This guide was first published on May 21, 2020. It was updated to include new information on February 4, 2022.

Optimizing your Shopify store for Google, Bing and other search engines is critical for helping potential customers discover your site. Many of the tenets of search engine optimization (SEO) are based on providing users with a positive experience. The easier it is to discover and use your Shopify store, the more likely people are to shop with you.

The fundamentals covered in our SEO guide also apply to Shopify SEO, but there are some tricks involved in getting a Shopify site fully optimized for search. There are also nuances and other factors to be mindful of when evaluating the platform’s SEO capabilities.

Get the Periodic Table of SEO Factors

In this guide, we address the SEO fundamentals and technical considerations to improve your Shopify store’s search rankings to increase traffic and sales.

Shopify SEO basics

Shopify’s page editor. Shopify’s content management system (CMS) has a page editor with a simple user interface to build landing pages, collections pages, product detail pages and blog posts.

The page editor allows for basic formatting options, headings, tables and the ability to edit in HTML. You can also upload photos and embed videos to the pages.

The search engine listing preview section automatically generates a page title and meta description based on the content you enter in the page details section. By default, your page title is used for the title tag and H1 and your description is used for the meta description. Site owners can overwrite these automated defaults by modifying their search engine preview section.

Page titles are an important ranking factor. They provide search engines with information about the contents of your page and they often appear as the headline for your search result.

Meta descriptions are often what appear under the title in search results. They should summarize the content of the page for prospective customers, and can help improve click-throughs to your site.

The Shopify page editor allows you to manually revise your titles and descriptions. If you’re not content with the ones automatically generated, optimize them to include the keywords you’d like to rank for and appeal to customers browsing the search results.

Analytics. Shopify sites are compatible with two very useful, free tools: Google Search Console and Google Analytics. Google Search Console helps site owners monitor and troubleshoot their site’s presence in Google search results, and provides data on the queries that are leading prospects and customers to your pages. Google Analytics shows you how people arrived at your site and behaved once they got there. Search Console and Analytics are critical tools for SEO.

To connect your Shopify store to Google Search Console, you’ll need to add a piece of code to your homepage (Shopify has a great video on this). There are two things to keep in mind when verifying your Search Console account for your Shopify store: Google will only index the current theme and only if the theme is live and not password protected (new merchants often password-protect their sites because they’re not yet ready for launch).

Setting up Google Analytics is as simple as enabling it in your Shopify site preferences, acquiring your tracking ID and pasting it into the associated field within Shopify.

[Pro Tip] Use Shopify’s URL structure to help segment your analysis

Thanks to Shopify’s strict URL structure, it’s easy to segment certain types of content in Google Search Console, Google Analytics, etc. For example, if you want to see how your products are performing, simply filter your data by URLs that contain “/products/” and voila! The same trick works for collections (/collections/), blog posts (/blogs/), and pages (/pages/).

-Kevin Wallner, founder, First Chair Digital

Domain and security. You can buy a custom domain through Shopify; the platform even has a free tool to check domain name availability and generate alternative domain names. If you don’t want a custom domain, your site’s URL will be yoursitename.myshopify.com. Having your own custom domain is much better branding, conveys more professionalism and greatly increases your chance of ranking well in searches for your business’ name.

If you opt for a custom domain, check that your .myshopify.com domain redirects to your primary domain by logging into your Shopify account and heading to Settings > Domains (within the left-hand navigation menu). Your primary domain should say “Traffic from all your domains redirects to this primary domain.” If it does not, click on “Enable redirection.” Doing this will help to ensure that search engines only show your primary domain to searchers, instead of presenting both the primary and the .myshopify.com domain.

All Shopify plans also come with an SSL certificate, which encrypts data sent between your site and its visitors. This is important because Google gives a small ranking boost to secure sites and because many browsers will display a security warning when users attempt to visit a site without an SSL certificate. You can check this one off your worry list.

