If you do not already know Google shopping is changing in 2013. You will already have received notification from Google via an e-mail. The big change has already happened in America and with only 16 days to act from notification to product roll out, their was not much time to act. A Notification was sent to inform feed owners that Google products was becoming a completely paid service. Don’t worry since the change there has been an increase in traffic from Google products and you will have much longer to get everything right!
What is Happening to Google Products?
Google products are becoming a paid only service, the free feed is being removed and the Google products will be managed through the adwords interface.
This will be removed
and will be replaced with this -
What you need to know
You may notice that the example above does not leave much room for organic search results, if you have an e-commerce website you really need to consider setting up a Google product feed. To set up the feed you must:
1. Optimise your Google Merchant Centre Feed matching the product specifications
2. Link your Merchant Centre Feed
3. Bid competitively on each of the products
*Tip - Google will be giving out Adwords vouchers and 10% discounts for people that already have Google Products. To qualify you must bid on ‘all products’ (as little as 1p is enough).
Bidding is different to normal adwords
Bidding is not triggered by keywords, so consider separating the products in to categories based on how much you are willing to pay. Label products that are low profit and ones that are high profit so that you can group them together.
Setting Up The Feed Can Be a Pain
Setting up the Google Merchant Centre Feed can be a pain so leave plenty of time to do this. You must make sure that you have an xml feed of the data and that the data is listed under the correct columns and included in the correct category. Clothing will be the most difficult but rewarding category to set up.
Dates For Your Diary
February 13th 2013 - Google paid products starts to be rolled out in the UK
June 2013 - Free shopping is being turned off.
