Ram Adithyan

Want to rank on Google within free local listing features? Ranking in these features are likely the most complex area of eCommerce SEO, but can send valuable organic traffic and in-store sales. It includes ranking in Google features such as: • ‘In stores nearby’ product carousels • ‘See what’s in store’ product categories • Map pack ‘In stock’ blue tick icons • Standard organic listing location-based rich results Each surface is especially important if you work with an eCommerce store that also has physical storefronts. But the issue is, implementing the setup required for eligibility isn't particularly straight-forward. There are various approaches related to managing PDPs with local inventory, setting up a local inventory feed, then integrating and managing the information within GMC Next. I did a deep-dive on this topic in my latest blog post which will help inform your decision-making on making the most of free local listings. Make sure to have a read and share with your team: brodieclark.com/google-free-…

Ecommerce SEO Tip: If you work in eCommerce SEO, make sure you're getting the credit you deserve. Misattribution is common with free listings within Google Search due to sites misusing an old method within their feeds This can apply to features such as product grids, product knowledge panels, the shopping tab and more. All being organic surfaces that generally have a higher conversion rate compared to non-free listing surfaces. While auto-tagging within Merchant Center generally does the job for attribution in GA4 (in terms of tracking sales for specific URLs), what can happen is a misuse of the [link] and [mobile_link] attributes being assigned to "google" and "cpc" for all results within the feed itself. The correct approach should be to use [link] and [mobile_link] for free listings for "google" and "organic" instead. This would mean that the parameters within the example provided would then be attributed to SEO. Otherwise, it is also completely fine to use the standard autotagging settings within Merchant Center for tracking free listings. With this approach, this traffic is automatically categorised as ‘Organic Shopping’ in GA4, which can be refined even further to ensure the data is clear (such as only filtering by PDPs). If your settings are incorrect, then I would suggest getting this fixed. Clicks on these organic features should be attributed to SEO, not Paid Search activities.