Hey there, Iâm Benjamin from Loves Data.
In this video, weâre going to talk about the recent announcement from Google about
Google Shopping.
In case you missed it - Google announced that businesses will be able to list their products
for free on Google Shopping.
Previously, all of the results for Google Shopping were paid ads, but moving forward
it will work like Google search results - there will be a mix of paid and organic results
for Google Shopping.
So if you sell products online, then you should absolutely get ready to list your products
on Google Shopping, if youâre not already.
Letâs take a look at what youâll need to do to get up and running...
The first thing to point out is that organic or free Google Shopping results are currently
only available in the US.
Iâm currently looking at the Google Shopping results for my location, which is Sydney,
Australia.
And if we look closely, we can see that there is a small âSponsoredâ label above the
results.
If we click on this label, it tells us that the results are ranked using a combination
of bid and relevance.
So these are all sponsored or paid results.
Iâm going to enable my VPN so that Google thinks Iâm located in the US and Iâm going
to refresh the pageâŚ
We can now see Google Shopping results from the US.
And we can see that there are two labelsâŚ
At the top we can see âSponsoredâ and then below these results, we can see âAboutâ...
If we click âSponsoredâ we will see a similar message to the one we saw previously.
It tells us that these are paid results.
When we click âAboutâ for the results lower down the page, it tells us that these
results are only based on relevance.
These are the organic or free Google Shopping results.
If youâre located in the US, then you can submit your products today.
If youâre located outside the US, then Google has said free product listings will roll out
globally by the end of the year.
So if youâre not currently listing your products in the paid Google Shopping results,
itâs a good idea to get ready for when Google makes free listing available for your location.
So what do you have to do to get your products listed?
If youâre already listing your products with a Shopping campaign in Google Ads, then
you donât need to do anything.
If you arenât listing your products with Google Ads, then youâll need to sign up
for Google Merchant Center.
Letâs head there now...
Merchant Center is where you will send all the details about your products.
If you only sell a few items, then you can enter them manually, or if you have lots of
items you can create a product feed.
Creating a feed lets you automate the submission of your products to Merchant Center.
If youâre setting up Google Merchant Center for the first time, then when you create your
account youâll see a step that looks like thisâŚ
There are options for selling products on your website and in physical stores.
And under both of these, you can choose to show your products using âSurfacesâ which
are for the free or organic shopping resultsâŚ
And you have the option of showing your products as adsâŚ
Let's say we only sell products on our website and we only want to show our products in the
free results.
In this case, we only need to select âSurfaces across Googleâ.
Once youâve finished creating your Google Merchant Center account, you will then need
to add all of your products, either manually or using a product feed.
Today, Iâm going to show you the option to manually add products, but you can find
additional details about creating a product feed in the description below this video.
We need to enter details for our product.
This includes where weâre selling our productâŚ
We also need a unique product identifierâŚ
Details about our product, including itâs title, description, the URL for the product
page on our website and an image.
We also need to enter the price, availability and a few other details...
Once youâve provided all of the details for the product, you can click âSaveâ.
You can then preview your product and as long as everything is entered correctly and youâve
met Googleâs requirements, your product will be eligible to show in the free Shopping
results.
Thatâs it!
So thatâs how you can get up and running with Google Merchant Center to show your products
on Google Shopping.
Remember, you will need to opt-in to âsurfaces across Googleâ in order for your items to
be displayedâŚ
And you will also need to setup your product feed or manually add your products in Google
Merchant Center so that Google understands the products that you have available.
Are you ready for your items to be listed on Google Shopping?
Iâd love to know!
Let me know in the comments below.
And if you found this video helpful please subscribe, share it with your friends, and
hit the like button so I know to make more videos like this.
See you next time!