Site speed. Site speed and security are Google ranking factors, and they go hand-in-hand with user experience. Slow load times may lead customers to bounce before your page loads, which means they won’t be buying from you.

Selecting a lightweight theme for your Shopify store can help you get a head start on your speed optimizations. Loading times can vary across themes, said Chris Long, director of e-commerce at Go Fish Digital, during our Shopify SEO session of Live with Search Engine Land.

His agency found that the average theme takes approximately 3.8 seconds for First Contentful Paint (FCP), makes 171 requests and weighs in at about four megabytes. If you’ve already selected a Shopify theme, those benchmarks can help you gauge whether your store is performing below or above the mean.

If you haven’t selected a theme, or are considering switching themes, Long has compiled a list of the top-performing Shopify themes according to FCP and Time to Interactive (TTI) and the late Hamlet Batista also published a list of page speed scores for numerous Shopify themes.

Shopify features a content delivery network (CDN) that can help keep page load times down no matter where in the world your customers are browsing. Even so, it’s in your best interest to compress your images (more on that below) and implement lazy loading functionality to shave down your loading times as much as possible.

Instead of loading all your images the instant a visitor lands on your page, lazy loading enables the visitor’s browser to load images as they scroll, decreasing the upfront load time. “It’s actually exceptionally easy for developers to implement in most cases,” Long said.

Being conservative with your Shopify apps (more on that below) can also help you manage page load times. And, tools such as Google’s PageSpeed Insights can help you identify more opportunities to increase site speed by suggesting different image formats and other speed optimizations.

Image optimization. Since e-commerce stores typically feature many product photos, image optimization is key. Even with Shopify’s CDN, image file size can disproportionately increase page load times.

Selecting the appropriate format to compress your images is one way to keep file sizes under control: JPEGs will generally result in smaller file sizes than PNGs, which are more suitable when you need a transparent background in your image.

Every image should have an alt attribute assigned to it. Image alt text provides search engines with more context as to what the page is about, which can improve relevance and thus rankings. Additionally, the alt text is read aloud for site visitors that rely on screen readers, so adding it will help you comply with digital accessibility standards.

From your Shopify admin, alt text can be added by navigating to the desired product detail page and clicking the desired image or media item. A media preview page will open and you can click “Add alt text” to edit the field. Once you’re done, save the alt text and exit the preview page.

Store owners can use image optimization apps (more on Shopify apps in the next section) to automate some of these tasks. TinyIMG SEO Image Optimizer has hundreds of five-star reviews and can help keep your load times down by compressing your images.

Shopify does provide an image sitemap, which helps Google find your images so that they may potentially appear in image search results and provide searchers with one more way to discover your products. However, Shopify’s image sitemap only includes one image per product and does not include additional metadata. To get more of your images indexed, Kevin Wallner, founder of First Chair Digital, recommends the Image Sitemap app, which can build, submit, monitor and update XML sitemaps for all the images in your store.

Shopify apps. One big advantage of a platform like Shopify is the app ecosystem that makes it easy to add more features and tools to your site with little to no coding. There are apps to help you manage inventory, take customer support tickets, run affiliate programs and, yes, optimize your site for search.

Shopify has dozens of SEO apps, including Yoast SEO, which offers much of the same functionality as its well-known WordPress counterpart. Yoast SEO can help you control your titles and descriptions in Google Search and social media and provide feedback on readability. It can also help you implement structured data, which can come in handy as structured data is used to power product information in image search results, which may, in turn, help you guide searchers from Google’s image results directly to your product page.

In 2021, both Google and Bing launched Shopify integrations. These integrations are actually apps (the Google Channel and Microsoft Channel apps) and they both allow merchants to include their products in Google’s and Bing’s free product listings. This is a welcome addition for Shopify retailers since these integrations make it easier for them to get greater search visibility without necessarily needing to rely on an expert. And, both apps can also be used to launch shopping campaigns, in case you want to advertise your offerings.

There are also plenty of other apps that can help you do things like add product reviews to give customers more information about what you’re selling, which search engines may use to show star ratings that can improve your clickthrough rates.

