What are Google Trusted Shops?
Whether you're a retailer, seller, or creative, social proof is everything. If you expect someone to buy from you, you have to show them that others trust you and have had good experiences with your company.
A popular way to do this has been through Google Trusted Stores. The platform offers Google's seal of approval for your business while also offering customers purchase protection for their own safety. Let's take a look at the program and how it can help you.
What is a Google Trusted Store?
Google offers free certification for companies that provide users with a consistently high quality shopping experience.
If your business can meet the requirements, you will receive a trust badge on your website with your overall rating. This type of social proof is powerful. When potential customers see this badge, they know you are a trustworthy provider.
Google changed the platform from "Google Trusted Stores" to "Google Customer Reviews". This platform is a little different because it no longer shows ID in search results and Google no longer provides purchase protection for customers.
When asked why Google made the decision, they stated:
We made this change to better focus our support on ensuring you receive high quality reviews and seller ratings. These are the two main keys to driving more visitors to your website.
Ratings and seller ratings are important so this could be a good change. The Google Trusted Stores program never focused on this as it was more of a “pass-or-fail” situation. Now Google is here to help you by reaching out to your customers and asking them to give you a review and rating.
Google Trusted Stores compared to Google customer reviews
It gets a bit confusing to distinguish between Google Trusted Stores and Google Customer Reviews. Let's try to clear things up so you can understand the differences between Google Trusted Stores and Google Customer Reviews.
Google Trusted Stores offered purchase protection, seller ratings, on-site customer reviews, program IDs, and review extensions in the SERPs.
Google Customer Reviews provides seller ratings on Google, on-site customer ratings, and program badges.
You lose purchase protection and check extensions. However, Google does offer something in place of the verification extensions. Instead of having a badge on your ads, you can display the number of reviews and your overall rating. I will explain how to access it in the next section.
How to become a Google Trusted Store
If you're already part of the program, you don't need to do anything to migrate to Google customer reviews. If you've never signed up and are asking for it for the first time, here's how.
Step 1: Access the Merchant Center
First, go to the Google Merchant Center. If you already have an account, you can sign in. If you don't, I'll walk you through each step. The entire process should take no more than a few minutes.
As soon as you click on "Register", you will be redirected to the following page.
You create your account with all your business data and upload your products which will then be shown in Google, in shopping ads and in local ads. Enter your company name, country and time zone. Once you do, a new section will appear underneath.
Here you can choose which actions users should take and how Google should manage your advertising. You can send traffic from the ad straight to your website, let customers add items to their shopping cart directly on Google, or advertise a brick and mortar store with directions.
For example, I chose to have customers shop on my website.
You can then sync with other tools like PayPal, specify your notifications and emails that you want to receive, and accept the terms of use.
Step 2: Enter important business information
Once you get to the next page, you'll need to fill in more company information. You can set up sales tax, enter shipping methods and fees including your website, and upload product data.
If you think you have everything you need to upload, please confirm and activate your free listing.
Step 3: Activate customer reviews
You will be directed to this page as soon as you have activated your free entry or skipped this process.
We now want to enable Google Customer Reviews. You can do this by scrolling down and looking for this box. Click Activate, read the agreement, click Save, and continue.
To qualify, your store must have the shopping cart and checkout pages hosted on the same domain, the verification page must be hosted on your domain, and you need to add to the top of each page.
You will then need to verify your account against the requirements of the Google Trusted Store and paste the review login code into your website.
Once Google determines that you've earned the title, it will ask visitors to provide feedback on your store with every purchase. You can also display the Google customer review badge on your website.
The evaluation process takes between 60 and 90 days. So, this doesn't happen overnight, but it's a great way to improve social proof, make sure customers trust you, and generate more traffic by getting more reviews, faster.
Advantages of a Google Trusted Store
What's the Big Deal with the Google Trusted Stores Program and why should you make it a priority for your business? We trust certain providers over others for the same reason. If you own a store that makes custom mugs, you likely have “preferred vendors” that you buy from over and over again.
Why are you doing this?
They do it because you trust them. This Google seal of approval can do a lot for your reputation. Anyone who understands the program knows that you must meet Google's requirements to become a member.
