You can easily integrate your store products into Google Shopping using WooCommerce product feeds. This article walks you through how to generate WooCommerce product feeds for Google Shopping.
Online shopping preferences have changed dramatically. With so many options and alternatives in the market, it is difficult for customers to discover your products. To stand out, it’s essential to feature your products on popular search engines like Google. As the most popular search engine where people look for products and services, Google offers a powerful product discovery tool called Google Shopping.
By setting up Google Shopping for WooCommerce, you can fully utilize Google Shopping’s potential to promote your products and increase sales on your store site. Specialized plugins can integrate your store with popular sales channels like Google Feed, so you can easily integrate your store products with Google Shopping using WooCommerce product feeds.
In this article, we will explain the steps to generate WooCommerce product feeds for Google Shopping. But first, let’s explore what Google Shopping is and why it benefits your store.
Key Takeaways:
- Integrating your store with Google Shopping helps your products appear on the most popular search engine, boosting product discovery and visibility.
- Setting up Google Shopping for WooCommerce allows you to take advantage of its robust product discovery features, helping to promote your products and increase sales.
- Plugins such as WooCommerce Product Feed simplify the integration process by making it easy to create and manage product feeds for Google Shopping.
Google Shopping is a Google service that allows users to search for products online and compare prices between different vendors. It’s like a virtual marketplace where buyers can find a wide variety of products, from electronics and clothing to home goods and toys. Besides, it enables the buyer to:
- Easily search for and compare products from multiple stores in one place.
- Discover a wide range of products from different brands and sellers.
- Find the best deals and save money on purchases.
For example, a Google Shopping page for suitcases would display products from various sellers, allowing users to compare prices, features, and deals.
For retail eCommerce stores, Google Shopping has proven to be a highly effective tool, driving significant increases in traffic, conversions, and sales. It can significantly boost website traffic as users actively search for products on the platform and increase brand visibility and awareness among potential customers.
A WooCommerce Product Feed, on the other hand, is a file containing an organized list of products, their attributes, and other information. It connects stores with popular sales channels like Google Shopping and Facebook Business Manager.
As you may know, millions of online users browse for products on Google. With the help of WooCommerce Google product feeds, you can reach out to millions of potential customers and promote your products to millions of users free of cost.
Google automatically syncs and updates the product information from your WooCommerce store, so any update in stock availability or price will also be updated on the Google Shopping page. Your store products will be matched and displayed for the relevant search queries so you can increase your chances of conversion.
We have already mentioned some of the significant benefits of WooCommerce product feeds for Google Shopping, but you can find them below in detail. Let’s divide the benefits into three sections:
For your store website
- Increase traffic: Promoting your store products on Google Shopping can help you attract more eyeballs to your product pages. People search for products on Google, so promoting WooCommerce products on Google Shopping can help your customers find your products, driving higher traffic to your store site.
- Connect with customers: As you may know, most shoppers look for products on Google, so listing your products on Google can reach thousands of potential customers.
- Increase store conversion rate: People who visit your product page through Google shopping are more likely to purchase, as they have shown interest in your product. So, there’s an increased chance of conversions.
- Expand reach: Google Shopping can help your WooCommerce store products reach a wider audience. It enables you to make your products visible to more people and potential customers.
For your local store
- Increase reach: Ranking your products on Google search results can also help increase sales and customer reach for your local outlets. Customers will look for shops near them, and you will have a better chance of appearing on relevant search results. This also helps you reduce the budget and efforts for local advertising.
- Promote store inventory to local customers: Displaying your store’s products on Google can let your customers know your store has the items they want.
- Get more walk-in customers: When your store’s products are listed on Google, your customers can find you online and contact you through your local store. They can see your products online and buy them from your store locally.
Benefits for Google searches
- Use analytical tools: Google offers a package of analytical and advertising tools to promote your store website. Use these tools to get the most out of your store website. Use data from Google Analytics and Google Search results to make informed decisions for marketing and advertising purposes.
- Create targeted ad campaigns: Google Ads services allow you to run targeted ad campaigns, which can help you reach more potential customers and increase conversions on your store site.
- Improve shopping experience: You can improve the shopping experience on your store website by making it frictionless across multiple Google platforms.
- Regional benefits: In the US, you can sell products directly through Google. This results in much faster conversion as your customers can order directly from the Google Shopping page.
Did You Know?
With an average conversion rate of 1.91%, Google Shopping Ads effectively convert clicks into actual purchases.
So, these are the major benefits of WooCommerce product feeds. Now, we will take you through the setup process.
We will use the WooCommerce Product Feed for Google Shop plugin by WebToffee to generate WooCommerce product feeds for Google Shopping.
Prerequisites: After purchasing the plugin, you will get a download link in your email to download the plugin file. You can also download the plugin file from the My Account section of the WebToffee website.
Step 1: Install the WooCommerce Product Feed Plugin
From your WordPress dashboard,
- Go to Plugins > Add New, then upload the plugin file.
- Install and Activate the plugin.
If you need help installing the plugin – refer to this article.
Note that we also have a free version of the plugin, using which you can generate feeds for popular sales channels, add additional fields to the product edit page (GTIN, MPN, Condition, Age group, etc.), configure a custom feed refresh interval, duplicate feeds, use category-wise filters, etc.
