How to Add Products to Google Shopping

Google shopping is a high-powered search engine feature that features merchant products all over the web in a singular location. When a user types in “boots” for example, she is presented with multiple boots for sale from multiple websites all on her search engine results page. But, it’s important to not only add your products, but do so in a way that optimizes them. So before you add products to Google Shopping, consider these tips for success.

What Is Google Shopping?

Google Shopping is essentially a product advertisement. You can drive more traffic and potentially increase your ecommerce site’s sales by showcasing your products on a standard search engine results page. Your stuff automatically shows up on Google search results and when you add Products to Google Shopping, customers who visit Google.com/shopping will also see your products.

Requirements to Use Google Shopping

Before you can add products to Google Shopping you need to have a Google Account. These are free to make. You will then have to create a Google Merchant Account — this is the account that allows you to post your advertisements and submit to Google Shopping. Lastly you need a Google AdWords account. If you have an ecommerce website, you’re likely to already have all three of these, but if not you need to sign up for them.

Google does have specific listing requirements based on the country you’re based out of. You can get a full list of those requirements by visiting the Support page for Google Merchants. In the United States, for example, there are specific requirements that include:

• All products must be listed in English
• Your product landing pages must be in English
• Prices must be based on the U.S. dollar
• Products must be shippable to all US territories

Submit Your Products

To add products to Google Shopping you’ll have to do one of four things.

1. Submit the products manually. This is done through Google Base and is only recommended if you have less than five items to submit.
2. Use a feed. All tab or text or XML feeds are acceptable.
3. Use a store connector. The store connector is used if your store is hosted on another ecommerce site, like Amazon or eBay.
4. Use the Google API. This automatically syncs with your website and will update/delete product listings for you. So once it’s installed, you don’t have to manually add/delete.

Optimizing Your Listings

While keywords aren’t as important as they used to be, they’re still important for optimizing your product listings. Google’s algorithm is sophisticated, but needs a little guidance, which is where keywords come into play. You will want to rewrite your product titles and descriptions so that they’re search engine friendly. Do your keyword research first and find your targeted keywords and phrases that apply to your products. Integrate them into your titles and descriptions naturally. Don’t stuff dozens of keywords into the description phase — this is considered a black hat practice by Google and customers won’t know what they’re buying.

A lot of ecommerce websites use Google Shopping because it’s cost-effective. If you add products to Google Shopping, you can get affordable traffic. Google Shopping is more effective than other shopping channels or feeds; therefore, you’re more likely to see an increase in sales and higher return on your investment with Google than other shopping feeds.  Adding products to Google takes a little time to figure out, but once Google is synced with your ecommerce platform, you won’t have to do much maintenance. Therefore, adding products to Google is something every ecommerce website should try.