How to Get Products Listed in Google’s Shopping Results

So let’s say you happen to be a company that manufactures iPod speakers and you want more coverage in Google’s search results for the term iPod Speakers.

You’re already running a Google Adwords campaign to target terms and phrases related to iPod Speakers and you want to gain more natural (aka organic) search traffic for your products.

You type iPod Speakers into Google, and low and behold you see a list of iPod speakers complete with images, descriptions and pricing. What have you stumbled across?

In the search results the title of this little area is “Shopping Results for iPod Speakers” but in fact, the way to get listed here is by taking advantage of the Google Merchant Center (Formally known as Google Products, Formally known as Google Base, Formally known as Froogle…)

Like any Google service, it helps and can save you a few steps if you already have a Google Account as you can simply login to Gmail or the Google service of your choice, open a new tab in your browser and head over to the Merchant Center to login and get started.

Assuming you already have a Google Account, here’s what you need to do to get your products listed:

1. Open up Google Merchant Center and create an account.
2. Edit your initial account settings (be sure to setup a new data feed.)
3. Create a data feed file using Excel or Google Docs (Find supported file formats here / Find a list of attributes to include in your data feed here.
4. Next you need to submit your feed.

You have several options for submitting your data feed to the Google Merchant Center:

• Direct upload through the Google Merchant Center Data feeds page (Files under 20 MB in size)
• File Transfer Protocol (FTP) (Files larger than 20 MB must upload using FTP)
• Automatic upload via scheduling (Files under 15 MB in size)

Note: If you’re submitting a compressed file, your file must be under 500 MB. If your file is larger than what our restrictions allow, please split your file into multiple, smaller files before uploading.

Want to learn more?

• For a handy step by step tutorial on the entire process, visit the Google Merchant Center help topics here.
• Or check out this Webmaster World Forum dedicated to the Google Merchant Center
• Actually interested in iPod Speakers and not Google Merchant? Check out Kanto Speakers (disclaimer: they’re a client).

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