Consumers are visual and want to know price, which is why Google incorporated photos of the product and price into ads and its Shopping OneBox. No social elements are incorporated at this stage and likely little UGC was used in determining the search results. Since the consumer relies on customer reviews, she went to the retailers’ site (Amazon.com, Travelocity.com, Staples.com, Gap.com) to get that social content.
In April 2010, Google incorporated customer reviews in many places.
Let's look at a current Google search result for “refrigerator.”
Google introduced left-hand navigation, making Google shopping one click off the SERP. New value is delivered to the user via local places, product availability, price comparison, and social content. You'll notice the UGC -- customer reviews are included in the Shopping OneBox.
Above is a Rich Snippet in an organic Google search result, prominently displaying a star rating and 97 reviews.
Launched last month, Google’s newest property, Hotel Finder, prominently displays UGC.
The results:
Within a year of Google taking in e-tailers' reviews, that UGC is fully integrated across Google and impacts search results in a very noticeable way.
Twenty-nine percent of consumers now use Google to read product reviews, or "social UGC," according to Internet Retailer.
How Does This Affect Your Business?
So what’s the bottom line? Google has found success in social by incorporating it into the elements of its business for which it is the market leader: search and web browsing. The experience that hundreds of millions of people have with Google every day is in fact social – UGC drives the search and browsing experience, and the experience on Google properties like Shopping and Hotel Finder. Google relies on businesses to generate this social content from their customers, which in turn benefits those businesses in the form of traffic to their sites. There are a few important steps that businesses can take in order to continue receiving traffic from Google:
Execute better than anyone on the fundamentals. Consumers are looking for the right product at the right price, an easy-to-navigate user experience, with a pain-free checkout and fast delivery. Google is not in the retail business, but it is monetizing the way people will find yours. As a result, sites that execute on the fundamentals will have an advantage over those who don’t.
Increase the quantity and quality of customer reviews. This user-generated content matters now more than ever, including that which is generated via mobile while consumers are in your brick-and-mortar location. Organize reviews into the mobile experience so that they're easy to find and browse, with at-a-glance summaries highlighting pros, cons, and best uses of a product, in addition to average rating.