for a newly published page to get to the top. Don’t you think the monthly search volume of a given keyword will change by then?
That’s actually the exact reason why we’ve added search volume forecasting to our Keywords Explorer tool. It uses past data to project what would likely happen to search volume in the next 12 months:
Is it accurate? No.
But does it help to streamline your keyword research and make better decisions? Absolutely.
Let’s do a thought experiment and imagine that there was an SEO tool which would give you a highly precise search volume for any keyword. What would you use it for? Would you be able to accurately predict your search traffic from that keyword?
No!
You can’t know for sure at which position your page will end up ranking. Today it’s #3, tomorrow it’s #5, the day after is #1. Rankings are volatile and you rarely retain a given position for a long enough period of time.
And even if you did: you can’t get precise data on the click-through rate (CTR) of each position in Google. Each SERP is unique, and Google keeps rolling out more and more SERP features that steal clicks away. So even if you knew precisely the search volume of a keyword and the exact position where your page would sit… you still would not be able to calculate the accurate amount of search traffic that you’ll get.
And finally…
Pages don’t rank for a single keyword! Seven years ago we published a study showing that a typical page that ranks at the top of Google for some keyword would actually rank for about a thousand more related keywords.
So what’s the point of trying to gauge your clicks from a single keyword, when you’ll end up ranking for a thousand of them all at the same time?
And the takeaway from all this is…
Here at Ahrefs we spend a tremendous amount of time, effort and resources to make sure our keyword database is in good shape, both in terms of its coverage of existing search queries, and the SEO metrics we give you for each of these keywords.
None of our SEO metrics are “accurate” though. Not search volume, nor keyword difficulty, nor traffic potential, you name it.
But none of them can be.
They’re designed to be “directionally accurate.” They give you an overall idea of the search demand of a given keyword and if it’s a lot higher (or lower) compared to some other keywords which you are considering.
You can’t use those metrics for doing any precise calculations.
But hundreds of thousands of SEO professionals around the world are using these exact metrics to guide their SEO strategies and they get precisely the results that they expect to get.
SEO
5 Key Enterprise SEO Trends For 2024
SEO has undergone many transitions and disruptions in a short time.
Enterprise SEO has been at the center of some fundamental transformations over the past year.
Adapting to the ever-changing needs and demands of consumers, integrating AI into search engines, and the influx of new generative AI SEO and content tools have forced organizations to adapt and evolve their marketing strategies.
In this article, I will delve deeper into five key enterprise SEO trends for 2024 with tips to help you keep pace with change and prepare for future success accordingly.
What Is Enterprise SEO?
Enterprise SEO is typically associated with implementing SEO strategies within large-scale organizations.
It predominantly applies to sizable brands with multiple departments and complex infrastructures. This can include large – and multiple – websites that offer a diverse array of products and services.
One of the key differences between standard SEO and enterprise SEO is the need for the workflow management of stakeholders, strategic planning, and ensuring strategies align with an organization’s broader – and, in many cases, multiple – objectives.
How Enterprise SEO Has Changed
In 2024, enterprise SEO trends will be shaped by technological advancements, changing user behaviors, and the evolving search landscape.
It’s no secret that the way search engines utilize generative AI to create new user experiences is changing how enterprises look at, and understand, what is happening in the search engine results pages (SERPs).
This includes shifting from pure keyword research leveraging data-led insights to understanding conversational intent that triggers search results.
Whether you are searching via traditional results or in Google SGE labs, results now contain more sources and multiple content formats. As a result, enterprises must become more innovative and proactive in their SEO and content marketing approaches.
The great thing to see is that the role of SEO is growing and expanding in this new AI era.
5 Essential Enterprise SEO Trends To Watch In 2024
1. Understanding Market Shift And Ever-Evolving Consumer Preferences
SEO is such a dynamic and intense discipline that, for the majority, it can be a ‘heads down,’ laser-focused, task-by-task approach.
However, especially when we look at enterprise SEO and large-scale projects, it is essential to take a step back and ensure you have a pulse on what is happening at a macro level.
For enterprise SEO experts, it is crucial to stay on top of the latest trends and developments in consumer behavior, especially during economic shifts. These shifts can significantly impact how businesses align their more extensive SEO and content strategies to match business objectives.
For example, the pandemic saw rapid shifts in shopping preferences for products related to staying at home.
