Google Publishes Best Practices Guide for Ecommerce

Google added a new section of their developer pages focused on best practices for ecommerce websites. The new pages are aimed at developers but are equally useful to any ecommerce site publisher that sells products online.

Best Practices for Ecommerce

The goal of the new guide is show how to make your products visible not just in Google Search but through any of Google’s search products that surfaces products for shoppers.

There are seven brand new pages that concentrate on the following topics:

1. Where ecommerce content can appear on Google
2. Share your product data with Google
   Available options for sharing product data with Google
3. Include structured data relevant to ecommerce
   Ecommerce structured data tips
4. How to launch a new ecommerce website
5. Designing a URL structure for ecommerce sites
   How to optimize URL structure
6. Help Google understand your ecommerce site structure
   How to create the best site navigation structure
7. Pagination, incremental page loading, and their impact on Google Search
   User experience patterns that help Google show products

Where Ecommerce Content Can Appear on Google

Google is commonly considered as mostly a Search Engine. But Google is comprised of many services that are tightly bound to the mobile phone as well as desktop apps, but primarily the mobile experience.

Many of these services show users products in contexts outside of the search engine, at the very moment that the consumers are interested in those products.

Google calls services “surfaces,” where they surface content and products to users.

Google lists six important surfaces:

1. Google Search
2. Google Images
3. Google Lens
4. Google Shopping tab
5. Google My Business
6. Google Maps

Google recommends creating content specific for each of those six contexts:

“Some of these surfaces support multiple ways in which content can be displayed”

Share Your Product Data with Google

This section shows different ways to provide product information to Google, including structured data and product feeds to Google’s Merchant Center, so that Google can show it to shoppers in the appropriate moments.

This section also describes all the ways this information is used to benefit ecommerce sites.

Related: Ecommerce Marketing: The Definitive Guide

Include Structured Data Relevant to Ecommerce

This section lists eight important structured data that ecommerce sites should be aware of and use.

Help Google Understand Your Ecommerce Site Structure

This is an overview of site architecture that helps Google find all the important site content.

According to Google:

“Google tries to find the best content on your site by analyzing the relationship between pages based on their linkages.

This means navigation structures on your site (such as menus and cross page links) can impact Google’s understanding of your site structure.”

How to Launch a New Ecommerce Website

A step by step overview of what to do when launching an ecommerce website. The document itself serves as an overview with links to more in depth content covering all the details.

The rest of the sections offers overviews of the technical aspects of a successful ecommerce website, from the design and coding perspective.

Related: How to Launch a New Website: A Complete Guide

Advanced SEO for Ecommerce

This is a useful guide that is aimed at developers but can be useful to site owners with some technical understanding.

It offers a useful overview of important points to understand for a successful ecommerce presence in search.

Citation

Best Practices for Ecommerce in Google Search