Before you load up on apps, keep in mind that they add extra code to your site. Apps that load on the user’s end, such as some that enable you to customize your store’s design, may slow the site down.

Sitemaps. Sitemaps contain information about your pages and files and are used by search engines to crawl and index your site — this process enables your pages to appear in search results. Shopify automatically generates a sitemap.xml file, with links to your pages, products, images, collections and blog posts, for all sites. After verifying your Google Search Console account, submit your sitemap to Google to help it find and index your pages.

Crawl optimization. For merchants that want to control which pages get crawled, Shopify now lets site owners edit their robots.txt files. This can be used to disallow certain URLs from being crawled, add extra sitemap URLs, block crawlers and so on.

International domains. In March 2021, Shopify launched international domains, enabling merchants to sell to more than one country using a single account. Merchants can now configure subdomains and language folders for international targeting. When you do so, Shopify automatically adds hreflang tags to your store, which can help save you time.

Local SEO

Since the onset of the COVID pandemic, more local merchants have made their way to Shopify. If your business serves a locale, ensure that you have an online presence wherever customers may go to look for businesses like yours, be it Google, Bing, Facebook or other platforms.

While your Shopify website will complement your local efforts, the range of options for local search optimization warrants numerous standalone articles. As a jumping-off point, check out our how-to guide on optimizing your Google local knowledge panel.

Technical SEO for Shopify

Search engines work by “crawling” websites, meaning that they look through a site’s code and URLs to discover each page on the site. That information is then added to the search engine’s index to be ranked and served as a result when someone conducts a relevant search.

Technical SEO refers to the optimizations that facilitate the crawling and indexing aspects of search. Technical optimizations can include your site’s architecture, URL structure and JavaScript.

Shopify enables store owners to bypass many of the technical aspects of launching an e-commerce site by providing pre-made themes with Shopify’s framework as the structure. However, that structure is rigid and in some instances, does not provide a straightforward way to make certain technical optimizations.

Being aware of the technical SEO challenges inherent to Shopify can help you find workarounds for a number of issues and inform prospective store owners about the trade-offs that come with building their store on Shopify.

Below are the most common technical SEO challenges that Shopify store owners encounter. Solutions to these issues are discussed in our Technical SEO for Shopify guide.

Duplicate pages. Collections help group products together into categories, making it easier for customers to find them. They’re also an inherent property of the Shopify framework.

When you associate a product page with a collection page (as the vast majority of merchants are likely to do), Shopify will generate a second URL for that product page. For some of the free themes, this means you’ll have two URLs for the same product. The URLs you end up with will look something like this:

1. /collections/shirts-collection/products/blue-shirt
2. /products/blue-shirt

Duplicate pages can split your link-building power as referrers may link to either URL. Duplicate content can also make it harder for search engines to determine which URL to index and rank. While Shopify has remedied this issue for some of its free themes, canonicalizing the duplicate, some themes may still be affected, so we’re leaving this guidance in place, just in case.

Internal linking. The duplicate pages issue mentioned above can also show up in your internal links. In the image below, Shopify uses two different links to direct customers to the same product detail page.

While internal links don’t directly play into Google’s algorithms, they do direct link equity to your product detail pages. That link equity gets diluted when it is spread across multiple links and search engines will have a harder time understanding which one is the primary URL.

Architecture issues. Shopify automatically generates the URL for your product detail pages using the following structure: myshopifystorename.com/products/product-name. Store owners can only modify that last part of the URL, where the product’s name (which is derived from the page title) appears.

URLs are a minor ranking factor, so you’ll want to use descriptive words in your URLs to inform search engines about your page, but also to give potential customers an idea of what they’re clicking through to. Removing the “/products” or “/pages” URL paths gives you more space to include those descriptive keywords; unfortunately, Shopify doesn’t have that option out-of-the-box. There are, however, solutions, such as Cloudflare and their Cloud Worker interface, that can be implemented with the help of a developer, as discussed in our Technical SEO for Shopify guide.

