What Is Google Merchant Center & Can It Benefit My Business?
In a nutshell, Google Merchant Center lets you manage how your products appear on Google. How can this benefit your business, we hear you ask? Well, it can put your products in front of millions of people looking to buy what you have to sell, without costing you any money. Yes, you read that right. Interested? Find out more about the benefits of Google Merchant Center and how your business could leverage this thrifty digital marketing tool in our guide.
As soon as you’ve uploaded your inventory, your products can be seen on the following platforms (without costing you a penny):
Shopping Tab
Google Search
Google Lens
Google Images
Images can feature product tags which gives people the option to click through to your product page, and hopefully make a purchase.
What are the benefits?
- Increase brand awareness
- Promote your products (for free!)
- Increase website traffic (and hopefully give your revenue a bit of a boost!)
- Increase local store visits
- Be ready for paid advertising
How does it work?
Google can choose to showcase your products whenever a shopper searches for an item that’s a good match with your product title or image.
To get your products set up, you’ll need to make sure they have the right attributes. These include:
SKUs – these must be unique for each product.
Product Title – this must accurately identify the product.
Product Description
Product Image
Price – this must match with your product page.
Availability – to tell users whether an item is in stock.
URL – this must link to your product page.
There are two types of free product listings to choose from: standard and enhanced.
Standard offers basic information about your product, including a detailed description, customer reviews, star ratings, price and availability. The downside is that these won’t be displayed on the Google Shopping Tab, meaning you could reach less customers.
Enhanced listings provide more visuals and information. Product images, additional style options and links to directions to your nearest stores are just some of the extra features that Google can publish.
Ready to showcase your products to more people?
Wait – but what if you have hundreds, maybe thousands of products? Won’t that take up a tonne of precious time? The good news is that you can automatically upload your inventory from WooCommerce or Shopify, making it easier than ever to showcase your e-commerce wares to more customers. It’s what we like to call a ‘quick win’.
You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by adding your products today.