Service Providers

How to pull in new website traffic

This little trick is way cool, so I’ll cut right to the chase. You can pull in new website traffic when you list your product catalogs on Google and Bing.

Google Shopping and Bing Shopping are the commerce search arms of Google and Bing. When someone searches for a product on either search engine, a shopping section appears on the search results page. In the shopping section, customers can compare products by features, attributes, price, and available locations.

(In full disclosure, I need to tell you 50 Below offers a product that posts dealer inventory to Google and Bing shopping. For anyone willing to put in the hours to learn how to post your own products, you can find the information on Google and Bing.)

We see traffic increase in most of our dealers within a matter of weeks. Increased website traffic makes sense; just consider that according to a 2011 Social Shopping Study 51 percent of customers use Google Shopping to find products in stock at local businesses.

I poked through our analytics to find a few examples. Within two weeks of posting products on Google and Bing, Munn Racing saw 15.38 percent of their traffic coming from the “shopping” search engine websites. Jancen Powersports saw an increase of 8.17 percent. Stormy Hill Harley-Davidson increased 18.2 percent. And, nearly all visitors who come through search engine shopping websites were new visitors.

“The benefit of being found in Google and Bing shopping is that it gives your business a chance to compete with big online retailers,” said 50 Below business development manager Jeremy Johnson.

Imagine you want to buy a helmet for your cousin. He wants a Malcolm Smith Racing (MSR) helmet, and you want to buy it locally. Now imagine that you don’t know where to get it locally, so you go to Google:

  1. Go to the Google Shopping page, and search for “MSR Helmet.”
  2. Click on the photo of the MSR Malcolm Smith Racing Assault Off Road Helmet.
  3. This will bring you to a page with a list of stores selling this product.

What stores do you see?

When I looked, I saw big online retailers like Amazon, along with some local dealers. What do you see in your area? You probably see big Internet retailers and with good reason.

When uploading products to Google and Bing you need to use the correct file format, or it will be rejected. You must follow Bing and Google’s feed specifications, both companies have minimum requirements including things like: product ID (MPID), price, image, etc. Company policies dictate how to use each attribute.

You need to take the time to create and upload your shopping feeds. Most businesses have thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of products. After, you upload your shopping feeds you have to maintain them. You need to control your product information and maintain accuracy.

Still, if you want to increase new website traffic, it’s a worthwhile investment.

Advertisement

Like all members of the 50 Below team, Ben Borchert wants to help powersports dealers help their customers. Ben uses his skills as a Marketing Analyst and Writer to empower, educate, and advise dealers in the ever changing realm of online marketing. To view more of Ben’s articles visit www.50below.com/knowledge. 

Website: http://www.50below.com/

Related Articles

One Comment

  1. I am totally with you Ben, this is a no brainer. The problem we have is helping dealers understand this opportunity. I’ve learned to boil it down to a few facts:

    1) Google organic search and Google shopping are two totally separate algorithms behind the scenes. If you are one of the first to market in your local area with your P&A on Google Shopping, guess what — you rank on top.

    2) On the average powersports dealer website, users have to drill down 5-8 clicks to even get to a P&A detail page (which often is not even optimized). Good luck getting that sale.

    3) How to people shop online? They “Google” it. Enough said.

    Thanks for a great article! HB

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top button