Social proof
We do so many things in our stores to make sure people trust us. We include badges, testimonials, and trust symbols. Customers are realizing that Google isn't the one giving you the reviews. it's other customers. When was the last time you bought something from an unknown company without first checking the reviews?
Positive reviews are the best form of social proof as they show new customers that other people like what you sell and trust them to buy from you. This is especially important in new businesses.
Seller ratings
Once you have received the badge, you will be able to view your seller ratings with your shopping postings and ads. As customers scroll through the many options available, they will find that your product has a 4.8 out of 5 and will likely buy it because you have a near-perfect rating and a better rating than your competitors.
The best part is that if you advertise on Google as well, you'll get a certified shop tag. This will help you part with the businesses that weren't ready to go the extra mile and sign up for the program.
How customers benefit from Google Trusted Stores
At one time, the benefits of shopping on Google Trusted Stores were very clear. Now it's more of a gray area since Google switched to the customer service platform.
Google initially offered customer protection when they purchased from a trusted store. If the customer did not receive the item, received incorrect billing, or did not receive the item on time, Google stepped in and helped provide a solution.
It seems this was a little difficult for Google to manage, and that was probably the main reason they switched to the new platform.
Nevertheless, customers still receive many advantages from using the Google Trusted Stores platform in their new form.
Customers who shop at these stores know that they have many positive reviews from the companies' experiences. By researching, reading reviews, and understanding where to shop, users have a higher chance of getting the products they have purchased in a timely manner.
While customers may not receive purchase protection, buying from a reputable store should almost always result in a good experience because the retailer wants that reputation to last. Customers also have the option to fill out a survey if they have had a bad experience.
How to get a "Trusted Store" badge for your AdWords campaigns
Since switching to trusted reviews, Google no longer offers badges for AdWords campaigns. What they offer, however, is pretty powerful.
You may remember a time when Google put some of your short, positive reviews at the bottom of your AdWords ad. This was a great way to provide potential traffic with a quick burst of social evidence.
What they replaced, however, is just as good, if not better. You will now see results similar to below in your campaigns.
Instead of a single review, you get a star rating, the number of reviews, and a qualifier like the average delivery time. However, there are a few requirements to get this status:
- Google has received / collected 100 unique reviews from Google customer reviews or third party review partners in the past 12 months
- Google and / or its partners carried out a research evaluation of your website. or
- Google has completed an evaluation of your website through Google Consumer Surveys.
- Average composite rating of 3.5 stars or more for text ads
- Currently, Google can show seller ratings when the average rating is less than 3.5 stars
- The visible URL domain of the ad must match the domain with the ratings
All of this is made possible by the customer review platform. When people shop with you and leave reviews, build this portfolio to increase your chances of getting the ad extension.
Consequences of not following Google Trusted Storage Guidelines
Google always has ramifications for everything, right? The same applies to the Google Trusted Stores program. If you are a shop owner and you have concerns about meeting guidelines, you may want to set up some systems to be ready.
Every time someone buys something from you, they'll be asked to fill out a survey that explains how the process works. They also have additional options for providing feedback to Google about how the shipment went and what the product is like when they receive it.
If at any time the customer is dissatisfied with the service and provides feedback on it, this information will be sent to you. Regularly receiving negative feedback will not only harm your ratings, but it could also result in your being removed from the program.
Google is still standing by and making sure you meet your customers' demands. Even if they no longer offer customer purchase protection, they are still investing in making sure customers get the best experience possible on Google.
Conclusion
If you are trying to get more exposure to your business there are a variety of resources out there that can help you out including my agency. Whether you've been involved in the Google Trusted Stores program for years or just starting out, Social Proof is powerful.
You can never have too much of this, and Google will make sure that it brings the companies that offer the best experience to the top.
Do you prefer Google customer reviews over Google Trusted Stores? Explain why in the comments.
See How my agency can drive Firmly Traffic volumes on your website
- SEO – Unlock tons of SEO traffic. See real results.
- Content Marketing – Our team creates epic content that is shared, links accessed and visitors drawn.
- Paid media – effective paid strategies with a clear ROI.
Book a call