
Any brand that sells online knows that competition is heating up. And with major retailers taking more and more of the market share, it’s more important than ever for medium and smaller brands to be showing up in search.
Mobile commerce is predicted to account for more than 70% of all eCommerce sales by the end of 2021. And that’s another trend that will likely only continue to grow. This means that every day, hundreds of millions of people are turning to Google for help with their shopping needs and choosing options based on what they find in search.
Fortunately for those medium and smaller brands, automated feed technology has become scalable and accessible and businesses of all sizes can use Google Shopping. So let’s take a deeper look into how it can benefit your brand.
What is Google Shopping?
Google Shopping is the tab in search that shows consumers shopping options for whatever they’ve typed into the search engine. For brands, it enables customers looking for products similar to yours to easily find and purchase from you. It lets consumers compare products from different retailers and shows them both paid and organic listings. It also offers product recommendations based on the user's shopping and search history.
Best of all, in April 2020, Google introduced Free Listings, a program to let brands list their products for free. This helps brands of all sizes compete with the retail giants and take advantage of Google’s scale and reach, so that consumers can more easily find their products.
How does it work and what are the benefits?
You’re probably already familiar with how Google Shopping looks and works from the consumer side. But there are a few key things to remember as a brand using Google Shopping.
Because they’re ranked above the organic listing, Google Ads give you the best visibility in search. They also direct users directly to your site to complete purchases. But Free Listings can also be a great way to lift your visibility and reach new customers.When clicked, Google shows the user more product information, customer reviews, and inventory information, allowing for a better and more holistic user shopping experience.
Strategies to maximize your success with Google Shopping
Whether you’re using Google Ads or Free Listings, you’ll still want to make sure you’re getting the most out of Google Shopping.
1. Maximize your listing titles
You have 150 characters and you want to use as many as possible. What are the most important aspects of your product that you want to highlight and use to capture the attention of a shopper with a large amount of options in front of them?
2. Nail down your descriptions
Your descriptions can be up to 5,000 characters, but the preview will only show the first 200. What do you need to include in that first 200 to ensure that as many shoppers as possible click to view the full description?
3. Enhance your images
The higher quality your product images are the better. Are they clear? Are they visually pleasing? Images can play a huge role in which product a consumer selects, so the more effort you can put in here the better your chances at beating out your competitors.
4. Use banners to highlight important selling points
The more you can do to make your product stand out on a page, the better. Especially if you can have a sale or promotional offer. Adding banners with offers like sale, 20% off, or price drop will draw users’ eyes to your listing and help encourage them to choose yours over the other alternatives.
How can Google + Trustpilot help bring awareness to your brand while optimizing your Google Shopping strategy?
Being as transparent as possible helps consumers make more informed decisions and boosts consumer trust in businesses.
Trusted Google Reviews Partners like Trustpilot can help retailers have their online reviews displayed directly on their product listings in Google Shopping.
Why is that important today?
89% of global consumers check online reviews as part of their online buying journey, and 49% of global consumers consider positive reviews one of their top 3 purchase influences.
Whether you’re a smaller business looking to bring awareness to your brand, or a bigger business simply looking to optimize your Google Shopping strategy, showcasing a trust signal such as ratings and reviews can help you stand out from the crowd, and differentiate yourself from other competitors in Google Shopping.