In any era-changing economic conditions, the importance of SEO reaches an all-time high due to its cost efficiencies and compounding returns, such as branding and data-driven insights into products and all major digital strategies such as paid search, email, and social.
- Market conditions can force organizations to prioritize specific competitor strategies.
- Search algorithm updates may prioritize credibility and authoritative sources, which means content should be optimized accordingly. I will share more on this later in this article.
- Economic changes can also accelerate the use of new technologies, requiring businesses to be flexible and adaptable, and exercise caution in adoption.
Enterprise SEO pros must liaise with key management stakeholders monthly to ensure their strategies align with key business priorities to avoid going down unproductive pathways.
You must use data analytics effectively to understand target audiences and what is changing.
As enterprise SEO is a multi-stakeholder discipline, insights must be fed into organizational strategies to create more holistic, not just channel-agnostic, individualized experiences.
These can range from lead magnets that take the form of tailored marketing communications to customized product content and campaigns.
2. Using Generative AI For SEO And Content: Managing Risk Vs. Reward
According to Bloomberg Intelligence, by 2032, generative AI will be worth $1.3 trillion. Additionally, Gartner research shows that SEO and content marketing are two of the highest areas of increased investment.
Numbers vary depending on the source, but if you drill down, well over 2,000 generative content AI tools are flooding the market. No doubt you hear about a new one in the news every week!
The challenge for enterprise SEO pros who want to boost content productivity and performance lies in balancing the risk versus reward of using these tools.
Risk: Some of the content generative tools focus on velocity over quality. This is challenging for the consumer and search engines and limits the chance of your brand being discovered in a sea of nonsense.
This is because they are based on single-source, low-quality data sources that are not trained to understand your audience’s needs and wants. They have no understanding of what works in content & SEO.
For brands, this means the content can get buried below irrelevant, low-quality spam-like articles. Over time, I expect Google to solve this.
In addition, as a result, we are seeing more and more government and organization institutions building ethical AI and content creation guidelines and standards related to data use, regulation, and governance.
Always remember the risks.
- Generative AI has severe limitations and liabilities, including the tendency to “hallucinate” by fabricating information when it doesn’t have an answer.
- It can state misinformation so convincingly a reader new to the topic may believe it to be fact.
- It lacks creativity and produces output that tends to be generic and formulaic.
- The content produced is only as good as the input (prompts) and oversight (editorial process) –garbage in, garbage out.
Reward: On the flip side, if correctly used, generative AI tools can help improve content productivity and scale content for SEO campaigns.
- Help give valuable insights and inspiration: The cornerstone of successful campaign development is the strategic generation of ideas. Marketers can create compelling content by using generative AI to uncover popular search terms, monitor social media trends, and discover unique angles and ideas.
- Accelerate content production creation efficiency: Generative AI can also help segment audiences based on demographics, preferences, and behaviors, enabling you to tailor personalization strategies and unique experiences. It can also assist in timely (short-from) email marketing and crafting specific messages for each key target audience.
- Scale productivity and performance: For enterprise SEO pros who use platforms rather than multiple tools with disparate data sources, AI-generated content can be created in one platform that also helps you streamline workflows. Due to built-in privacy considerations and guardrails, platform-specific generative AI tools are likely safer to use. They can create content based on your existing assets and utilize high-fidelity and secure data based on search and content patterns. These are helpful for efficient content discovery and distribution, allowing you to focus on strategy and creation.
Recommendations from all-in-one platforms also act as a content and SEO best practice assistant.
3. Preparing For Search Generative Experiences: Your Content And Your Brand
The transition to Search Generative Experiences (SGE) marks the most substantial transformation in the history of search engines – and a seismic shift that will impact all industries, affecting every company and marketer globally.
SGE represents a paradigm shift in SEO, moving beyond traditional keyword-based tactics to embrace the power of generative AI.
As AI emerges and becomes almost a “mediator” between a company’s content and its users, one search can produce results that would have previously taken five separate searches.
Take retail shopping as an instance: AI will start to recommend a complete shopping experience that gives consumers an experience that contains many channels and sources and multiple forms of media.
For consumers, this promises deeper and more interactive experiences, leading to increased engagement and time spent on Google.
For brands, it means higher value clicks once a consumer is ready to visit your website.
