8 Simple Ways to Optimize Your Google Shopping Feed for Ecommerce

Google Shopping Campaigns help you promote your products, boost traffic to your store, and find better-qualified leads.

These days, Google shopping drives 76.4% of all retail search spend. And it has well and truly transformed the retail search industry. This has converted Google Shopping Campaigns from an optional tactic to an absolute must-have for ecommerce stores running on Shopify, WooCommerce, or any other platform.

Every successful Google Shopping campaign needs a well-organized product feed that allows Google to access and display product information for the most relevant searches.

And were going to show you simple steps you can take to do just that to drive more clicks and sales.

But before we jump into how to optimize your Google shopping feed, lets take a look at its benefits for your ecommerce store. 

What are the benefits of Google Shopping Feed for Ecommerce?

#1. They stand out

Google Shopping Ads are prime real estate appearing above search results. Moreover, since they are the only ads with photos, they quickly grab attention and make it more likely for users to land up on your product page.

#2. They are easy to manage

Unlike text ads, you dont need to worry about the keyword and bidding process. This is because Google decided what to show based on your product data feed. 

Additionally, with the help of tools like Adnabu, you can automatically send keyword-rich, Google-friendly data to increase your Google Shopping sales.

#3. They bring in highly qualified traffic

People searching for products on Google are already quite close to a purchase decision. Moreover, these highly qualified leads get to see product information like image, rating, price, etc., making them less likely to bounce once they click on your ad and land on your website. 

#4. They give you a broader reach

Google is getting smarter about synonyms, so you could find your products showing up for related keywords you may not have guessed. With your ads having the potential to appear more than once for a single query, you get to reach a wider audience regardless of the search terms they use. 

Now that you know how the Google Shopping Feed can be a game-changer for your ecommerce business lets jump into what steps you can take to make sure youre getting the most out of your ads.

How to Optimize Your Google Shopping Feed for Ecommerce?

#1. Make your product titles search friendly

You want to make sure your product titles are not just clickable but make sure they rank for relevant search terms. 

You dont want to stuff keywords. But you want to make sure theyre detailed enough to show your customers the products most important features. 

A good product title includes the :

• Brand name
• Color
• Size
• Style
• Model
• Gender 
• Measurements/Quantity 

You obviously cant include all of the above for every single product. But you want to make sure the customer can see enough information about a given product to click on your ad. 

#2. Include information not covered in the title in your description

When it comes to writing your product descriptions, there are a few rules prescribed by Google you must follow:

• Be between 1 and 5000 characters
• Describe only the product itself: You cant talk about your business history, policies, compatible products, accessories, etc. 
• Use professional and grammatically correct language: Avoid gimmicky ways of drawing attention, such as all caps, symbols, and promotional text.
• Dont include comparisons: Avoid details about other products. 
• Include only a link to your product’s landing page: Dont include links to your store or other websites. 
• Submit a description for each product: Products that dont include a description will receive a warning and may experience limited performance.

You also want to use your description to give additional information about your products that arent covered in the title. You want your descriptions to:

• Be specific and accurate
• Include the most important details in the first 150-500 words
• Be well-formatted and readable with line breaks, bolding, and italics
• Include synonyms and secondary keywords appearing naturally

#3. Shoot high-quality, eye-catching images

Product images are less about communicating relevance to Google and more about capturing your audiences attention. Here are some best practices to keep in mind for your Shopping feed images:

• Avoid placeholder images and use professional, high-resolution images (at least 800 x 800) without watermarks, additional text, or logos.
• Include at least three images for each product showing it from different angles.
• Experiment with both product and lifestyle images to see which works better. 

#4. Use custom labels to prioritize your top products

With Shopping campaigns, you can use custom labels when you want to subdivide your campaigns products using your choosing values.

For example, you can use custom labels to indicate that products are seasonal, on clearance, best sellers, etc. Here are some other product attributes you can use as labels:

• Color
• Material
• Style
• Size

Youre not limited to the above labels and can use whatever is relevant to your products.

Custom labels allow you to organize better your internal data for enhanced reporting, deeper insights, and increased segmentation capabilities. 

