We are excited to announce that GatherUp is the first reputation management solution to launch monitoring of Google’s new review attributes.
Last month we broke the news that Google was expanding review attributes to new categories, not just home services. This is one of the biggest changes to Google reviews in the past few years and led us to move quickly to bring the ability to monitor Google attributes via GatherUp.
Google Attribute Monitoring In GatherUp
Starting today, our customers will see Google attributes displayed with their Google reviews in Customer Activity. Attributes will also be available in the CSV download for Customer Activity.
Our filter in Customer Activity will allow you to filter only Google attributes by selecting the positive or critical options under the Rating Type column. You can then use the keyword search to look at just reviews that have a specific review attribute used like “Value”.
Why Are Google Review Attributes Important?
We see a few reasons that this addition is big news and also one we wanted to create a solution for.
Google Attributes Are Growing
One important signal is the expansion to other categories. Google attributes are now part of reviews for many service-based businesses like accountants, lawyers, financial planners, dry cleaners, car washes, auto body, auto repair, realtors, storage, lawn care and the list goes on.
Last fall home services like plumbers, appliance repair, HVAC and others received these attributes. This expansion to new categories, in addition to those already existing, brings attributes to a very critical mass of businesses.
Google Is Solving Ratings-only, Contentless Reviews
A Google review that is just the star rating and lacks content or context isn’t particularly beneficial to other consumers or the business themselves. It’s just a 2-star review that lacks any information or detail on what went wrong or fell short. It’s a 5-star review that doesn’t clue you into what went right.
When we looked at the over 2.7 million Google reviews that GatherUp has monitored we found that 34.5% of them didn’t contain content, but had just the star rating. Wow. That totaled 956,100 Google reviews without any context.
My example below shows three recent reviews that if not for Google attributes would have been void of content and context and just a rating-only review. With attributes though, these reviews have some context individually to each experience.
Google attributes can be added in with just a quick click when leaving a review and we have already witnessed from our testing that this is drastically reducing rating-only reviews. Google attributes are easy for the consumer to add to the review and will be “positive” attributes for 4-star an 5-star reviews and “critical” for 1-star and 2-star reviews. 3 Star ratings offer no option for these attributes.
This could be viewed as a win-win-win … it’s content for Google, easy for the review writer, and valuable context for the consumer that is reading the reviews.
If you want to understand more about how the consumer is presented with and selects attributes when writing a review read our previous post on it.
Summarizing Your Reputation
This addition is an interesting way for Google to summarize what’s best or lackluster about a business. Much the same as GatherUp’s tagging feature works, this helps simplify reviews from dozens or more keywords into specific themes that matter to consumers and also point your business in the direction of what your strengths and weaknesses are.
The power of summarizing reputation is not to be ignored, especially with Google having the opportunity to then reflect these in search.
Things To Keep In Mind As Attribute Monitoring Launches
Being early with a new feature like this often has some details to be worked out. Below are some items of note that relate to Google’s delivery of attributes or our handling of them with this new monitoring service that are helpful to know.
- Google’s review attributes are not required. In eligible categories, it is under the consumer’s control and reviews may or may not have them based on the consumer’s entry
- While attributes have greatly expanded they are still not in every category
- Attributes are NOT currently available in the Google My Business API, but GatherUp is showing attributes to all of our customers
- Attributes will not appear in our email notifications for now based on the items listed above
- Attributes will be appearing in our Review Widgets in the coming weeks
Listen, Learn And Earn
I think there is a lot to be gleaned from this addition to Google reviews and the possible future moves it opens up. As outlined, attributes are expanding, delivering content and insight, and summarizing your reputation in simpler ways. That’s pretty powerful.
If your business is in one of the categories for Google attributes you need to listen to how customers are describing you. Learning what to repeat (positive attributes) and shoring up what’s missing expectations (critical attributes) will allow you to consistently deliver great experiences and earn more 4-star and 5-star reviews. Monitoring these new attributes and measuring them is a great start.
Comments are closed.