Now follow the below steps to create WooCommerce Google product feeds for your store website.
Step 2: Create a New Feed for Google Shop
Once the plugin is installed and activated,
- Navigate to WebToffee Product Feed > Create new feed.
Here, you need to enter the basic feed settings to proceed.
- Country – Choose the target country for which the feeds will be generated. (The plugin will add relevant shipping-related data to the product feed file.)
- Channel – Select Google Shop as the sales channel.
- File Name – Enter a filename for the product feed file.
- Auto-refresh Interval – Choose an auto-feed refresh interval and set the time.
- Cron Type – Select a cron type for the feed refresh
This product feed plugin allows you to schedule automatic feed refresh updates for your WooCommerce store using WordPress and Server cron. You can schedule the auto-feed refresh interval, and the product feed will be updated automatically at the scheduled interval.
We recommend you choose Server Cron for your scheduling tasks. It runs independently of WordPress, which means they don’t add load to your web server or WordPress site and does not depend on your website traffic. This will also reduce the risk of performance issues on your WordPress site.
Step 3: Filter Product Feed Data for Google Shops
This WooCommerce product feed plugin offers basic and advanced condition-based filters for generating product feed data.
As you scroll to the end of this feed creation page, you will see different filtering options. There are two tabs: Filtering and Advanced Filtering.
Basic Filters
- Categories & Tags: You can choose to include or exclude specific categories or tags.
- Exclude products – Exclude any specific products from the feed
- Exclude out-of-stock product – Exclude the out-of-stock products from the feed.
- Product variations – Include selected product variations in the feed.
- Product types – Choose any particular product type.
Advanced Filters
In the Advanced Filtering options, you can use if – then based conditions for generating product feed.
For example, consider the above screenshot. If the product title contains the word ‘Albums,’ it will be excluded from the feed data. Similarly, you can add multiple conditions to refine the feed for your Google Shop listings.
Step 4: Map Attribute for WooCommerce Product Feed
Here, you have the option to map the attributes of the product feed using WooCommerce fields.
The plugin automatically maps the relevant fields, but you can also map advanced fields manually from here.
Mapping Unique Product Identifiers & Additional Attributes
The plugin lets you add unique product identifiers, such as product brand, GTIN, MPN, etc., to the WooCommerce product edit page.
These fields will be automatically mapped when generating product feed data.
Mapping these fields is necessary, especially when listing your products on a Google Shopping page. You can also map additional attributes related to your store products.
Let’s go with the default options and proceed to the next step.
Step 5: Map Categories with Google Categories
Google Shops have some default categories for products. Here you have to map the categories defined in your store with the Google categories.
Choose the categories from the given set of predefined categories.
After mapping the categories, click the Generate feed button to continue to the next step.
Step 6: Generate Feed for Google Shops
Here is the final step for generating the feed for Google Shops.
- Enter a batch count for generating the feed.
- Then, choose an export file format from the dropdown.
- Now click on Generate to generate the feed.
After completion, you can see a popup message saying Feed generated successfully!
- Click on the Download button to download the file.
Step 7: Manage WooCommerce Product Feeds
Now, you can click the Manage feeds button on the pop-up to go directly to the feed manager section.
Alternatively, you can navigate to WebToffee Product Feed > Manage Feeds.
From here, you can manage all the generated WooCommerce product feeds. You can copy, edit, or delete the feeds and view the detailed feed log.
- Click on Copy URL to copy the product feed while syncing with Google Shopping.
Now, let’s see how we can integrate WooCommerce products into Google Shops using WooCommerce product feeds.
To do so, you must set up your account on Google Business and Google Merchant Center.
We hope that you have already set up your Google Merchant Center account. If not, set up Google Merchant Center from here.
Step 1: Login to Google Merchant Center
- Login to Google Merchant Center.
- Click the Settings icon in the top right and select Data sources.
Then click the Add product source button to add a new product feed.
Step 2: Add Product Feed Source
- Select the Add Product from a file option and then enter the URL for the product feed file you copied from the generated feed (you can avail the generated URL from the manage feeds section of the plugin)
- Click the pencil icon of the Edit schedule option to set an automatic feed update schedule, eliminating the need for manual updates.
- Scroll down and click on Continue to create the product feed.
As you can see, your store products are now synced with Google Shopping.
You can view the store products synced to Google Shopping by heading to the Products tab from the left sidebar.
Let’s now examine some of the major features of the WooCommerce product feed plugin we used in this article.
- Create product feeds for Facebook, Google Shops, Instagram, TikTok, etc.
- Add additional fields to the WooCommerce product edit page, such as GTIN, MPN, Brand, Color, Material, etc.
- Advanced and custom product filtering options.
- Shorter refresh intervals for auto feed update.
- Advanced attribute mapping and category mapping options.
- Manage all generated feed and sync processes.
- Multilingual and multicurrency support with WPML.
- Compatibility with multiple currency switcher and brand plugins.
To thrive in the highly competitive online retail landscape, it’s essential to adopt various sales techniques and marketing strategies. Promoting your WooCommerce products on leading sales platforms such as Google Shopping can significantly enhance their visibility, allowing you to connect with thousands of potential customers and broaden your brand’s presence.
This article offers a detailed guide on creating WooCommerce product feeds for Google Shopping. If you found this guide useful, we’d appreciate your feedback or queries in the comments!