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Over the past year, online consumer spending has risen enormously worldwide. This is partly due to the corona situation, but also because of the consumer who is increasingly online. Compared to the second quarter of 2020, digital sales in the Netherlands have increased by an insane 28%. Internationally, this growth only increased by a restrained 3%. This is according to Salesforce, a leading international company based in San Francisco that offers customer relationship management software (CRM systems). As an entrepreneur in the Netherlands, there are therefore many possibilities within the online sales channels. Google has also developed its own sales channel for the search engine, called Google Shopping. But what does Google Shopping mean, how can you apply Google Shopping, and how does the Product Feed Pro plugin for WooCommerce work?
Froogle was launched in 2002, the predecessor of Google Shopping, which was finally launched in 2012. Since 2012, Google’s online sales channel has been greatly expanded and optimized for its users. If you are an entrepreneur and have an online store or sell products from a physical store, Google Shopping is an essential tool for online growth. Google Shopping shows products to users when they search for keywords that are relevant to those products. At the very top of the SERP (search results page), Google Shopping will give you an overview of the most relevant products for your search terms. There are two ways in which your products can then be shown in Google Shopping. Namely through the organic way or by using advertising campaigns.
When set up correctly, Google Shopping provides the consumer with all the information about the product he/she wants to purchase. Google Shopping shows things like the price, design, shipping costs and/or other terms of the product. If the user then clicks on your product in Google Shopping, he/she is directed to your webshop. In this way, Google Shopping ensures better quality clicks on your products!
In addition, Google Shopping also results in more clicks, simply because the products from Google Shopping are shown first in the search results. Research has shown that Google Shopping brings about 30% more conversions than text ads.
Finally, as an entrepreneur, you can enter all information about your products/range in Google Shopping. Think of a photo of your product, a description, a title, price, rating, delivery time, size, color, etc. All this information about your products can be found in your product feed. This ensures that the user can easily compare the products displayed in Google Shopping and make an informed choice. All these are reasons to start with Google Shopping for your company, but how do you actually place your products in Google Shopping?
As mentioned briefly above, you should include information about your products in your product feed. This ensures that Google can easily read and index your products. There are two ways to share your products with Google Shopping:
1. Manually via Google Merchant Center.
With Google Merchant Center you upload your store and product information to Google, to make your products available in Google Shopping. In Google Merchant Center you have to manually enter your entire product range, which can take a lot of time. However, your products will then be shown in Google Shopping without having to pay for it.
Do you want to be shown more often in Google Shopping when users search for relevant keywords for your products? Then you can set up an advertising campaign around your products or a selection of your products via the link with Google Ads. Google Merchant Center contains all your store and product information and you can then develop an advertisement via Google Ads for a self-set amount. This way you have an even better chance that your products will be shown when users search for them!
2. Automatically with the Product Feed Pro plugin for WooCommerce.
The second way is to share your product feed with Google Shopping through the WooCommerce plugin called Product Feed Pro. WooCommerce is a webshop plugin for the open source software WordPress. WordPress is the most widely used content management system (CMS) in the world. The current percentage of WordPress websites in the world is 37%. With the WooCommerce plugin you can easily and quickly set up a webshop within WordPress. More information on the benefits of WooCommerce and integration with Google Shopping can be found below.
The link with WooCommerce is therefore made in the back-end of your website (WordPress). Your product feed is generated by Product Feed Pro because of the connection with WooCommerce, so the plugin knows which store and product information to share with Google Shopping. This process of sharing the product feed between Product Feed Pro and Google Shopping happens automatically. Provided you have uploaded the Product Feed Pro product feed you created in Google Merchant Center. As a result, Google Shopping shows your products when users search for them without having to pay for them. In addition, if the link between the stock system and the back-end (WooCommerce) is also correct, Google Shopping will be able to indicate the stock status of your products live.
Do you want to be shown more often in Google Shopping, when users search for relevant keywords, for your products? Then you can make the link with Google Ads at Google Merchant Center to set up advertising campaigns for your products.
Now that it is clear what Google Shopping entails and in which two ways your products can be displayed in Google Shopping, we look at the advantages of using WooCommerce.
Like WordPress, the WooCommerce plugin is very easy to use. Adding and updating content on your webshop can be arranged without much effort. In addition, WooCommerce contains many options in the field of different themes and styles for your webshop. This ensures that WooCommerce’s webshops are becoming increasingly focused and customer-friendly.
In addition, WooCommerce is a very reliable plugin. First of all, because it is built around the world’s most widely used CMS WordPress. But also because WooCommerce is an open source software and is therefore accessible to everyone. This means that the plug-in is constantly under development due to developer improvements. The plug-in already has more than 400 official extensions to support, for example, the process of sending and paying.
Finally, it is interesting to mention that WooCommerce does not only have to be used for selling physical products. Products in the form of subscriptions or digital downloads also fall within the scope of WooCommerce. And so webshops can be built around the plug-in.
Are you an entrepreneur with a webshop or do you sell products from a physical store? Then this article has hopefully stimulated you to delve more into the possibilities of Google Shopping. Our online marketers at Convident have the experience and expertise regarding the connection between Google Shopping and the WooCommerce plug-in. Which of your products will soon appear at the top of Google Shopping?
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