• the “+” sign next to your Adwords ad (+ Show Products from…)-this is generated from your Adwords and Google Product Search integration
• above the right column Sponsored Links section, which is generated from the Google Affiliate Network (see: http://www.google.com/support/affiliatenetwork/advertiser/) and Google Product Search integration
• Shopping Results display within the organic listings, which is generated from Google Product Search

Google is slowly changing the landscape of product searches with feeds from their Shopping system. Google Products optimization requires a strategy and time for implementation. Develop a strategy for getting your products indexed in Google Product Search, and continually optimize your feeds to help supplement your SEO/Adwords efforts.

Google Search Results "samsonite luggage"

Why Google Shopping
The Google Shopping platform has been around for years, first labeled as Google Base, it had a slow start as it wasn’t fully adopted by users. Initially being featured on the homepage for Google, it didn’t gain the traction Google expected, and it was removed from their homepage real estate. Google recently re-added the Shopping link to the new fade-in navigation bar, and more so, has been making major updates to how the products in the Shopping site display within search engine results.

The top benefits of submitting to Google Shopping and Google Shopping search optimization are:

1. Your products will be listed within their Product Search site at http://www.google.com/products?hl=en, which is now linked to on the Google homepage
2. Your products can be syndicated to other websites, applications, and systems through Google’s Data API-which means you could receive more exposure as other web entities adopt this system
3. If you have high ranking on the Product Search site, your product images, name and price will be listed within the SERP’s (see image above-Google Search Results “samsonite luggage”)
4. If you are running Google Adwords, your products will be attached to your Adwords campaign (see image below) 
5. If you are a part of the Google Affiliate Network, your products can show up on the right column Sponsored Links section

Google Search Results; Adwords and Product Feeds

Right now, setting up and submitting your ecommerce site’s products to the Shopping site is free. However, it will only be a matter of time before Google starts to integrate the Shopping feed within Adwords so users can develop product image ads. Google is tracking the results of this roll-out to gauge the effectiveness of the implementation-hopefully, they will open up the system in the near future for Adwords users, rather than just Google Affiliate users. Now is the perfect time to setup your Google Products optimization strategy!

To learn more about the Google Affiliate program check out http://www.google.com/support/affiliatenetwork/advertiser/ 

Getting Started
I put together a short list to help setup the Google Merchant account, which controls the products feeds. You will still need to develop the system that provides the actual product feed to Google Merchant, which is a different process. The Google Products optimization plan is going to be unique to each industry, as different product have different competitive advantages, attributes, etc…

Experiment with different attributes for your products to see which yield the better rankings.

• Browse to http://www.google.com/merchants to setup your Google Merchant account
  • Configure/Optimize General Settings
    • Name, description, URL, address, contact information, display preferences
  • Setup Tax and Shipping summary
  • Share account with Adwords (if applicable)
  • Setup Google Checkout (if applicable)
• Product Data Analysis and Optimisation
  • The required fields are: condition, description, id, link, price and title
  • Invest extra time to ensure the following required fields are properly defined:
    • title – product name – suggested maximum length of 70 characters
      Structure the title so it includes the product name, but also the keywords you want to rank for.
    • description – product text, up to a maximum length of 10,000 characters
      Again, make sure the keywords you want to rank for are included within the description.
  • Invest time on a few of the optional fields:
    • brand – if applicable list the brand of the product; this helps Google organized the same products for better comparison shopping.
    • image link – be sure to include the full-sized images, Google will re-size accordingly. You can add multiple product images to your listing which may boost ranking. Make sure you link to a http link of the image, not https!
    • isbn or mpn – the manufacturers part number; another method for Google to organize the same products
    • upc – unique product code or SKU number (http://www.google.com/support/merchants/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=160161)
    • product type – the category in where your product should be listed (http://www.google.com/support/merchants/bin/answer.py?answer=160081&hl=en)
    • See a full list of all the available Google attributes at http://www.google.com/support/merchants/bin/answer.py?answer=160085&hl=en
    • In case you need to define your own custom attributes, check out http://www.google.com/support/merchants/bin/answer.py?answer=160602&hl=en
  • Encourage customers to create ratings at the following sites; Resellerratings.com, Pricegrabber.com, Rateitall.com, Bizrate.com, Reviewcenter.com, Shopping.com, Epinions.com – positive ratings may help boost your ranking
  • Add a tag to each product so Google Analytics can track it; e.g., &utm_source=GoogleBase&utm_medium=ComparisonShopping&utm_campaign=[product name]
• Testing Feed
  • Check Google Merchant account to ensure the feed was submitted
    • Check Active, Inactive, Data Quality, and Performance reports
  • Edit/update content based upon errors in report
  • Verify products show up on Google Shopping (with Google Checkout icon, if applicable)
  • Verify stats are being logged in Google Analytics
• Optimize
  • Experiment with adding optional attributes, custom attributes, and description text. Since Google cant factor in back links to the product listings, it will probably heavily consider click-through data for its ranking.

It is also important to strip out html/code characters. Try using htmlentities, but define all the possible characters that need to be converted (including CSS/HTML) as Google will disapprove the product if it includes HTML markup. Make sure to meet the content length, image, and data quality requirements/policy, or your products will be disapproved.

Google Product Search is extremely flexible-try submitting a few of your products manually to start experimenting without investing the time needed to develop a full-on dynamic product feed system. Remember that Google Products optimization is just like search engine optimization; it takes time and effort to achieve success!

SportKilt - SERP Dominance