I have been monitoring this (at BrightEdge) for a long time. I see experiments in critical areas that you should keep an eye on! For example:
- Testing of over 22 new content formats in SGE results.
- There are many warnings in the healthcare and YMVL industries, as Google is exercising caution.
- New visual content formats are used in industries such as e-commerce.
- More reviews are being added to results in areas like entertainment.
- There is a big focus on places (local) being integrated into results.
To help SEJ readers and the whole community, you can view for free (ungated) the data behind all these findings and a step-by-step guide to understanding this Ultimate Guide to SGE.
Note: This is still in Google Labs and has not been rolled yet. However, from the above, I firmly predict this is a matter of when, where, and how it will proceed.
4. Understanding And Adapting To New Search Behaviours: Data And Conversational Intent
Utilizing data to grasp user behavior and the underlying intent in conversations will be crucial for SEO success in both traditional and AI-driven search results.
Search is becoming conversational, and marketers must focus on user intent, advancing their understanding of their audience from simple keyword optimization to grasping conversational intent and extended phrases.
For users, this translates into more captivating and immersive experiences, leading to increased time spent on Google. This optimizes their search, guiding them swiftly to the most pertinent websites that cater to their unique needs.
For marketers, navigating your search presence becomes more intricate yet more fruitful. Anticipate reduced but higher-quality web traffic. Identifying key searches that activate various types of results is essential.
Clicks will carry greater monetary value due to enhanced conversion rates. This is because consumers are more ready to act after being informed and influenced by prior interactions and data from Google.
Marketers need to guarantee that their content strategy not only answers the specific query but also considers the broader context in which the query is made. This will help ensure targeted and effective engagement with users.
However, the core fundamentals of technical and website SEO remain the same. They will become more critical as marketers shift to optimizing their sites for higher-value traffic and clicks.
- Ensure your site is fast and responsive, it is structured, and the content is optimized for human readers. It should be structured to answer their questions in the most engaging and user-friendly way.
- Ensure your content assets are primed for conversion with clear CTAs.
Focusing on contextual signals will be vital for content marketers who want to maximize performance.
For example, schema markup, E-E-A-T, and HCU (even though not regarded as ranking factors) are vital, so search engines and users send signals so they can understand the context behind your site and content.
- Leverage data to decode user behavior and the intent behind conversations, using this insight as a catalyst for generative AI outcomes.
- Develop and refine various content types, such as videos and images, to enhance engagement.
- Coordinate marketing efforts across paid media, social platforms, and public relations to create a unified content campaign strategy.
- Concentrate on tracking metrics like traffic and converting high-quality down-funnel traffic as consumers spend more time on Google before making informed decisions and visiting your website.
And, as I know, you are now thinking. Yes, SGE could mean slightly less but more qualified traffic.
5. Managing Omnichannel Marketing: Managing SEO And Multiple Marketing Disinclines
SEO has long shifted from being a siloed channel, but enterprises must make changes now as consumers and search engine demands drive the need for even closer collaboration.
Given that the SERPs and AI-generated SGE results encompass a variety of media types and formats – including social media, reviews, and news sources – content marketers will need to get closer than ever to their SEO, digital branding, design, social media, and PR teams.
Consumers are no longer consuming media in silos, and that means marketers cannot operate SEO and digital marketing in silos. More than managing PPC and SEO campaigns with a bit of social media will be required in 2024.
This is especially true as AI-powered results contain multiple formats and sources. Whether you are a big brand or not, whoever provides the best experience will win in 2024 – so expect some curveballs from your competition.
This means the relationships between people, processes, and technology must change.
Make sure you are aligning your teams and managing workflows across:
- Design – Images and video.
- Branding and PR – Messaging and company reputation.
- Content – From text to design to social.
- SEO – PPC and Website teams.
- Customer Service teams – For reviews.
- Sales teams for advice on down-funnel CTAs on your site.
For enterprise SEO pros, platforms are the only way you can do this.
Key Takeaways For Enterprise SEO Success In 2024
SEO today is going to be different than SEO tomorrow. SEO tomorrow will be different than the search in March.
Change is the core constant we all share in this industry. Time has shown us that those who keep up with trends and adapt quickly survive and thrive.
As SEO advances alongside AI, keep a core focus on monitoring consumer behavior.
