User-generated content in the form of ratings and reviews can deliver powerful SEO benefits to your e-commerce site. Many e-commerce platforms, including Magento, now have built-in ratings and reviews. Other platforms offer extensions in their marketplaces to support user-generated content. Regarding the importance of user-generated content, Search Engine Journal offers the article, Why Should UGC be a Part of Your SEO Strategy?
- Unique content for product detail pages: The language used by reviewers is different than the language used in product descriptions. When you include this unique “review language” in product detail pages, you create unique content. Your pages can no longer be considered duplicate to any other page on the internet.
- Rankings boost from unique terms used in reviews: Internet search engines understand the language used by reviewers is not the same as the language provided by manufacturers. Search engines use review language to reinforce the topic of the product detail page. As a result, pages might rank better for phrases they already ranked for and they might rank additionally for phrases introduced via reviews.
- Social proof: Favorable reviews and ratings act as social proof. Studies show that products are purchased more often when there is proof that other consumers liked those products as well.
Keep in mind that ratings and reviews only help your page rankings if they are part of the pages themselves. For maximum impact they must be visible as part of initial page loads, without use of iframes and without hiding the information behind tabbed or accordion-type controls.
We recommend showing rating and review information only after several reviews have been collected. Otherwise a low review count might negatively impact the perception of desirability for the products on your site.
Ratings & Reviews Partners of SLI include Feefo, Reevoo, Bazaarvoice, Power Reviews and TurnTo.
For more tips on improving your SEO, download our white paper “How to Get the SEO-Driven Revenue You’re Missing.”
