What are Rich Results, and How Can Your eCommerce Business Benefit from Them?
Rich results, formerly known as rich snippets, are an effective way for eCommerce businesses to increase the visibility of their products on the search engine results page (SERP), enhance their click-through rates (CTR), and drive more revenue. This strategy is both effective and fast to implement. Search engines like Google want their users to get the most out of their services. Therefore, Google improves its SERPs features and shows direct answers, featured snippets, knowledge graphs, top stories, and much more. These features get more clicks, increasing the organic traffic and CTR from Google Search. When your online business is displayed among the first results, online shoppers will have more trust in your brand and you are considered a worthy eCommerce competitor.
In this article, we will discuss how to use rich results to boost your visibility, increase CTR, get more organic traffic and upturn your revenue.
What Are Rich Results?
Rich results are a type of structured data markup. Their role is to enhance the search results, improving the shopping experience visually. Website owners can include HTML code structured markup in their pages to add additional product details or content so the search engines can better understand, depict and feature relevant data.
When it comes to product searches, Google is the greatest. Approximately 35% of all online shopping starts with Google search queries. Rich snippets search results allow a Google shopper with a commercial intent to check relevant products in their search. More than that, when it comes to informational intent, potential customers can read online reviews, answer their questions, and compare prices.
We strongly recommend that online stores and eCommerce websites implement rich results.
What are the Benefits of Rich Results?
The core of search engine optimization is to remember that Google’s mission is to create the most satisfactory search experience by best matching users’ search intent with the most relevant search results. The faster Google Search delivers the most accurate search results, the better the experience for online users. The purpose of rich snippets is to offer users a visual appeal and a more informed option, helping them make the right decision from the start without wasting a lot of time browsing through organic search listings. More than that, online shoppers will get social proof upfront by looking at the customer reviews. Google knows that these bits of product previews bring value to the customers. Therefore, the search algorithms reward eCommerce websites that use rich results.
However, as a business owner, you should understand that rich results would not bring your website to the top positions of SERP, but, over time, they do influence the click-through rates. Rich snippets along with high-quality and relevant content on your site will benefit your SEO. When you bring consistent value to your customers, your SERP rankings will increase.
The benefits of rich results are the following:
- Competitive advantage because you show potential customers the value of your products and services upfront. They will see the price and the product availability and read the product reviews.
- Better click-through rates because every click you get is qualified traffic. Users make an educated decision when they go to your website because they have already compared your product with others and decided upon yours.
- Lower bounce rate because people know what they will find on your page.
- Improved conversion rate because people have all the information they need, and the buying decision has already been made when they click on your website.
- Improved search visibility because your products or services will be featured among the stars in search results.
- Increased online reputation because you will be seen as a trusted company.
What Are the Types of eCommerce Rich Results?
Google offers a variety of possible rich snippet formats that accommodate many types of businesses, not only eCommerce. In its search gallery, Google listed over 30 formats of rich features such as carousel format, news article, video content, etc.
However, we will focus on the top five most effective rich features in search results for eCommerce websites.
1. Single Product
The first step is to ensure that the major search engines understand they are looking at a product page, not a blog post or news portal. Adding product schema markup to your product pages will allow Google to provide detailed product information as a rich result in Google Search and Google Images. Online users will see the prices, availability and the product’s average rating.
Your product will be better positioned and attract qualified searchers with a more detailed product description in the SERP.
2. Review Snippet
The review snippet is a short extract from a review. When Google detects valid reviews or rating schema markup, it will display in the SERP a rich snippet that includes the stars and other information from the reviews or ratings. Review snippets will appear in rich results or the Google Knowledge Panels and can be used for books, local businesses, receipts, courses, events, how-tos, movies, products, and software applications. This snippet enhances the credibility and trust in the product based on honest customer feedback.
3. Price Schema
Price is another significant factor that influences purchase decisions. Comparing pricing is more common than you imagine, as 46% of online shoppers want more product price comparisons from eCommerce websites. The price schema markup allows you to put the pricing information in the centre of attention in the search engine result pages.
Because consumers have a comparison in front of them, they will make a better and faster buying decision based on what works for them. If someone is price sensitive, they automatically will go with the product with the lower price.
4. Availability Schema Markup
This detail is crucial as online shoppers will get frustrated if they find their favourite product out of stock. When a user leaves your website because what they want to buy is out of stock, the chances of them returning later are slim to none. Our advice is to include this crucial information upfront. This snippet will decrease your bounce rate and will help you reduce the number of soft bounces. Soft bounces happen when a user is engaged with your website but leaves without making a purchase.
5. Google Shopper (Rich Ads)
This isn’t a schema type of schema per se, but it works relatively similarly when you want to sell your products but don’t want to rank. Rich Ads are a paid version of rich snippets. Using Google Shopper, you don’t have to add code to your website. However, implementing them is similar to implementing rich snippets, but you will use the PPC (pay-per-click) method to rank for particular keywords. Another use for rich ads is increasing sales in your brick-and-mortar store by targeting local customers.
How Do You Implement Rich Results for Your eCommerce Website?
First and foremost, you must have the pages you want to implement the rich results up to date. More than that, you should have all the details that rich snippets are using clear and complete. However, you should ensure that your pages are eligible for rich results. To find out if your page is supporting rich results, do the Rich Results Test first.
To optimise your eCommerce website pages for rich results, you have to:
- Understand your website pages, their intent, and the queries that drive traffic to them.
- Have your pages optimised with high-quality and relevant content.
- Provide context to your page.
- Conduct research on Google SERP for the keywords you want to use. This way, you find out if other rich results appear for the search term you want.
- Implement schema format to your page and fill it with relevant data.
To implement rich results for your eCommerce website, you can use various methods:
- For products, you can use Schema Markup. Based on the details you want to display to your users, you can choose from various product schema available on the Schema Markup website. If this option is not convenient for you, you can choose Google’s structured data markup, which is more user-friendly.
- For reviews, you can find the schema to implement here, or if you prefer Google’s method, you can implement their JSON-LD review snippet. Google’s way is more non-code-savvy.
- For availability, you can implement the availability schema.
- For the price, use this price Schema.org structured data.
Conclusions – Our Advice
Through rich results, Google provides more context to users directly in the search engine results pages. This allows online consumers to understand better the pages they click on and get more relevant results to their queries.
We strongly believe that adding rich snippets to your eCommerce website will benefit your website in the long run because it improves your product marketing reach while improving your customer’s shopping experience. More than that, when used correctly, rich results can boost online and offline sales at once.
If you don’t know how to implement rich snippets for your eCommerce, just drop us a message, and we can help you get the desired results. Check out our portfolio and customer reviews to better understand our working methodology. In case you need more helpful information on development, design and marketing topics, check out our blog.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, because they improve the click-through rate.
When your pages are eligible for rich results
Improve the shopping experience and bring qualified leads to your website.
You get a competitive advantage; you boost online and offline sales and improve the shopping experience.