Product schema. Schema is a type of structured data that can help search engines understand your site’s content. Search engines also use schema to generate rich snippets, which can provide your products with greater visibility in the search results.

For example, Google uses product schema in image search results to display a product’s price, its availability and star ratings.

Google’s Popular Products section is another search feature that uses schema to provide potential customers with product information, although it is currently only available for apparel and fashion items.

[Pro Tip] Use schema and Google Merchant Center for additional organic visibility

With an app like Feed for Google Shopping or ShoppingFeeder, you can sync your entire product inventory with Merchant Center. Once you’re in Merchant Center, if you enable ‘Local Surfaces Across Google’ in Programs, your products can instantly appear in Maps results when people search product keywords . . . Surfaces Across Google creates a Google-hosted storefront, so you might see a decline in visitors in your Shopify analytics if customers are browsing products on Google instead; however, these visitors can be tracked in Merchant Center.

–Lachlan Wells, Berlin-based SEO consultant

Product schema is built into most Shopify themes. The default theme, “Dawn,” supports the following schema types: “Organization,” “WebSite,” “Article” and “Product.”

However, there may be additional structured data types, such as recipe or FAQ schema, that you’d like to add but are not supported by your theme. In that case, you can edit the structured data code within your theme, dynamically inject structured data using JavaScript or install a dedicated schema app. Whichever method you choose, you can verify if your pages are marked up correctly using Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool.

SEO, beyond products and category pages

Creating valuable, informative and engaging content can help increase your store’s organic visibility. Content can give search engines more information about your site and prospective customers more ways to discover your business. More visibility can mean more traffic and more sales.

The pages every store should have. It’s highly recommended that you create an “About us” and “Contact” page; these pages help potential customers get familiar with your business and enable them to get in touch with you to resolve concerns before and after they buy from you.

Additionally, a dedicated page for your shipping information, return policy, privacy policy, terms and conditions and frequently asked questions can also enable you to communicate important details and may even reduce the amount of time spent answering redundant questions. You can also add a mission statement or “Our Story” page to help distinguish your brand from others.

You can set up a blog on your Shopify store as a home for content that helps to differentiate your brand, supplement your transactional pages and earn backlinks.

Keyword research. Keyword research helps you understand how your target audience searches — for the kinds of products you sell, the types of problems they’re looking to solve and other queries that are relevant to your business. You can then use these words to inform your content strategy and optimize your pages.

There are a number of keyword research tools that help indicate how popular queries are, seasonal trends and related terms. Google Trends analyzes search query interest, which can be filtered by time and geographic region, displays related queries and allows you to compare interest between different keywords. You can also examine the auto-suggested queries that populate in the search bar on Google, Bing and Amazon to get more keyword ideas.

Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising offer in-depth keyword tools that include monthly search volume and competition estimates and suggested bid amounts. Google Keyword Planner and Microsoft Keyword Planner are designed for advertisers, but they are both free to use and provide a wealth of information.

You’ll also want to evaluate what the search results look like for the keywords you’re researching. The “People also ask” box and the “Searches related to” section can supplement your keyword research.

Take a look at the search results and features present on the page to get an idea of what search engines are surfacing for that set of terms. Are the results filled with news articles, signaling an informational intent, or are they businesses selling products similar to yours? If it’s the latter, you have a higher chance of ranking for those keywords.

Related: Common Shopify SEO Pitfalls and how to avoid them

E-commerce content ideas. Providing your audience with pertinent content can help them get more value from your products or services while also signaling relevance to search engines. Here are a few content ideas that might help you get started:

• How-to’s and tutorials can inform your customers about how your products or services work. Consider creating a video to demonstrate these points; you can then upload it to YouTube and embed it on your blog post or product detail page to encourage visitors to shop with you.
• Behind-the-scenes content can bolster your branding and give customers a reason to shop with you over competitors. For example, if you sell vegan cookie dough, you could create a video that demonstrates how you test new recipes to teach customers about your process while getting them excited for upcoming flavors.
• Case studies can separate your business from a crowded field of competitors. If you’re selling tie-dye t-shirts, for example, you could create a video detailing how your shirts’ colors hold up against competing brands, wash after wash.