Never forget many of the core principles of SEO still apply, but be ready to help your organization become more agile so your success in enterprise SEO and AI is guaranteed.
In 2024, regardless of the search source, once a consumer clicks, brands that give them the best experience win.
More resources:
Featured Image: Sutthiphong Chandaeng/Shutterstock
SEO
A Guide to Star Ratings on Google and How They Work
The elusive five-star review used to be something you could only flaunt in a rotating reviews section on your website.
But today, Google has pulled these stars out of the shadows and features them front and center across branded SERPs and beyond.
Star ratings can help businesses earn trust from potential customers, improve local search rankings, and boost conversions.
This is your guide to how they work.
Stars And SERPs: What Is The Google Star Rating?
A Google star rating is a consumer-powered grading system that lets other consumers know how good a business is based on a score of one to five stars.
These star ratings can appear across maps and different Google search results properties like standard blue link search listings, ads, rich results like recipe cards, local pack results, third-party review sites, and on-app store results.
How Does The Google Star Rating Work?
When a person searches Google, they will see star ratings in the results. Google uses an algorithm and an average to determine how many stars are displayed on different review properties.
Google explains that the star score system operates based on an average of all review ratings for that business that have been published on Google.
It’s important to note that this average is not calculated in real-time and can take up to two weeks to update after a new review is created.
When users leave a review, they are asked to rate a business based on specific aspects of their customer experience, as well as the type of business being reviewed and the services they’ve included.
For example, “plumbers may get “Install faucet” or “Repair toilet” as services to add,” and Google also allows businesses to add custom services that aren’t listed.
When customers are prompted to give feedback, they can give positive or critical feedback, or they can choose not to select a specific aspect to review, in which case this feedback aspect is considered unavailable.
This combination of feedback is what Google uses to determine a business’s average score by “dividing the number of positive ratings by the total number of ratings (except the ones where the aspect was not rated).”
Google star ratings do have some exceptions in how they function.
For example, the UK and EU have certain restrictions that don’t apply to other regions, following recent scrutiny by the EU Consumer Protection Cooperation and the UK Competitions and Market Authority about fake reviews being generated.
Additionally, the type of rating search property will determine the specifics of how it operates and how to gather and manage reviews there.
Keep reading to get an in-depth explanation of each type of Google star rating available on the search engine results pages (SERPs).
How To Get Google Star Ratings On Different Search Properties
As mentioned above, there are different types of Google star ratings available across search results, including the standard blue-link listings, ads, local pack results, rich snippets, third-party reviews, and app store results.
Here’s what the different types of star-rating results look like in Google and how they work on each listing type.
Standard “Blue Link” Listings And Google Stars
In 2021, Google started testing star ratings in organic search and has since kept this SERP feature intact.
Websites can stand out from their competitors by getting stars to show up around their organic search results listing pages.
How To Get Google Stars On Organic SERPs
If you want stars to show up on your organic search results, add schema markup to your website.
Learn how to do that in the video below:
As the video points out, you need actual reviews to get your structured data markup to show.
Then, you can work with your development team to input the code on your site that indicates your average rating, highest, lowest, and total rating count.
Once you add the rich snippet to your site, there is no clear timeline for when they will start appearing in the SERPs – that’s up to Google.
In fact, Google specifically mentions that reviews in properties like search can take longer to appear, and often, this delay is caused by business profiles being merged.
When you’re done, you can check your work with Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool.
Adding schema is strongly encouraged. But even without it, if you own a retail store with ratings, Google may still show your star ratings in the search engine results.
They do this to ensure searchers are getting access to a variety of results. Google says:
“content on your website that’s been crawled and is related to retail may also be shown in product listings and annotations for free across Google.”
If you want star ratings to show up on Shopping Ads, you’ll have to pay for that.
Paid Ads And Google Stars
When Google Stars appear in paid search ads, they’re known as seller ratings, “an automated extension type that showcases advertisers with high ratings.”
These can appear in text ads, shopping ads, and free listings. Both the star rating and the total number of votes or reviews are displayed.
In addition to Google star ratings, shopping ads may include additional production information such as shipping details, color, material, and more, as shown below.
Paid text ads were previously labeled as “ads” and recently have been upgraded to a “sponsored” label, as shown below.
