6 Effective Google Shopping Feed Optimization Tips!

Google Shopping feed optimizations not only could help to boost your visibility on the SERP but could also result in more sales.

Google Shopping has become a hot ticket item for any eCommerce store with an enormous growth of 52% year-over-year. To get the most out of your data, you have to optimize your product feed. The data feed is the foundation for any great Google shopping strategy. It will end up costing you if the data is bad.

Google Shopping feed optimization is something that most advertisers completely ignore. The main reason is, many advertisers have trouble with how to optimize Google Shopping campaigns.

There are some crucial Google Shopping campaign optimization tactics. But you can’t execute if you don’t have a proper feed.

Why should you optimize your Google Shopping Feed?

The main two reasons you should engage in Google Shopping Feed optimization: improved segmentation and increased relevancy.

When it comes to Google Shopping optimization, you start realizing the importance of your Feed. Everything is related to how well your Shopping Feed is structured and how much data it has.

For example, if you are missing size, you can’t bid on size. You can’t define bids per product variation if you are the missing size. So, your feed is everything.

Relevancy and improved quality score are two main reasons why you should engage in Google Shopping Feed Optimization.

Feed optimization is the key to capture a shopper’s attention. Google shows your product according to the information you provide. So you want them to be as accurate as possible.

Now without any further due, let’s just dive into the most important factors that help improve the shopping engagement.

Product Title Structure

“Title plays the most significant role to make your ads relevant to users’ searches.”

Following a product title structure that makes your ads relevant to shoppers’ searches improves your conversion rate dramatically.

You shouldn’t stuff your title with unnecessary details or promotional messages. Mobile devices have 40 characters shown on the title and users spend only a few seconds watching your ad before he swipes to the next one.

So you will need to lead them to the right information they are looking for. Moreover, using appropriate keywords in the title will rank your ad better in the search and comparison websites.

Now, you can follow different title structures that are recommended for Google shopping, for instance, Electronic Products have (Brand+Attributes+Product Type+Model) structure. But it might not work out if your shop has various types of products.

So, we recommend you follow a specific structure that works for all of your products. According to the different specifications defined by various merchant site, we have made a structure of writing an appropriate product title:

(Brand Name) – (Model Name) – (Season) – (Gender Name) – (What it is) – (Important Marketing Fact) – (Color) – (Material) – (Other Important specifications, Size, Measurement, Subscription) – (Conditions)

If you have any questions regarding optimizing product titles take a look at the anatomy of product titles for Google shopping.

Product Images

“Product image is first that users see even before reading the product title.”

In fact, product image works as a decision-making factor for a customer whether or not, he even wants to read your product title. So you want to make sure they look great and appealing.

Things you should consider taking into account while optimizing your product image are:

• Always use high-quality images. Make sure they are zoomable.
• Show your product from a different angle and provide pictures of the product in action if possible.
• Use proper product Metadata for images i.e. image link/image alt-text.
• It’s best practice to have a clear view of your main product image on a white background

Description Optimizing

Google Shopping allows you to have 10,000 characters in your product description. This is a great opportunity to describe your product in a way that answers every single question a customer can possibly have. Though you have 10,000 limits, keep your description in 500-1000 characters. This is enough to include the most relevant attributes. Organize your description in such a way that is easy to read so that the customer can find what they are looking for.

Another thing that you should keep in mind that correct grammar and punctuations should be used in your product description and the use of special characters and exclamation points should be limited.

MOZ says, there are few words that you would like to avoid while writing a product description. Such as Got, Get, Gotten or any sort of words that will tell the customer to do something rather suggesting. Also, try avoiding Just, Nice, Very, Kind of, Maybe, Stunning, Actually, Honestly, Literally, etc.

Using Keywords

Google Shopping automatically pulls the keywords that are relevant from your title and descriptions. So check the keywords your products are ranking for. By analyzing them, you can discover which user queries are displaying your products.

“The thing that is more important than keywords are the negative keywords.”

Negative keywords prevent your ads to be displayed in search terms that are not relevant to your products. Therefore, it saves a lot of your AdWords spends. You need to look at what search terms driving traffic to your site to find out the negative keywords.

Once you master the understanding of how keywords work, it becomes a piece of cake to optimize your products. And hence they appear more often in Google Shopping searches.

WordStream has an infographic article about it, you can pay it a visit to know more about using keywords!

Using Categories and Merchant promo

Product category helps Google understand the type of product you’re trying to sell. Categories make the products connect with search queries from potential customers.

There is no alternative to using the most accurate Google product category. Many advertisers do not pay attention to choose the accurate category, so they just choose one main category and let it stand like that. But it increases the CPC rate dramatically.

Say, for instance, you are selling Basketball Uniforms. Now Google has specific category for it,  Apparel & Accessories > Clothing > Uniforms > Sports Uniforms > Baseball Uniforms. If you categorize it under Apparel & Accessories > Clothing, it’ll compete for every Apparel item under Clothing, which will increase the CPC high. So, you should always pick the appropriate category if you want to keep the CPC low.

Merchant promotions trigger customers to buy products and eventually lead you to have a higher CPC rate. Promotions can be of different types. A study shows that people are more likely to shop when they get a cash discount.

Free shipping is also another great option for promotions. You can also use a percentage off for instance: 25% off or a buy one gets one offer to grab more attention.

Google Shopping Feed Optimization Tool

There are several tools that help you optimize your Google shopping feed. If you’re using a WooCommerce based eCommerce site, then CTX Feed Pro is a feed-making plugin that can be a great choice for you.

It is a feed-generating plugin that has pre-loaded templates for Google Shopping and many other merchant sites. Along with feed making, you get some amazing features like Smart Filter, Custom Taxonomy, Category Mapping, etc. that are focused to optimize your product for various Shopping Engines.

Feed optimization is something that drives traffic to your eCommerce site and leads to a better conversion rate which is your ultimate goal. Make sure you optimize it properly to get your desired ROI. Let us know about any questions regarding Google Shopping down below. Have a good day!