Looking for more ways to optimize and market your Shopify store? Check out these resources:

• The ins and outs of Shopify SEO [VIDEO]
• Technical SEO for Shopify: A guide to optimizing your store for search engines
• Shopify tradeoffs: What to consider before selecting your next e-commerce platform
• Blogging for Shopify: A unique SEO approach
• 5 easy-to-miss SEO mistakes blogs make
• E-commerce category pages outperform product detail pages in SERPs
• Raising the stakes on product category pages
• Download the Periodic Table of Digital Commerce Marketing
• Search Engine Land’s Essential Guide to SEO: Master the science of SEO

The post Shopify SEO Guide: How to increase organic traffic to your store appeared first on Search Engine Land.

User experience isn’t just an element that would be good to have. In modern lending, user experience (UX) is a matter of your business’ survival. And while many have incorporated mortgage software into their acquisition and processing, a large portion has yet to embrace the fullness of UX potential. Why? 

Some may be in the dark about what user experience is. Others may be unaware of what a superb user experience actually looks like. 

Still, others place false hope in that “good enough is good enough.”

But is “good enough” even enough to get by in today’s environment? We don’t have to search hard for examples where mediocre UX was the culprit of business failure. Do MySpace, Blockbuster, and YellowCab ring a bell? 

These three failed businesses have something in common –they each had a competitor obsessed with innovative service and exceptional UX design. Now consider three businesses that owe their formidable success to UX design: Google, Amazon, and Walmart. 

The bottom line is that companies without a compelling UX have lower customer satisfaction, less repeat business, and, ultimately, lower revenue. 

And if you’re still not convinced that UX matters to your clients, consider this:  if you don’t provide a customer-centric UX, your competitors will. 

Ready to learn what it takes to have a first-rate user experience that keeps clients loyal? Read on. 

Personalized and Borrower-centric

Because you’re immersed in the industry, you can sometimes forget how intimidating getting a loan is for the consumer. The process can be confusing and stressful, and without a helping hand, getting a loan is overwhelming and unnerving. 

In the past, face-to-face interaction helped to put the borrower at ease. But with the convenience that is the digital revolution, it seems that personalization took a back seat. While no one can argue that a digital mortgage is massively advantageous in nearly every aspect, the digital factor can sometimes make the experience somewhat robotic, cold, and dull.

Definitely not the sort of experience that keeps customers loyal.

However, that’s not the case when you implement a UX strategy. Firstly, make sure that there are multiple avenues for communication. Whether email, chat, video call, or instant messaging, offer a variety of options for your borrower to get in touch with you.

Secondly, make sure that those communication avenues are centrally located. 

You may be wondering if giving borrowers options will make it difficult for you to juggle multiple conversations. That won’t be the case when you use digital mortgage software with superior UX design where communications are organized by loan file, making it easy to keep track. 

This small but pivotal UX feature also frees up time so that the LO can engage more with clients, strengthening the relationship and increasing their loyalty to your business. 

Emphasize Your Brand and Differentiator 

One of the most overlooked reasons that clients won’t convert into lifelong customers is that they simply forgot who you are and what made you different. Wait –that point could be presented more clearly.

If the client forgot about you or they simply didn’t understand what made you different, it’s likely because the user experience failed to impress that upon them. There are many online mortgage businesses, and just like any other digital business, it’s essential that you set yourself apart from others. UX is how to do it. 

Everything from your navigation to consumer-friendly web copy to seamless integrated 3rd-party applications to a consistent logo and color scheme matters when it comes to UX design. Individually, it may seem that small elements like a customized loan checklist are menial, but collectively, branded elements and consistent messaging make your businesses memorable, impressive, and worthy of repeat business. 

