Google Review Attributes – A Quick Primer on the Latest Feature

Google Review Attributes are a feature that allows consumers to leave a “critical” or “positive” quality rating with their reviews in a few short clicks. This is available to almost all service based businesses and is the biggest change to Google reviews in 8 years!

Google review attributes are available in both Display and Maps, but once a review is published  you can only see them in Search. Review Attributes are not the same as Place Topics.  Place Topics are machine learning/artificial intelligence assessments of the critical themes in reviews; which often retrieve/generate irrelevant categories.

There are variations of attribute choices available by industry are below.  However, the combinations will always include at least the first two:

1. Quality
2. Professional
3. Value
4. Responsive
5. On Time
6. Reliable
7. Clean
8. Communication

Google Review attributes are defined by the Primary Category. Also, these attributes are currently only showing up for service-related businesses. For example, they’re not available to car dealers and jewelry stores, but showing up for categories like lawyer, dry cleaners, plumbers, and heating/air companies.

Why are Google Review Attributes so important?

Reviews have been one of two types since the days of CitySearch and before.

1. Rating Only – just a rating with 5 data points (stars).
2. Rating + Written Review.

But there was no way to standardize the review content. Now, Google’s Review Attributes does just that.

• A solution to rating-only reviews
• They’re very easy. A couple of clicks and that’s it.
• Provides an expansion of content and context
• Increases review data points from 5 to 25
• More granular distinctions between businesses
• Improved entity understanding

How Do You Track Google Review Attributes?

Right now you cannot see these in your Google Business Profile dashboard, as they are only visible in search results. But, if you use RocketReviews, it will track your Google review attributes for you.

Why Should You Monitor Google Review Attributes?

• It’s valuable review content and context you need to know.
• It’s content searchers (your potential customers) will look at.
• They are widespread in most service-related categories now.
• Consumer engagement is already high.

Attribute Opportunities

• Standardized satisfaction metrics
• Suggest High Intent Keywords
• Content Driver
• Competitive Analysis
• Marketing Value as Social Proof & Web Content

Monitoring your Review Attributes helps for your business be accountable and really show up in your service work. If you want to be seen as the company that is always on-time, how can you follow through with that if you aren’t getting those attributes?

Many businesses look at reviews as a one and done tactic, but reviews are rich resources you need to be utilizing. Why leave a review on the shelf? Share it on your website, share on social, and take the time to analyze it. Don’t have a siloed view when it comes to reviews.

• Turn your reviews into your sales force.
• Mine your review content to identify weaknesses in your business that you need to improve on.
• Highlight the things that people like about your business on your website and other content sources