Got a product review site? Give your site an edge in Google's Search Results for Free!

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Sorry if this isn't something new to you or if it's been shared in the forum before.

OK so here's a little something I've been testing for about a month now on a few of my review sites. I thought I'd share it with you so that you may benefit, just like my sites have.

First let me show you what I mean. Type in "african mango" in google and take a look at the results on the first page. You'll see a site called "dietspotlight.com" and I'm sure you'll notice it right away because it's got yellow stars plus the words "Review by Editor". Do you see how the yellow review stars caught your attention even though the site wasn't even at #1? It's not a lot but its enough to get a person to click onto your site. And I've seen an increase in organic traffic from google after I've implemented this technique.

Here's how to do the same for your sites absolutely free:

The code used to "decorate" your site's pages is called "Google Rich Snippets". For those of you who like to learn more indepth go to Google Rich Snippets Tips and Tricks - a collection by Google Rich Snippets

But if you want to implement this simple technique easily then here's what you need to do:

1) If you're using Wordpress then go download and active a free plugin called "SEO Ultimate" WordPress › SEO Ultimate « WordPress Plugins

2) You can disable every option in the SEO section in its setting except one called "Rich Snippet Creator"

3) Make a new post or go edit one of your existing posts and you will notice a new set of options called "SEO Setting". Select the "Rich Snippet Type" and then assign a Star rating and save the post

4) Optionally change the Display Name of your admin wp user to "Editor" since it used the post's user as the "Review by" name.

That's it! The plugin will automatically add the Rich Snippet codes to your blog post

To verify how it will look in google go to Webmaster Tools - Rich Snippets Testing Tool and paste in your blog post URL. That's the complete URL to your blog post.

Google does not guarantee that it will use these snippets once it reindexes your site. But it DOES help a lot when Google smiles upon your site and your listings will feel some "G Love".

Update:
BTW Just FYI you CAN install the Ultimate SEO along with the All In One SEO plugin. I've done this on my blogs. I use All In One SEO as the primary and I've turned off ALL the SEO options for Ultimate SEO. So there's no conflict. Hope this helps those who were wondering if the 2 SEO plugins would hinder each other.


Hope this helped!
Khemal
#search engine optimization #edge #free #give #google #product #results #review #search #site
  • Awesome tip! Thanks.
    • [1] reply
  • Does it work with clickbank's review site?
    • [1] reply
    • The plugin works with any blog that you have control of. If your site is not a wordpress blog then you can STILL make use of this but you'll have to do a little bit of coding to manually include the snippet tags.
      • [1] reply
  • Very useful tip, thanks. The plugin is quite useful.
    • [2] replies
    • Keep in mind, it has nothing to do with SERPs, but yes, may be an attention
      getter.

      Paul
      • [1] reply
    • You're welcome. Glad you liked it.
  • Slick tip my friend!

    Love learning new techniques that are actually useful and will increase traffic.

    I'm going to do this right away!

    Thanks bub!

    Adam.

    PS - Nobody's thanked you yet?!?! This is a great tip here.
    • [1] reply

    • Hehe a "few" people hit the thanks button But it's cool. Hope everyone who read this tip uses it to its fullest potential. Cos it DOES work.
  • Awesome, thanks so much. that is awesome and very useful too.
    • [2] replies
    • Sweet tip! Works not just for posts but also for pages.
      • [2] replies
    • You're welcome. Glad you liked it.
  • Wow, great tip!

    I love how small things like this have the power to increase your clickthrough rates!

    Capture the searcher's attention, and get their business...
    • [1] reply
    • That's what I'm talking about Enjoy!
  • Never heard of this. Thanks!
    • [1] reply
    • You got it
      • [1] reply
  • Great suggestions. Do you have any idea what percentage of the sites actually are displayed in this fashion in Google?
    • [1] reply
    • I do not have any stats on percentages, sorry. But I doubt that Google will throttle the number of sites that it shows snippets for. Please let me know if you come across any numbers.
  • Is there anyway to use the plugin with my homepage instead of using it for just posts? (Apart from direct coding)

    Update:
    It seems there is no way to add the stars to your homepage using the plugin.

    You can use the following code somewhere in index.php of wordpress (or any other html page) to display the stars at your homepage. Edit the parameters as per your needs.

    HTML Code:
    <div class="hreview"><div><span  class="rating"><span class="value-title"  title="4.5"></span></span><span  class="reviewer"><span class="value-title"  title="Editor"></span></span><span  class="dtreviewed"><span class="value-title"  title="2011-01-12"></span></span></div></div>
    • [1] reply
    • Thanks for the update and tip on how to get the stars on the first page


  • Good tip, I will look to implement!
    • [1] reply
    • Implementation. That's the KEY.
  • Thanks for this! I keep meaning to find out how those rich snippets are done - it actually requires some XML inserted in your page, and I just got bored with trying to figure it out, but it seems there is a plugin that does it for you
    • [1] reply
    • You're welcome. Hope it helps you.
  • Sounds very interesting. I'll try on my blog right now ! Thank you for posting this...hk
    • [1] reply
  • BTW Just FYI you CAN install the Ultimate SEO along with the All In One SEO plugin. I've done this on my blogs. I use All In One SEO as the primary and I've turned off ALL the SEO options for Ultimate SEO. So there's no conflict. Hope this helps those who were wondering if the 2 SEO plugins would hinder each other.

    Khemal
  • I noticed that the Diet Reviews | Weight Loss Programs, Fitness Plans, Diet Reviews used as an example above is a PR7 site. Has anyone managed to get rich snippet info showing for sites with lower PR? Any suggestions on what to do in order to get Google to show snippet info for your reviews items?

    More PR? More Trust? More Linking Domains?
  • Great tip!
  • Wondering about people's experiences with getting indexed after implementing this?

    Also, what if your WP site ISN'T a review site? Just an info site with adsense. Would using this be frowned upon by Google?
    • [1] reply
    • doubt it would hurt the google rankings!

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