Over-Deliver

It was a mystery for some time as to why Costco and Sam’s Club gas was so much cheaper than major gas stations. But the secret is out and it’s worth mimicking. The reason these two major stores are okay with making very little profit on gas is that those customers eventually make up for it when they shop at the warehouse.

Essentially, they over-deliver on their promise of overall value, and, in turn, the business is rewarded with customers that are willing to pay for membership and spend more at the store.

Chances are that you, as a professional, are already overdelivering in how you help your borrowers. When you love what you do, it’s easy to give more. But does is that the case with your mortgage software, too? Does it over-deliver? Does your mortgage mobile app have that wow factor?

Does your mortgage POS have an element of delight?  

Or does it just gather information and silo it into a portal where it waits for you to organize it into the proper format for the loan file?

Elements like self-paying credit checks, one-click connection with their financial institution, and auto-generated pre-approval letters over-deliver on your promise to make the loan process faster, more efficient, and enjoyable for the borrower. 

Consider the Employee Experience Too

Despite technology touching every aspect of processing a mortgage, the business of lending is still a human-based experience. That said, you want your mortgage team to always reflect positivity when representing your business. Whether the client is reengaging with the realtor who referred you, the appraiser, or one of your loan officers, you want nothing but optimism and confidence expressed about working with your business.

While leadership style and company culture certainly play an essential role in that, so does the technology you use to manage your business. Mortgage tech that is cumbersome, inefficient, error-prone, or lackluster is a formula for distress. 

High employee turnover, infrequent referrals, and zero repeat customers are sure to follow.

However, when you empower your mortgage team and referral partners with mortgage technology that’s intuitive, automated, configurable, and exceedingly efficient UX design, you’ll create an unrivaled ambitious, and enthusiastic network –-one that keeps borrowers coming back to you.

***

We gave you a lot to think about already, but here’s one more thing. Now that you know what’s required of UX design in mortgage technology, is your current software capable of delivering? Is that “good enough” tool truly good enough for your business and creating lifelong borrowers?

If not, let’s talk. Contact us today to schedule a conversation with a LenderHomePage Account Executive. 

Schedule a Demo

Microsoft Bing now has new car and automobile search features to let you find your next car, the company announced on its blog. You can search for used cars on Bing, you can search for specific car makes and models and then Bing will provide you search box that you can filter to find the car you are looking for.

What it looks like. Here are some screenshots of the search box in Microsoft Bing for searches on Kia K5 and SUV for sale:

Also, there are links to the MSN Autos marketplace in the knowledge panels for these car related searches under the “learn more” and “shop used cars” right above the car specifications.

Local. You can also browse local car inventory on Bing Local and Bing Maps. Microsoft said you “can now quickly and easily find vehicles for sale on Bing.com’s new Local Auto Dealership Storefront or using the browse-by-map feature.”

List your car. Microsoft allows you to list your car on MSN autos over here, where you fill out a listing form that will post your vehicle ready for sale. “In just a few simple steps, sellers enter the basics about the car for sale, upload photos, add a detailed description and finish the listing with any extra info that might make the car appealing to buyers. Your car is now for sale,” Microsoft said.

Why we care. Buying a car these days, in this market, is incredibly hard – there is very little inventory, what is available is very expensive and hard to get your hands on. Maybe this will make it easier for you to find the car you are looking for and also make it easier to sell your used car faster.

The post Microsoft Bing adds automobile and car search features appeared first on Search Engine Land.

The digital commerce space is growing at a rapid pace and marketers across all industries are looking for the most effective ways to enhance their shopping campaigns. Many naturally turn to Google Shopping, one of the largest online shopping platforms available to searchers.

However, moving your shopping campaigns to Google isn’t enough to be successful; marketers need to ensure their shopping feeds are optimized for search.

