Review Widget

WHY USE THE REVIEW WIDGET?

Displaying customer ratings and 1st-party reviews (testimonials) on your website is a big marketing advantage. Combined with 3rd party reviews from sites we monitor like Google and Facebook, you gain additional credibility and social proof on your website.

GENERAL WIDGET SETTINGS:

The Review Widget allows you to select what types of reviews you want to display. Let’s look at each of the options and why you would choose of one them:

• 1st-party Reviews only: This option is how our widget has always worked. Your widget will display 1st-party reviews (testimonials), marked up with review schema to try and obtain stars in the search results.
• 1st-party & 3rd-party Reviews: This option lets you display all of your reviews together. See your 1st party reviews (testimonials) mixed in with your 3rd-party reviews (Google, Facebook, etc.) in order by date. The widget will also display a filter to the consumer in case they want to only view one review site’s reviews.It’s important to note that ONLY your 1st-party reviews are marked up with review schema, so 3rd party reviews will not be part of the totals and rating displays (to stay within Google’s guidelines for schema). Overall, we think this is the best option, with value of both review types for most businesses and consumers.
• 3rd-party Reviews only: Now you can display all of your reviews from Google, Facebook or Trip Advisor on your own website. This option will only show 3rd-party reviews from the sites you are monitoring in your account. This version of the widget does NOT include review schema (it’s against Google’s schema guidelines). The review total and rating average are only from the 3rd-party reviews.

IMPORTANT: each of the above options above it’s variances in how overall review counts and ratings are displayed. This stems from Google’s guidelines on review schema. You can’t apply schema to 3rd-party reviews, as they are already marked-up on the sites they originated from.

In addition to what you can display we offer options to manage the review content that appears and the overall widget itself. Here are the options you can take advantage of:

• Auto display of 1st-party reviews: Automatically display content in your widget if it’s above the rating setting. (You still have individually control from your Customer Dashboard or Profile too).
• Auto display of 3rd-party reviews: Automatically display reviews in your widget if it’s above the rating setting.
• Number of reviews to show per page: This controls the pagination of how many reviews appear before creating a 2nd page (or more) in the widget). Setting it to “7” will show seven reviews in the widget before generating a new page in the widget.
• Widget placement: You need to enter the URL of the page where you have placed the review widget. This is needed for Google schema guidelines, especially if you are going to use our Badge Widget or create Tag Widgets. You will also set the text that the link displays for the Badge or Tag Widget by completing the Link Anchor Text field (or using our default of “View Reviews”).

DESIGN OPTIONS:

The Review Widget also features some design options many users have requested. Here is a look at each one of them.

• Design Style: To use all of our new features you need to select the ALL INCLUSIVE THEME here. We have had a few different options in the past, but moving forward we will just have more settings and controls for you, without the need to use a different theme.
• Widget Width: This was a big request and now you can control the width of your widget display. Select if you want to use pixels or percentage and add your number. IMPORTANT: for your widget to be fully responsive you will need to choose a percentage value for the Widget Width.
• Justify: Align your widget so it looks best in your page design. Options include left, center and right alignment.
• Display feedback button: This enables consumers to click a “Give Feedback” button right from your widget and website to enter our feedback funnel. It’s a simple on/off setting.
• Feedback button color: Select the color of your feedback button from our sample colors or enter the Hex color number.
• Feedback button text color: Select the text color that “Give Feedback” displays in.
• Display social share buttons per review: This turns on or off the ability for a user on your website (you or the consumer) to share a specific review to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+.
• Display links to review sites: Turning this option on will show your review sites that you are requesting reviews for at the bottom of your Review Widget. This allows consumers to leave you a review on Google, Facebook or your other request sites right from your widget.
• Social share image: This image displays on social media sites when a review is shared. Some social media sites show this image and some do not.
• Schema image: This image is part of the Google schema guidelines, but is currently NOT displayed or visible anywhere.

HOW DO I SETUP THE REVIEW WIDGET?

STEP ONE: If you have multiple business locations in your account you will need to drill into the one(s) you will be testing the Review Widget on. NOTE: customers with a single business location can skip this step.

STEP TWO: To get to the settings screen navigate: Settings → Review Widget

STEP THREE: Within the General Review Widget box click the Settings button.