Many content management systems have quick integrations with Google Merchant Center. They can make setup and integration with Google Ads (for example) very quick and easy. However, it’s important that you don’t assume your website and Google Merchant Center have you covered indefinitely. Changes to the website won’t always show up automatically, and some changes on the site can cause issues to pop up in Google Merchant Center that require hands-on attention. Today we’ll cover some common issues.
Image updates to your website can sometimes break the compliance rules of Google Merchant Center. For example, when your product wins an award, it’s standard to call attention to it. Adding a ‘Best in Category’ badge from a magazine or website can flag the image as having text, which isn’t allowed. This is a case where something good for the website is bad for Google Merchant Center. You’ll need to update those images manually.
Adding a sale price to your product can help you move more users to buy, but it can also cause ‘price doesn’t match’ errors in Google Merchant Center. If those errors pop up in your account you’ll want to verify and fix the prices. In some cases, the errors can’t be fixed because it looks like there is a mismatch when there isn’t. If possible, it’s ideal to keep your prices fixed, rather than moving them around.
Product identifiers are important in Google Merchant Center as well, and these often don’t come over to Google Merchant Center using the integration from your site. You’ll want to keep an eye out for missing SKU, UPC or GTIN codes. They don’t necessarily mean Google will suspend the product, but they can certainly interfere with your ability to gather traffic and sell products via Google Ads.
Hopefully this quick maintenance list gives you a few things to look for on say, a monthly or quarterly basis in your Google Merchant Center account. Sometimes Google Shopping listings and ads aren’t the highest priority in the marketing department, but it’s good to have these listings and ads working in the background. As you probably know, all quality traffic is valuable and you want to keep your traffic streams up and running.