Answer
Nov 26, 2024 - 11:25 AM
The question of speed often comes up when you're paying for resources and tools to optimize your site...and of course you want to see an ROI from that work. WIth the end goal being growing revenue.....when it comes to visibility and traffic through "Merchant Listings" for ecommerce stores....there are a few different steps in the process of correcting any issues, maximizing your visibility, and then growing traffic off of the back of that work. This is the progression that we've seen as we've been able to help customers on this journey.
1) Fixing Merchant Listings Issues
If you click into "Merchant Listings" in Google Search Console...you can see a report of how many products Google is recognizing on your site as valid products for merchant listings. We have some customers who had a ton of red like this:
The goal here is to get everything in the green....you can see in the last couple days you're starting to see a recovery there after Answerbase intervened (We can help you to, Schedule a Call). You can see a customer who is a bit further along in recovery as seen here:
So....that's the first step is to fix the obvious issues that are being reported back to you.....then it's a matter of, what percentage of your products are considered valid now?
2) Increasing the Number of Products Valid in "Merchant Listings"
We have also run into customers where the "Merchant Listings" report isn't showing any red...but the big problem is that it's only showing a small percentage of the products they have published. This is also solvable and Answerbase can assist with (again, schedule a call and we'll help you out). See this customer who had around 2K products showing as valid but it was only a percentage of their available products. We communicated with them about what they need to do and see the recovery within a couple days:
That's from 2K valid products to over 6K in just a couple days......so these should be relatively quick fixes to get you back on track. Then....the next step is...."When does this turn into traffic and revenue?".
When does it reflect in new traffic and revenue?
The great thing about improving your visibility for products and merchant listings....is that what you're becoming more visible for is people actually searching for products...which you should convert a percentage of those searches into sales. The best information we have from our agency services is that you should be prepared for 2-3 months after the adjustments (we're trying to be conservative here)....in order to see the traffic starting to tick up. See a recent example here of a customer that made their adjustment on October 7th and you see their recovery here in the merchant listings reports:
and then here is their latest traffic charts where you're starting to see some kind of lift in actual impressions and clicks:
Obviously....we'll look for longer traffic trends here and we've seen evidence on other customers where it's about 2-3 months where you'll be able to see a healthy traffic trend upwards...which turns into revenue because it's for product searches.
Of course....once you're visible and traffic then it's about optimizing your rankings and click through rate.....this is where Q&A really drives it's value....see this example of a site where the only thing done beyond the visibility (mentioned above) has been to add helpful content through Answerbase....it owns 4 of the top 10 positions.
The ranking position we've seen is a slow "bubbling up" as Google starts to understand that you're posting helpful content.....there has been so much that's happened this year as the Popular Products tables have taken over the #1 page for ecommerce searches as well as Google's Core Ranking System Updates....especially as they've moved the "Helpful Content System" and incorporated it into their core ranking systems....that is a lot happening. We have seen very direct relationship between the good Q&A content as it's risen.....that it has an impact on the short tail positions and traffic to the rest of the site. The most dramatic shift came in Google's August Update....see the lift we've seen to the Q&A content starting on July 18th (as Google started rolling out the August Core Update).
The above chart represents a broader base of our customers so you can see the notable lift of the Q&A content (powered through Answerbase).
Now look at a specific customer example and what happened with them during this time period. Before you look at the chart....its very important that you understand this is a seasonal business with peaks during the summer and natural dips during the winter. For that reason, it's most valuable to look at this chart with a "year over year" perspective so you can see how much the lift is and what is going on. This first chart is their core ecommerce site (product pages, category pages, etc.) but this chart DOES NOT cover the Q&A landing pages.....so you can see their overall site for pages that the Q&A is integrated into but not including the Q&A landing pages. You can see year over year in their peak months they had healthy growth to their site.
Now....look at what happened specifically to their Q&A content and look at what happened in Google's 2024 August Update (started seeing lift in July 18th, 2024)....
In general, we did see a huge lift to Q&A content pages (we actually had to triple our cloud infrastructure given the new demand starting in July)....and the above example shows that lift. The most important thing about seeing that lift for the specific type of Q&A content is you can directly see how it impacts the rest of their site. See how the seasonal decline basically stopped declining as the Q&A content positions/traffic went up....see here:
In the last 28 days in Google Search Console....for that site the Q&A content is around 50% of of their overall traffic....which provides this lift to the rest of this site which are the pages they're really interested in.
So....that's it, how you get from obvious "merchant listings" fixes, to increasing visibility, to traffic from that visibility, and then finally how to optimize the rankings of those listings from there. When Google communicates that creating reliable people first content is what businesses need to be doing....they're serious about it....and if you combine great technical SEO expertise and know how with content that is actually in demand and helpful for your audience.....you should be seeing a lift in both your traffic as well as conversions.
