Visibility for ecommerce on Google: Think beyond SEO & SEA

There are many ways to improve the visibility of your ecommerce on Google; in fact, whole careers and marketing departments are based on optimizing websites for better rankings on search results pages (SEO), and managing Google Ads campaigns to generate traffic (SEA). 

But there is another way to gain visibility on Google when you are an online merchant.

Indeed, as of October 2020, Google has offered free listings on their dedicated Shopping tab. If it is a great and easy way for ecommerce businesses to attract more customers, it also means extra competition from other merchants. To be more competitive, and allow merchants to promote their products in a variety of ads across different networks, including Google Search, YouTube or Gmail, Google also offers the possibility to launch Smart Shopping campaigns.

As shoppers are more experienced than ever at buying online – 98% of global consumers shop online, that includes browsing, researching, and buying – your business needs to adapt and meet customers where they are.

Google Merchant Center: the Google tool for ecommerce

Google makes it easy to have products from your catalog listed for relevant searches, and the possibility to have their picture displayed along with their name and price on top of the usual search results. This format was created to improve the shoppers’ experience while searching for items and comparing them from different online merchants, and is powered through Google Merchant Center.

Google Merchant Center allows merchants to sync items from their catalog so these items can eventually appear as products to buy on search results, making it easier for you to get your products discovered across different networks like Google Search, YouTube or Gmail.

Before you can start showing your products to interested shoppers, the first step to access both free and paid services is to create a Google Merchant Center account for your business, where you can find an intuitive set of guides to start optimizing your visibility and discoverability on Google’s network. 

The second step is to upload your product catalog to your account. You can always do it through Google sheets or a local file, but, for maximum convenience and ease-of-use, we suggest you do it through a module working with the API, like the brand new PrestaShop Marketing with Google module.

What it means for your ecommerce growth

Free listings

With free listings, any search that is relevant will organically show your product on the Shopping tab so shoppers can discover and purchase the product.

Using free listings has many advantages, and most of them will not cost you anything because they are available for free. For users and customers, this integration between an online store and Google will mainly translate into a quick and easy way to compare prices for a specific product.

For the merchants, this is an extra boost of valuable visibility because, unlike the "classic" search results, it is not the pages of their site that are displayed, but directly the items and products of their catalog, with a picture and the price, on the Shopping tab (as soon as your products are approved.)

Smart Shopping campaigns*

Seeing the benefits of free listings, you may be wondering how to get even more visibility on this search result format made for ecommerce. This is where Smart Shopping campaigns come in, with 3 main components and benefits:

• a better shopper reach: your campaigns will appear across different networks, including Google Search, YouTube or Gmail, at the right moment, for the right customer, depending on the time of day, the device used, etc. These Shopping ads appear at the top of the SERP with images and prices.
• optimized to sell more: set up a budget for a campaign, you tell Google which products you want to include or not, then Smart Shopping campaigns automatically test different combinations of text and images to find the best matches so you spend your advertising budget in the most efficient way possible.
• insights right from your dashboard: learn what products are your best-sellers, and optimize your offering to become more competitive.

Discover PrestaShop Marketing with Google 

Manage your campaigns right from the back office

PrestaShop Marketing makes it simple and easy to sync your store with Google Merchant Center and to start promoting your products to millions of shoppers across different networks like Google Search, YouTube or Gmail. Without leaving your PrestaShop dashboard, you can enable free listings of your products on the Shopping tab, create Smart Shopping campaigns to promote your products, and get precious insights on your conversions and performance.

Always up-to-date products thanks to the synchronization

Now, if you modify a product page on your ecommerce site, the synchronization happens right away, thanks to the module’s integration with Google’s Content API for Shopping, so that the changes will appear immediately on the search results, always showing the current price, stock level, and the up-to-date information on the product.

Conclusion

As an online merchant you can see that it is now easier than ever to increase the visibility of your products on Google, beyond the usual and well established SEO and SEA methods. For optimizing your visibility on Google and promoting your products, the new module PrestaShop Marketing with Google is here to help you reach your potential buyers already searching online for products like yours, in a few easy steps.

With PrestaShop Marketing with Google, available on the PrestaShop Addons Marketplace, it is very easy to sync your catalog with Google, enable free listings for your products, and create and manage Smart Shopping campaigns, right from your back office. Get started today!

* In Europe, Smart Shopping campaigns can be used with any Comparison Shopping Service (CSS) that you work with. The ads will be shown on general search results pages and on any other surfaces that the CSS has opted in to.