How To Get Google Stars On Paid Ads
To participate in free listings, sellers have to do three things:
- Follow all the required policies around personally identifiable information, spam, malware, legal requirements, return policies, and more.
- Submit a feed through the Google Merchant Center or have structured data markup on their website (as described in the previous section).
- Add their shipping settings.
Again, some ecommerce sellers who do not have schema markup may still have their content show up in the SERPs.
For text ads and shopping ads to show star ratings, sellers are typically required to have at least 100 reviews in the last 12 months.
Paid advertisers must also meet a minimum number of stars for seller ratings to appear on their text ads. This helps higher-quality advertisers stand out from the competition.
For example, text ads have to have a minimum rating of 3.5 for the Google star ratings to show.
Google treats reviews on a per-country basis, so the minimum review threshold of 100 also applies only to 1 region at a time.
For star ratings to appear on a Canadian ecommerce company’s ads, for example, they would have to have obtained a minimum of 100 reviews from within Canada in the last year.
Google considers reviews from its own Google Customer Reviews and also from approved third-party partner review sites from its list of 29 supported review partners, which makes it easier for sellers to meet the minimum review threshold each year.
Google also requests:
- The domain that has ratings must be the same as the one that’s visible in the ad.
- Google or its partners must conduct a research evaluation of your site.
- The reviews included must be about the product or service being sold.
Local Pack Results And Google Stars
Local businesses have a handful of options for their business to appear on Google via Places, local map results, and a Google Business Profile page – all of which can show star ratings.
Consumers even have the option to sort local pack results by their rating, as shown in the image example below.
How To Get Google Stars On Local Search Results
To appear in local search results, a Google Business Profile is required.
Customers may leave reviews directly on local business properties without being asked, but Google also encourages business owners to solicit reviews from their customers and shares best practices, including:
- Asking your customers to leave you a review and make it easy for them to do so by providing a link to your review pages.
- Making review prompts desktop and mobile-friendly.
- Replying to customer reviews (ensure you’re a verified provider on Google first).
- Be sure you do not offer incentives for reviews.
Customers can also leave star ratings on other local review sites, as Google can pull from both to display on local business search properties. It can take up to two weeks to get new local reviews to show in your overall score.
Once customers are actively leaving reviews, Google Business Profile owners have a number of options to help them manage these:
Rich Results, Like Recipes, And Google Stars
Everybody’s gotta eat, and we celebrate food in many ways — one of which is recipe blogs.
While restaurants rely more on local reviews, organic search results, and even paid ads, food bloggers seek to have their recipes rated.
Similar to other types of reviews, recipe cards in search results show the average review rating and the total number of reviews.
The outcome has become a point of contention among the food blogging community, since only three recipes per search can be seen on Google desktop results (like shown in the image above), and four on a mobile browser.
These coveted spots will attract clicks, leaving anyone who hasn’t mastered online customer reviews in the dust. That means that the quality of the recipe isn’t necessarily driving these results.
Google gives users the option to click “Show more” to see two additional rows of results:
Searchers can continue to click the “Show more” button to see additional recipe results.
Anyone using Google Home can search for a recipe and get results through their phone:
Similarly, recipe search results can be sent from the device to the Google Home assistant. Both methods will enable easy and interactive step-by-step recipe instructions using commands like “start recipe,” “next step,” or even “how much olive oil?”
How To Get Google Stars On Recipe Results
Similar to the steps to have stars appear on organic blue-link listings, food bloggers and recipe websites need to add schema to their websites in order for star ratings to show.
However, it’s not as straightforward as listing the average and the total number of ratings. Developers should follow Google’s instructions for recipe markup.
There is both required and recommended markup:
Required Markup For Recipes
- Name of the recipe.
- Image of the recipe in a BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, WebP, or SVG format.
Recommended Markup For Recipes
- Aggregate rating.
- Author.
- Cook time, preparation time, and total duration.
- Date published.
- Description.
- Keywords.
- Nutrition information.
- Prep time.
- Recipe category by meal type, like “dinner.”
- Region associated with the recipe.
- Ingredients.
- Instructions.
- Yield or total serving.
- Total time.
- Video (and other related markup, if there is a video in the recipe).
To have recipes included in Google Assistant Guided Recipes, the following markup must be included:
- recipeIngredient
- recipeInstructions
- To have the video property, add the contentUrl.
