Ever since the ability for businesses to link their Google My Business and Adwords accounts, this news was a long time coming. Now, for ads that have location extensions enabled, ratings from their linked Google My Business account are able to appear alongside those ads.
Having local ratings appear next to your ads means that the opinions and experiences of your customers are more important than ever before, as ad visibility become increasingly dominant in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Page).
Previously, being able to show ratings in Google Adwords required seller ratings which had at least 30 reviews or more. Even AdWords Express had a minimum review and star rating threshold before it would show alongside ads. Now all AdWords customers can reap the advantages of this new feature.*
This is just another step in Google’s plan to push Google+ as a business oriented social platform, and no doubt local businesses will be even more incentivized to obtain those ever-so-previous reviews.
Image from xkcd.com
*There is currently no word on whether there is threshold for the number of reviews on a Google+ business page for ratings to show alongside ads as of yet.
About Scott Shorter
Scott Shorter in a SEO and digital marketing specialist with 20 years of experience. He has been a guest speaker for the Advertising Council of Australia, Engineering Institute of Technology, WA Leaders association as an industry expert and Edith Cowan University, from which he graduated with a B.Comms – BSc (M) Multimedia & Internet Computing in 2005. His agency Scott Shorter Pty Ltd was founded in 2011 in response to a market demand for a dedicated SEO and digital marketing agency.
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