A tonne has been written about the importance of Google’s E-commerce SEO package and why it’s a game-changer for e-commerce businesses. It’s true that the E-commerce SEO package can help your business get great organic visibility in both Google Shopping and Google News. You’ve probably heard of it and you might even be using it now.
If you’re not using it yet, it might sound kind of complicated, but really all you need is your Google Merchant Centre ID, which is a number you get from Google when you set up your Merchant Centre account.
Once you’ve got that, then the E-commerce SEO package will basically look at your Merchant Centre account and add information to text ads in the same way that they already do on product search ads in Google Shopping.
But what if you don’t have a Merchant Centre account? Or what if you don’t want to set one up? What if you just want to make some videos on YouTube more shoppable? Well, there’s a solution for that too!
Video SEO is an important part of your eCommerce marketing strategy. It’s one of the first decisions to make when building an ad campaign, along with the type of ad that you’re going to use (text or video), the keyphrase targeting, and the placement of your video ads.
Video is a great way to show off products and services from every angle, in action, and in real life. It’s also a great way to get your audience engaged more deeply with your brand and product offerings. Video can be used for awareness campaigns, consideration campaigns, and even cart recovery campaigns.
You may have heard about video campaign types like In-Stream Video Ads, YouTube Trueview for Shopping Ads, or Outstream Video Ads. With the help of Video SEO services, brands can now make any video campaign.
If you have a product-based business (think retail or wholesale), you should be using video as an advertising channel. Video can be used in all three buyer’s journeys:
Video SEO is a huge part of Google’s marketing ecosystem. That’s why it’s important to understand how to use it to your advantage not only in terms of organic search traffic but also for paid advertising.
One of the most interesting and lucrative ways to use video SEO is to create awareness and consideration ads (for example, top video results) for your products on YouTube. You can even optimize these videos for paid conversions using shopping ads.
In one of the most-requested features ever, Google has rolled out product feed support for Google’s video advertising platform, AdWords has added support for more types of video campaigns that include product information and make them shoppable.
In a recent post on the Google Ads blog, Product Feeds: Now available to all Video campaigns, product feed support has been made available to all advertisers globally who are running video campaigns. This means that you can easily make any video campaign more shoppable using Video SEO services without having to create a separate Trueview for shopping campaign.
However, the update to Google Shopping campaigns gives advertisers the ability to promote products in TrueView video campaigns. This is a huge bonus for brands that already employ video marketing as a way to connect with consumers.
The new feature allows advertisers to streamline their product listings by importing information from Google Merchant Centre and linking those products directly on YouTube.
This is huge news for brands who have been waiting for a long time for Google to roll out product feed support for video campaigns!
These features will save time in the campaign creation process, along with the need to create separate shopping ads for each of the videos a brand publishes. When users click on a video ad showing product images, they will be directed to the landing page associated with that product feed URL. Through video SEO and e-commerce SEO packages, this is designed to help both awareness and consideration campaigns drive clicks back to e-commerce sites where users can purchase products being advertised.
For example, Google said one client saw a 50 percent increase in overall conversions when it began serving video ads with product feed URLs instead of landing pages that redirect users to its site.
Google also recommends that video SEO be created such that a product landing page is made for each of the products that appear in your video ad. At the moment, this is not a requirement, but it is likely to become one in the future.
The landing page must have a direct call-to-action (CTA) that explains to users what they need to do next, such as “Shop Now” or “Buy.” An additional CTA can also be included at the bottom of the page.
Video SEO is a relatively new technique in the online marketing world. It is obvious that video is an effective way to attract and engage an audience, but it’s also true that most marketers aren’t using it to its full potential.
As with most Google updates, it will take some time for advertisers to fully grasp how these changes might affect their Video campaigns. The best way to prepare is by taking note of the above requirements and preparing for any possible future developments.
Sid Bharath, Product Manager at Google, said: “People are more likely to watch a full video about a product after clicking on it in an ad,” hence all the more reason why it’s high time SEO services make the best use of all the new updated support Google is offering for video campaigns.