For example, here’s what the structured markup would look like for the recipeIngredient property:
Third-Party Review Sites And Google Stars
Many software companies rely on third-party review sites to help inform their customer’s purchasing decisions.
Third-party review sites include any website a brand doesn’t own where a customer can submit a review, such as Yelp, G2, and many more.
Many of these sites, like Featured Customers shown below, can display star ratings within Google search results.
Rich snippets from third-party reviews, such as stars, summary info, or ratings, can also appear on a Google Business Profile or map view from approved sites.
For local businesses, Google star ratings appear in different locations than the third-party reviews on a desktop:
On mobile, ratings are displayed on a company’s Google Business Profile. Users need to click on Reviews or scroll down to see the third-party reviews:
On a map, the results from third parties may be more prominent, like the Tripadvisor review that shows up for a map search of The Hilton in Vancouver (although it does not display a star rating even though Tripadvisor does provide star ratings):
How To Get Google Stars On Third-Party Review Sites
The best way to get a review on a third-party review site depends on which site is best for the brand or the business.
For example, if you have active customers on Yelp or Tripadvisor, you may choose to engage with customers there.
Similarly, if a software review site like Trustpilot shows up for your branded search, you could do an email campaign with your customer list asking them to leave you a review there.
Here are a few of the third-party review websites that Google recognizes:
- Trustpilot.
- Reevoo.
- Bizrate – through Shopzilla.
When it comes to third-party reviews, Google reminds businesses that there is no way to opt out of third-party reviews, and they need to take up any issues with third-party site owners.
App Store Results And Google Stars
When businesses have an application as their core product, they typically rely on App Store and Google Play Store downloads.
Right from the SERPs, searchers can see an app’s star ratings, as well as the total votes and other important information, like whether the app is free or not.
How To Get Google Stars On App Store Results
Businesses can list their iOS apps in the App Store or on the Google Play store, prompt customers to leave reviews there, and also respond to them.
Does The Google Star Rating Influence SEO Rankings?
John Mueller confirmed that Google does not factor star ratings or customer reviews into web search rankings. However, Google is clear that star ratings influence local search results and rankings:
“Google review count and review score factor into local search ranking. More reviews and positive ratings can improve your business’ local ranking.”
Even though they are not a ranking factor for non-local organic search, star ratings can serve as an important conversion element, helping you display social proof, build credibility, and increase your click-through rate from search engines (which may indirectly impact your search rankings).
For local businesses, both Google stars and third-party ratings appear in desktop and mobile searches, as seen above.
These ratings not only help local businesses rank above their competitors for key phrases, but they will also help convince more customers to click, which is every company’s search game.
How Do I Improve My Star Rating?
Businesses that want to improve their Google star rating should start by claiming their Google Business Profile and making sure all the information is complete and up to date.
If a company has already taken these steps and wants to offset a poor rating, they are going to need more reviews to offset the average.
Companies can get more Google reviews by making it easy for customers to leave one. The first step for a company is to get the link to leave a review inside their Google Business Profile:
From there, companies can send this link out to customers directly (there are four options displayed right from the link as seen above), include it on social media, and even dedicate sections of their website to gathering more reviews and/or displaying reviews from other users.
It isn’t clear whether or not responding to reviews will help improve a local business’s ranking; however, it’s still a good idea for companies to respond to reviews on their Google Business Profile in order to improve their ratings overall.
That’s because responding to reviews can entice other customers to leave a review since they know they will get a response and because the owner is actually seeing the feedback.
For service businesses, Google provides the option for customers to rate aspects of the experience.
This is helpful since giving reviewers this option allows anyone who had a negative experience to rate just one aspect negatively rather than giving a one-star review overall.
Does Having A Star Rating On Google Matter? Yes! So Shoot For The Stars
Stars indicate quality to consumers, so they almost always improve click-through rates wherever they are present.
Consumers tend to trust and buy from brands with higher star ratings in local listings, paid ads, or even app downloads.
Many, many, many studies have demonstrated this phenomenon time and again. So, don’t hold back when it comes to reviews.
Do an audit of where your brand shows up in SERPs and get stars next to as many placements as possible.
The most important part of star ratings across Google, however, will always be the service and experiences companies provide that fuel good reviews from happy customers.
More resources:
Feature Image: BestForBest/Shutterstock
All screenshots taken by author
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