They allow you to differentiate amongst products categorized within the same bucket and set bids accordingly. This means you can identify and double-down on your best performers.

#5. Add negative keywords to avoid irrelevant and generic searches

While, in Google Shopping, you dont need to add keywords, adding negative keywords makes sure you dont show up for certain search queries. You can use this to improve your click-through rates by not appearing for:

• Irrelevant search quieres
• Competitor search quieres
• Overly-generic search queries

Adding negative keywords ensures you show up only for the most relevant searches, positively impacting both clicks and conversions. Here are the steps you need to take to add negative keywords for your Google Shopping Campaigns:

• Sign in to your Google Ads account.
• Click Keywords in the page menu to reach the keywords page, and click the plus button.
• Choose to add negative keywords to your Campaign or Ad group from the drop-down, and select the specific campaign or ad group youd like.
• Enter or paste one negative keyword per line in the text field. You can add broad-match negative keywords, negative phrase-match keywords, and negative exact-match keywords.
• Click Save

#6. Pay attention to Googles default network options 

By default, Google checks the checkboxes of Search partners and YouTube and Discover on Display network for your Shopping ads. 

While you may choose for your ads to show here, it may also make sense for you not to. For example, if youre just starting out, showing up on search partners like Walmart may not be hugely beneficial for your brand. 

And while Youtube and third-party websites may bring more exposure to your ad, most people arent looking to purchase at these times, significantly bringing down your chances of making a sale. 

So consider your business goals and decide the networks you want your ads to appear on.

#7. Make sure your product data is accurate and up-to-date

You want all your product data to be accurate to build trust with your customers. Here are a few things you can do to ensure that:

• Maintain up-to-date price and availability, including tax and shipping, by using automated feed delivery, the Content API, or structured data markup. 
• Arrange your product type to start with a broad group and end with a more specific group. 
• Use a unique product id and title value for every product.
• Provide a value for the GTIN attribute whenever available.

#8. Start collecting customer reviews immediately

84% of online shoppers trust reviews as much as their friends. So if you can show off your products credibility through positive reviews, youre much more likely to close deals. 

Product ratings appear as a 1-5 star rating system and a count of total reviews. These star ratings represent aggregated rating and review data for the product, compiled from multiple sources, including retailers, third-party review aggregators, editorial sites, and consumers.

There are three ways to share your ratings and reviews with Google:

• Upload your reviews feed
• Use a reviews aggregator
• Join Google Customer Reviews

However, to upload your reviews feed, youll need at least 50 reviews for them to show. So youll want to make it part of your ecommerce customer support process to collect reviews from your customers as soon as possible. 

Additionally, here are some best practices for collecting ecommerce reviews:

• Make submitting reviews quick and easy
• Ask specific questions that, when answered, help others make purchase decisions
• Consider offering small incentives like discounts, free shipping, or product samples

Asking for reviews is an essential part of doing business. However, youll need your products and services to be of high quality if youre going to benefit from them in the long-run. 

Google Shopping Feed is a Crucial Factor for Your Stores Success

So there you have it!

Those are 8 simple ways to optimize your Google Shopping Feed. 

There are many different types of campaigns and channels you can use to market your products. 

However, with Google dominating over 75% of the search market, your Shopping Feed could be a key factor that determines your stores overall success. So youll want to make sure to do everything you can to get the most out of it. 

We understand that Google Shopping Campaigns can be tricky and sometimes confusing to set up and navigate. But hopefully, these tips have sent you in the right direction.

If youre looking for more information, you may want to check out how to manage your Google Shopping Feed and Shopping feed best practices for ecommerce stores.  

And if you need expert help, reach out to Adnabu to get your Shopping feed up, running, and thriving in no time. 

Now its time for you to go make it rain sales!

Guest Post by Jayanth Padmakumar from DelightChat

Jayanth Padmakumar is the Content Marketing Manager for DelightChat, the omnichannel customer support tool for small ecommerce brands. Hes spent the last half-decade living across Egypt, Peru, Colombia, Vietnam, and India. When hes not geeking out on all things copywriting and content marketing, you can find him at the nearest watering hole watching sports and talking philosophy. Connect with him on LinkedIn or @jaypadmakumar on Twitter.