Earlier this year, Google shook up Shopping search by including a free listing in the Google Shopping Results. It is an important move for Google Shopping after being an advertising-based service for over eight years. For retailers, it means they don’t have to advertise to show up in Google Shopping as the results are now organic. The results will be included in the Surface Across Google inventory.
What is Surfaces Across Google?
Simply put, it is a free Merchant Center program that allows your products to be seen on platforms such as Google Images, Google Lens, Google Shopping and Google Search. To leverage this online sales channel, you need to set up a Merchant Center account and an optimized Data Feed.
Marketers can now enhance their paid campaigns with these free listings, resulting in rich, organic search results. More importantly, your audience will get to see more products from stores that are discoverable through the Google Shopping tab. It means you will have to use all the tools available to be front and center. For marketers and brands, Surfaces Across Google means free Google Shopping listings on the organic Search Engine Results Pages( SERPs).
For brands that haven’t considered Google’s paid offerings, this feature is unmissable!
What are the benefits?
Delivers rich information to a wide audience. People can discover your products easily as your detailed product information will appear on Google Search and other Google services.
Reach for customers in real-time. Helps you connect with customers looking for your products in real-time at key moments of intent.
Boosts your visibility. Drive traffic to your website for free for order fulfillment.
Make your products more accessible and move your business online.
How to implement Surfaces Across Google?
To become eligible, you must upload a complete data feed to Google Merchant Center or apply detailed markup on each product page. The most effective way to ensure your products are eligible, you must set you a product feed in Google Merchant Center.
Other eligibility requirements to consider are;
Currently, only US stores are eligible for this program and it will be available globally before the end of 2020.
All products and behavior must comply with Google Shopping policies and Google policies.
To set you a Merchant Center account, you need access to business and tax information in addition to documented policies such as privacy policy, shipping information and return policy.
How to set up Surfaces Across Google?
With Surfaces Across Google, even small retailers who have never used Google paid ads can leverage this free traffic source.
To sign-up for Surfaces Across Google, select it when you sign up for Merchant Center or click Growth in the navigation menu (on the left) and then Manage programs. Next, choose “Surfaces Across Google” from the list of programs.
You can start and stop the setup at any point. However, once you have started setup, Surfaces Across Google will be added automatically to your list of pending tasks in the Overview screen.
When you setup Surfaces Across Google, you will need to;
Add your products
Add your products to Merchant Center using feeds
Include your tax information (optional)
Set up shipping (optional)
Validate your website
Confirm that your URL and website belong to you
Review your company information and Google’s policies. Once you are ready, check the box to confirm that you have reviewed it. Click Activate to complete the setup.
Final Thoughts
While this is a free feature to increase the exposure to your brand and traffic to your site, it is also likely to increase the competition. That said, make sure to keep optimize your feed with minimum errors and passed to the Merchant Center. Also, make sure that the structured data for products on your site is optimized accordingly to make the most of “Surfaces Across Google”.