Google is consistency making changes to their algorithm to improve the overall search experience. Users can find what they’re looking for typically on the first page of the search results; and this is why Google is #1. I often tell business owners and designers to subscribe to Google Webmaster Central Blog for latest public announcements by Google.
Opportunity for store owners to improve their product visibility
On February 22, 2019, Google submitted a post to their blog titled, “Help customers discover your products on Google“. In summary, if you own and operate an online e-commerce store, you can improve your product visibility by utilizing their free tools.
In Google Search Console, you’ll want to verify your structured data markup is complete, and review your products in the new ‘Products’ report. If you see any errors, be sure to correct them right away. Otherwise, Google will be unable to display your product(s), rating(s) price & availability in the organic search results.
After verifying your structured data markup is complete, add your website to the Google Merchant Center and submit a product data feed. The product data feed is accessed by Google typically every 24 hours (or sooner). Whenever you make a change to a product (i.e. price change), Google will be able to retrieve that information much quicker than a Googlebot scan of your website. This helps ensure Google has the most accurate and up-to-date information about your products (including new products).
Most e-commerce systems don’t have a product feed built in natively, so you may have to install a 3rd party extension to support this. For example, if you run a WordPress website with WooCommerce, we recommend either of the following plugin:
If you adopt these suggestions by Google, you could expect an increase in organic search traffic to your online store. As I had mentioned earlier, subscribe to the Google Webmaster Blog to stay up with the latest “opportunities” presented to you. After all, if your competition doesn’t adopt these practices, you could find yourself in a competitive advantage = more business.
