How to use Google Product Search to increase sales and traffic to your ecommerce site

What is Google Product Search?

Google Product Search, AKA Google Shopping, AKA Google Base, AKA Froogle is a Google search system. Similarly to the better known image and video searches, it allows users to search for a specific type of page - in this case, products for sale. Potential customers can search for products, compare prices, filter by price and other attributes and can click through to your site to purchase. In addition, reviews are shown and it can link up with your Adwords and Google Checkout accounts.

How much does it cost?

The beauty of Google Product Search is that it's completely free to use. There is just a small amount of time involved in setting it up and updating your feed.

Why should I use it?

Google Product Search can direct traffic and sales to your site. This is a great potential source of customers in itself, but far more important is the possible inclusion in Google's main organic rankings. Universal search, as it is known, where results from different Google products such as News, Images and YouTube videos are mixed into the main search results, is happening more and more. Google Product Search is also being integrated.

Here's an example.

The Google shopping results are second only to Apple, the makers of the iPhone.

If you are an ecommerce site selling online, this offers you another route to get to the top of Google's listings. Google Product search is essentially free traffic from a position on Google which in PPC terms would be prohibitively expensive. Universal search is only currently in the UK, US and Germany, but is being gradually rolled out across all the Google sites.

How do I add my products to Google Product Search?

First, you need a Google account. If you already use Adwords, Analytics or Gmail, you can use the same account; otherwise, you'll need to sign up for a new account. Select 'Shopping' from Google's search page. At the bottom of the page, click the link 'information for merchants', then click the 'start a datafeed' button. You'll then be asked to agree Google's terms of service. If your account hasn't been used for a business before, you'll then be asked to enter your business details and address. Select a name for your product feed. Your account is then set up and ready to accept your products.

There are 4 ways that you can add your products:

• Manual submission - 1 product at a time
• Feed - tab delimited or xml
• Store connector - e.g. on eBay or yahoo
• Through an API

The simplest way is manual submission, but as this is time consuming, it isn't recommended for more than a few products. The preferred way is via the feed. You create a tab delimited or xml file with the products and their attributes in it, following Google's guidelines. Most good shopping cart systems will be able to generate this file for you. You then just click the button and you can browse for the file on your computer and upload it. You can even check the feed within your account using the 'Data Quality' link.

Your feed will expire after 30 days, but you can update it as often as you like, even more than once a day if you wish.

How do I make my products rank highly in Google Product Search?

Ranking highly in Google Product search is important. Generally, only the first three results will be shown in the organic search results. As always with rankings, content is king. Google say that the most relevant products in relation to the user's search will appear at the top of the listings. You can make your products more relevant by having good, keyword rich titles and description and filling in as many of the fields as possible. You don't have to fill every field, but the more you do, the more 'relevant' you are seen to be. And the more different searches you may rank for. At the very least, you should complete all the recommended attributes for a product type.

Customer reviews will make your site rank higher, so if you have some customers who you do a lot of repeat business with, ask them to leave you a review. You can also try offering discount coupons or prizes for those customers that leave you a review. The most important reviews are those through Google, but Google UK also includes reviews from the following:

• pricegrabber.co.uk
• reviewcentre.com
• shopzilla.co.uk
• ciao.co.uk
• dealtime.co.uk
• truste-marketing.co.uk
• webuser.co.uk
• maxxsave.co.uk
• dooyoo.co.uk
• resellerratings.com

Please note that US and German Google use different sites to collect their reviews.

Submitting your feed often (a Google recommendation) indicates that your data is fresh and will also positively affect your ranking. A higher number of products in your feed indicates a larger shop and also seems to have a positive effect. There is also some anecdotal evidence that the length of time you have been submitting your feed for affects your ranking, in a similar way to that which the age of your site can affect your organic rankings (the trust factor).

How do I make my products stand out in Google Product Search?

Making your products stand out in Google Product Search is also very important. What will make potential customers come to you rather than one of the other listings? Again, content is king. A good title, description and image are very important.

Most important though is price. More people will click through to your site if you're the cheapest. Whilst this doesn't seem to have any influence on your position, it does obviously affect your click through rate.

Better get started!

Google's Product search offers a free way to drive traffic and sales to your site. Anyone can use it, regardless of the shopping cart system that you are using. The longer you have been using it for, the higher your rankings - so what are you waiting for!

Acknowledgements

I took the list of review sites from Tom C on SEOMoz. His article contains good information on ranking and getting reviews, as well as the US list of review sites and is definitely worth a read.

Want to know more?

Google's Maile Ohye, who we saw recently at SES London answers some questions on Google Product Search.