{"id":106100,"date":"2022-09-20T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-20T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dacgroup.com\/5-reasons-google-merchant-center-needs-to-be-part-of-your-ecommerce-seo-strategy-2\/"},"modified":"2024-12-20T09:21:05","modified_gmt":"2024-12-20T14:21:05","slug":"5-reasons-google-merchant-center-needs-to-be-part-of-your-ecommerce-seo-strategy-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dacgroup.com\/en-gb\/insights\/blog\/strategy\/5-reasons-google-merchant-center-needs-to-be-part-of-your-ecommerce-seo-strategy-2\/","title":{"rendered":"5 reasons Google Merchant Center needs to be part of your ecommerce SEO strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the past couple of months, we have seen major changes within the Google shopping experience. We first noticed these changes from last year’s announcement around Search On and we’re still seeing significant impacts within the organic space today.<\/p>\n

We talked about most of these changes in our last article on organic ecommerce<\/a>, which we highly recommend you check out if you have not, because it touches on how these new experiences impact your organic presence. This time around, we’re going to explain how Google’s shift to those richer experiences has increased our dependency on Google Merchant Center (GMC) and how beneficial GMC can be for both SEOs and teams managing large feeds.<\/p>\n

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    It unlocks free shopping listings <\/h2>\n

    The first reason why GMC is hyper-relevant to SEO for ecommerce brands is that it enables you to show up for free listings within the Google shopping experience.<\/a> We do not yet know how this impacts other traditional ranking factors, but it is important to note that free listing URLs are those from feeds. We have seen brands tagging these URLs and those are the URLs coming through when we select them from free listings.<\/p>\n

    We highly recommend you tag these URLs to easily identify high-trafficked free listings as GMC can be very limited in analysing this organic data. Additionally, since the increased presence of free listings we have seen a large amount of product page data being under reported in Google Search Console (GSC).<\/p>\n

    \"Product<\/p>\n

    Google Search Console also just rolled out a “merchant listings” report that can help you better optimise your free listings, which could be super helpful for feed managers.<\/li>\n

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    Your local visibility will improve <\/h2>\n

    Google officially updated terms within their Business Profile Help Center to state that adding in-store products can improve local visibility. This is managed through Google Merchant Center with local feeds.<\/p>\n

    Additionally, we have seen the “nearby” filtered carousel pop up on more top-of-funnel search terms, as well as a direct correlation of non-brand terms without “near me” qualifiers driving local page traffic in Google Search Console.<\/p>\n

    \"Local<\/li>\n

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    You’ll be more likely to appear in Google Lens <\/h2>\n

    Over the years, Google has made huge strides in connecting the physical and digital worlds with its search engine. None have been more exciting than the evolution of Google Lens<\/a>. This image-recognition technology allows users to upload photos to search and shop products, translate languages, and identify landmarks in real time.<\/p>\n

    \"Google<\/p>\n

    GIF: Google<\/a><\/p>\n

    Google Lens presence is made possible through GMC, structured data, and\/or image optimisation. By adding additional context about products details in free listings as well as aligning to Google’s image optimisation best practices, you can improve your chances of showing up within the Google Lens experience.<\/li>\n

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    \n Stay Forward <\/h2>\n

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