elements we’d want to see on a consumer feedback page:
- Full integration into the site (navigation, internal linking, etc.); not an island page.
- Welcoming text intro with a link to review content policy/TOS
- Unique sentiment with schema markup (not drawn from third parties)
- Specification of the reviewers’ names and cities
- Owner responses
- Paginate the reviews if page length starts getting out of hand
- Provide an at-a-glance average star rating for easy scanning
- Badges/widgets that take users to the best place to leave a traditional third-party review. Make sure these links open in a new browser tab!
- Video reviews
- Scanned hand-written testimonial images
- Links to critic-type reviews (professional reviews at Zagat, Michelin, etc.)
- A link to a SERP showing more of the users’ reviews, signalling authenticity rather than editorial control
- Tasteful final call-to-action
And what might such a page look like in real life (or at least, on the Internet)? Here is my mockup for a fictitious restaurant in Denver, Colorado, followed by a key:
Key to the mockup:
- Page is an integral part of the top level navigation
- Welcoming text with nod to honesty and appreciation
- Link to review content policy
- Paginated on-page reviews
- Call-to-action button to leave a review
- Easy-to-read average star rating
- Schema marked-up on-page reviews
- Sample owner response
- Links and badges to third party reviews
- Link to SERP URL featuring all available review sources
- Links to professional reviews
- Handwritten and video testimonials
- Tasteful final call-to-action to leave a review