Google’s Newest Reviews System Update Creates New Rules for Business Owners Looking to Outsmart the Algorithm in 2023

Optimize Your Web Presence By Following These Rules

Google is known for continually rolling out new regulations that online marketers, and the clients they serve, must adapt to in order to retain and gain customer interest—not to mention customers’ dollars.

What makes it especially important to abide by Google’s dogma is that its search engine is powered by artificial intelligence that can make quick work of sorting out who has adapted, and who has not. Survival of the fittest extends to the Internet.

Below, we will cover some of the key insights from Google’s recent reviews system update.

Google Extends Its Review System Beyond Product Reviews

Services and businesses, destinations, and media such as video games and movies, are now going to become eligible for Google’s strict reviews system.

This is a major change from the old way of things, where the system was a “products review system”. This put service-based businesses at an advantage for using reviews to boost SEO. Now, those services will need to meet the guidelines that products do.

The major implication here is that the quality of reviews’ content is going to have to increase for businesses looking to stay competitive on search.

You are going to want to stick with Google’s guidelines for writing high quality reviews.

Another big reason for the reviews system update is an increased focus on experience in user reviews, which we will further detail below.

Experience Will Make You Rich

Search Engine Journal reports that key phrases that signal experience (e.g., “based on my experience”, “according to my analysis”) will help your business rank higher.

This matters because this makes those reviews appear more trustworthy to customers. If your potential customers trust an experienced reviewer, it means that they also trust Google to display your business in a Google search.

And, let us not forget, being able to hit this target benefits the business that will enjoy the high ranking.

So, key takeaway here is to make sure that your reviews involve mentions of the reviewers’ experience. This evidence can include high-quality links and statistics, which tend to be signs of expertise.

This Applies to Blogs as Well

Another key thing to understand is that this update does not just apply to the reviews on a Google My Business Profile—they extend to articles, blogs, and other standalone content that you might post on your company’s website.

What this means is that you are going to have to signal experience within your content if your blogs offer analyses or recommendations.

This applies to most of the content that businesses put on their website, because the end goal there is to build awareness of your businesses’ products and services while attracting traffic to your site.

What you will need to do, then, is make sure that you are signaling your experience in your field to the customers, so that Google recognizes that it is coming from a trusted source.