How to Show Star Ratings in Google Search Results

As readers, we all know the impact the star ratings in Google search results leave on us. A post with star ratings is the first thing we crawl down to and also are we eager to check it out. These star rating work wonder for a product or service that you’re selling or reviewing.

That’s it! You have to capitalize on this!!

If people come across your product or review in Google search results with those shining stars, they will definitely give it a go.

Well, this was about what do these stars mean and why do you need them. Let me now address your curiosity. You want to know how to get star ratings in Google search results, and you want to know it now.

There are a few ways to do this, and I’ll be talking about the two best ways to do this.

• Using plugins for Rich Snippets
• Manually (generating and placing the code in your post)

#1 Using Plugins

If you are a blogger who uses WordPress, you are one lucky blogger. There is no better place to start your blog other than WordPress. The wide range of plugins it offers to make your blog awesome is something you can’t miss out on. To know more about why WordPress is one of the coolest options to star your blog with, read my other articles on WordPress.

So, did I just say that you are one lucky blogger if you are using WordPress?

I’ll tell you why. Rich Snippets. WordPress offers best plugins for Rich Snippets. Think of Rich Snippets as a page markup which helps the search engine to understand what your page contains.

They are a boost for SEO (to understand SEO better refer to my other articles where I talk about On page and Off page SEO techniques).

See Also : On Page SEO Techniques With Checklists You Must Know

 

What is the best WP plugin for Rich Snippets?

If you google this question, the first name you’ll come across will be this- All in One Schema.org

Install this free plugin on WP site. Once you’ve got this, here is what you need to do to get star ratings in Google search results.

• Creating a new post

This doesn’t mean that you can’t add star rating on your existing posts. For the sake of this tutorial, I’ll be creating a new post.

Add the title, add your content. And yes, talking about content, title, make sure you have your post optimized for SEO. It is not required for this Rich Snippet plugin, but if you are looking to get your post in top 10 Google search results you need your post to be optimized for SEO.

• Adding your content

Now that you have your content ready, it’s time to rate our product that we have reviewed.

• Configuring Rich Snippet

Scroll down to the bottom of the post; you’ll find this.

Here you have to configure the Rich Snippet that you’re going to use.

Select what your post is about. Here in the post in the snapshot, I have reviewed HostGator, so I select Item Review.

Now, we fill in the information like reviewer’s name, item to be reviewed, and the best part- Rating.

Once you have filled in all the information to configure Rich Snippet, hit publish.

Now it’s time to see if we have done everything right and get that star rating in Google search results.

Go to Google search and search your site using this line- “site:<url>”

Hit Enter.

You’ll see something like this. Wait, isn’t this exactly what we wanted to see?

Yeah! We just got star rating in Google search results for our review post.

Isn’t that simple? With the power of WordPress plugins, your blogging experience just became better.

Let’s see the other way to do this.

#2 Using Schema Generator

In this method, we use a schema generator and use the generated code in our post.

It’s as simple as sipping a cup of coffee.

• Visit Microdatagenerator.com

• Click on Thing Generators. This is what you’ll be needing.

• When you land on the Thing generators page, scroll down to find this box. Here you can find a wide range of generators like Aggregate Ratings, Customer Reviews, Events and much more.

Here, for our review, we select Aggregate Ratings.

This is what you’ll find on the Aggregate Rating Schema page. Fill in the name of product, aggregate star rating and the total number of reviews.

The number of reviews specifies the total number of people having reviewed the product.

And the rating is the aggregate of all the reviews.

Press Submit.

Copy these lines of code and paste on a notepad before using it on your site.

• Go back to your site.

Here is another post where I have reviewed iPage hosting.

Here, choose to view your post in text mode.

Add the lines of code that we pasted on the notepad.

Look at the end of the post, I have copied the Aggregate Rating Information generated using schema generator.

Now let’s view our post in visual mode.

There you are. We got the ratings in the post. Now it’s time to see if we see the star rating in Google search results.

Use the format shown in the snapshot to search your URL.

Here are our Google search results. You can see those shining stars under the review post.

These were the two simplest and most effective ways to get star rating in Google search results.

Please note that the star ratings won’t show up in the search results immediately. It will be showed only when Google indexes your post. Having a good sitemap and a valid robots.txt file makes your post index faster.

Now that you know how to use Rich Snippets use them for your best and give your posts a unique and different touch in Google search results and see how your site traffic gets a boost.