Best Rankings Methods for 2019

Websites whose primary products are reviews of specific products, tend to devote 99% of their attention to the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) of their website. Most are reluctant to pay considerable attention to the design aspect of the pages, which in the end, could lead to a potential competitor overtaking them. In fact, if you know at least a little bit about SEO, you’ll know that Google pays attention to the website design as well. If it shows well on desktop browsers, as well as other devices, and if it’s fast to load, then it’s given some extra points in its SEO value.

So what does rating style have to do with the design aspect and the SEO of a website? Well, there are a couple of advantages. One is the addition of rich snippets and the other is more engagement with the audience. Let me show you 3 of the most popular practices for rating systems on websites in 2019.

Logo! Logo! Logo!

Some websites tend to use a “mascot” as their logo. It can be a depiction of a living being, such as an animal or a person in different clothing. These types of logos are very versatile as you can use them for various pages as well as brand-offshoots of your website. However, recently there has been a new application for them. The usage of logos as a way to rate products or services. One of the primary examples of this is this website, which does reviews for financial companies. Notice how they utilize their Lion Logo as a way to rate companies.

This helps the rating be a bit more comprehensive, as well as increase brand recognition. If you visit the site once and see the lion, you’re very likely to recognize it in the future, reminding you of the website.

What people don’t know about Logo usage for ratings is the extra SEO juice you’ll be getting out of them. You see, the ratings can be turned into images, which can later be inserted in the article as the rating. Well, that image can be given an “alt text”, which helps website owners put in more and more keywords in their articles, further increasing the chances that it will rank well.

Overall, the website is getting, streamlined rating systems, more recognition for the brand, and extra SEO value through more keywords.

The only setback is that this method needs to be explained in a separate page on your website. And when you think of it, explaining something which is so simple in nature, is already a massive turn-off for some people. But, by assigning emotions to your “mascot” or accepted colors like green and red, the conveying of the message becomes natural and no explanation is required.

The Emoji

The emoji method is tried and tested, however, it is often misused. Most websites believe that the more emojis they have the better it is for the customer to show their reaction to the article or to a product. On paper, this does indeed sound good, but try to imagine yourself in the visitor’s shoes. You go to a website and it has emoji ratings, which is fine you’re used to them, you’ve seen them on Facebook. But you go to a specific article or a review and see people leave reactions such as:

• “Confused”
• “Wow”
• “Angry”
• “Crazy”

What will these emojis tell them? Is the product good? Why are people crazy? What does “confused” mean? Is it directed to the product or the review itself?

As you can see, many questions can arise when using the emoji system in the wrong way. What’s best to do is to have no more than 3 options. “Happy”, “Neutral”, “Sad”. These 3 options are more than enough to convey the message of the review, it doesn’t add any additional thinking for the visitor, they immediately know what type of rating “Happy” means.

5-Star ratings

Star ratings are the most popular system for any type of website. It’s simple, everybody knows it and most of all, it has some extra SEO juice as well. Five-star ratings come with a plugin that helps you utilize rich snippets, which are the rating that show up on the Google search page. This helps the SEO as well, as it tells Google that there is some extra information on the page.

One of the biggest advantages of the 5-Star rating system is its simplicity of use. You don’t need to be a design genius to have it on your website, nor do you need to employ anyone to do it for you. It’s free and it gets the job done, in most cases better than others. Furthermore, it is relevant for any customer type, while The logos and emojis can be relevant to only young audiences.

Summary

As you can see there are multiple ways you can utilize rating systems for any type of website. All of the methods have their pros as well as their cons. If you’re feeling risky and think your Logo is up to par with others and can be easily distinguishable, then going for a mascot system is feasible. Emojis are probably the least favorite option among the three, but they too find some popularity among millennials and young audiences.

The different logo variations themselves, if implemented correctly on the page, can act as additional keywords for the website. Meaning that you will be able to stock an article up with more keywords, without making it too spammy. This strengthens the page’s SEO value and supports it on the first page of Google in the long-term.

If you’re not too keen on spending time with design and extra hassle for your website. The star rating system will be more than enough. It helps to convey the message of your article straight on the Google page. All in all, all of them are useful, it’s just the application process needs to be relevant as well as feasible.

SEO