We recommend you Schedule a Call with Answerbase and we can make sure that any obvious things that will help you are taken care of (no charge) are taken care of....and then if there is anything that requires services we'll work to ensure that you're presented with only options that are laser focused on producing results (minus all the "normal" SEO fluff that is uncessary to spend money on). If we can't help you, we'll connect you with somebody in our partner network who can. Get in touch and we'll work to service you well.
1) Fixing Merchant Listings Issues
If you click into "Merchant Listings" in Google Search Console...you can see a report of how many products Google is recognizing on your site as valid products for merchant listings. We have some customers who had a ton of red like this:
The goal here is to get everything in the green....you can see in the last couple days you're starting to see a recovery there after Answerbase intervened (We can help you to, Schedule a Call). You can see a customer who is a bit further along in recovery as seen here:
So....that's the first step is to fix the obvious issues that are being reported back to you.....then it's a matter of, what percentage of your products are considered valid now?
2) Increasing the Number of Products Valid in "Merchant Listings"
We have also run into customers where the "Merchant Listings" report isn't showing any red...but the big problem is that it's only showing a small percentage of the products they have published. This is also solvable and Answerbase can assist with (again, schedule a call and we'll help you out). See this customer who had around 2K products showing as valid but it was only a percentage of their available products. We communicated with them about what they need to do and see the recovery within a couple days:
That's from 2K valid products to over 6K in just a couple days......so these should be relatively quick fixes to get you back on track. Then....the next step is...."When does this turn into traffic and revenue?".
When does it reflect in new traffic and revenue?
The great thing about improving your visibility for products and merchant listings....is that what you're becoming more visible for is people actually searching for products...which you should convert a percentage of those searches into sales. The best information we have from our agency services is that you should be prepared for 2-3 months after the adjustments (we're trying to be conservative here)....in order to see the traffic starting to tick up. See a recent example here of a customer that made their adjustment on October 7th and you see their recovery here in the merchant listings reports:
and then here is their latest traffic charts where you're starting to see some kind of lift in actual impressions and clicks:
Obviously....we'll look for longer traffic trends here and we've seen evidence on other customers where it's about 2-3 months where you'll be able to see a healthy traffic trend upwards...which turns into revenue because it's for product searches.
Of course....once you're visible and traffic then it's about optimizing your rankings and click through rate.....this is where Q&A really drives it's value....see this example of a site where the only thing done beyond the visibility (mentioned above) has been to add helpful content through Answerbase....it owns 4 of the top 10 positions.
The ranking position we've seen is a slow "bubbling up" as Google starts to understand that you're posting helpful content.....there has been so much that's happened this year as the Popular Products tables have taken over the #1 page for ecommerce searches as well as Google's Core Ranking System Updates....especially as they've moved the "Helpful Content System" and incorporated it into their core ranking systems....that is a lot happening. We have seen very direct relationship between the good Q&A content as it's risen.....that it has an impact on the short tail positions and traffic to the rest of the site. The most dramatic shift came in Google's August Update....see the lift we've seen to the Q&A content starting on July 18th (as Google started rolling out the August Core Update).
The above chart represents a broader base of our customers so you can see the notable lift of the Q&A content (powered through Answerbase).
Now look at a specific customer example and what happened with them during this time period. Before you look at the chart....its very important that you understand this is a seasonal business with peaks during the summer and natural dips during the winter. For that reason, it's most valuable to look at this chart with a "year over year" perspective so you can see how much the lift is and what is going on. This first chart is their core ecommerce site (product pages, category pages, etc.) but this chart DOES NOT cover the Q&A landing pages.....so you can see their overall site for pages that the Q&A is integrated into but not including the Q&A landing pages. You can see year over year in their peak months they had healthy growth to their site.
Now....look at what happened specifically to their Q&A content and look at what happened in Google's 2024 August Update (started seeing lift in July 18th, 2024)....
In general, we did see a huge lift to Q&A content pages (we actually had to triple our cloud infrastructure given the new demand starting in July)....and the above example shows that lift. The most important thing about seeing that lift for the specific type of Q&A content is you can directly see how it impacts the rest of their site. See how the seasonal decline basically stopped declining as the Q&A content positions/traffic went up....see here:
In the last 28 days in Google Search Console....for that site the Q&A content is around 50% of of their overall traffic....which provides this lift to the rest of this site which are the pages they're really interested in.
So....that's it, how you get from obvious "merchant listings" fixes, to increasing visibility, to traffic from that visibility, and then finally how to optimize the rankings of those listings from there. When Google communicates that creating reliable people first content is what businesses need to be doing....they're serious about it....and if you combine great technical SEO expertise and know how with content that is actually in demand and helpful for your audience.....you should be seeing a lift in both your traffic as well as conversions.
We recommend you Schedule a Call with Answerbase and we can make sure that any obvious things that will help you are taken care of (no charge) are taken care of....and then if there is anything that requires services we'll work to ensure that you're presented with only options that are laser focused on producing results (minus all the "normal" SEO fluff that is uncessary to spend money on). If we can't help you, we'll connect you with somebody in our partner network who can. Get in touch and we'll work to service you well.