“We can’t avoid this topic of feed optimizations when we’re talking about shopping campaigns,” said Anastasia Sorokina, director of SEM at performance branding company WITHIN, in her presentation at SMX Next. “Before starting your shopping campaigns, you want to make sure that you follow all the best practices and requirements from Google to ensure that your feed is in good standing.”

Much like organic or paid search campaigns, marketers will be more successful if they adhere to Google’s guidelines and, more importantly, create ads that fulfill searchers’ needs. Here are five ways brands can optimize their Google Shopping ads.

Use highly relevant phrases in shopping ad titles and descriptions

“One of the first things that we always look at in our product feeds are titles and descriptions,” Sorokina said. “You need to have well optimized, well-written titles and descriptions. Not only does Google use them to match your shopping ads to relevant search queries, but it’s also your opportunity to introduce your brand and communicate your value proposition.”

“Put the most valuable attributes of your products in there and pack the details in the beginning,” she added.

Creating relevant shopping ad titles — featuring the most pertinent keywords at the beginning — is a helpful way to show searchers your offering fits their needs from the get-go. It’s also a critical piece of Google’s matching algorithm.

With shopping listing descriptions, marketers can feature even more specific product attributes. Aside from including relevant keywords, brands should highlight particular product qualities to further entice consumers.

Choose high-quality, optimized images for your feeds

“Shopping ads offer a rich and visual experience, and it’s crucial to utilize the best quality images that present your product in the best way possible,” said Sorokina. “You should use high-quality images, following Google’s best practices and guidelines in terms of format sizes.”

Visual elements are some of the most important features of shopping ads; they have the potential to make or break campaigns based on their level of quality. To ensure ad images meet Google’s and consumers’ standards, here are some of the Google Merchant Center (GMC) image minimum requirements:

• Image files must be smaller than 16MB.
• Images must accurately display the entire product.
• Images must show all products in the bundle.

GMC also provides marketers with recommended best practices to help improve their ads:

• Images should represent the distinguishing details of each product variant.
• Images should use the highest resolution available.
• Products should take up no less than 75%, but no more than 90%, of the full image.

Sorokina also noted that marketers can add up to 10 images to their shopping ads. This lets brands showcase different views of products to give customers a more robust experience.

“This is a recent addition and not a lot of marketers take advantage of it,” she said. “It’s a great way to catch potential customers’ attention and showcase your product in different settings and angles. It’s going to help your click-through rate and potentially your conversion rate.”

Ensure required attributes are in place

“There are a few attributes that Google requires for you to include in your shopping feed, otherwise you won’t be able to submit the feed in the first place,” Sorokina said. “These include item ID, brand titles, descriptions, and availability.”

Marketers must fill out these attributes with the most accurate information possible to be eligible for Shopping, but there are several optional values to consider using as well. The product category attribute, in particular, allows brands to provide more granular categorization signals to both Google and users.

Here are the other optional feed attributes marketers should consider optimizing:

• Additional image link.
• Mobile link.
• Availability date.
• Cost of goods sold.
• Expiration date.
• Sale price.
• Sale price effective date.

Add additional attributes to stand out from competitors

“Even though your ads have well-written, optimized, relevant titles and descriptions and high-quality eye-catching images, it’s hard to stand out — there’s a lot of competition,” said Sorokina.

Google’s Merchant Promotions offers a lot of attributes to help brands reach the next level of shopping advertising. Marketers can feature discounts, free or discounted shipping, gifts with purchase and other unique selling points to distinguish their brand from competitors.

“Merchant Promotions are a great way to showcase your offers, potentially boosting your click-through rate when a customer sees them,” Sorokina said. “They’re not too hard to set up, but there are certain requirements, especially when it comes to how you show the discounts on your site, and your checkout process also matters.”

Sorokina also suggests leveraging Google Shopping annotations, the auto-generated tags that give searchers more context regarding your products: “Things like price drops, free and fast shipping tags — these are different from Merchant Promotions because they’re automated. Google automatically generates these price tags, which allows you to call out some of the products that are on sale.”

She recommends that marketers enable local inventory ads if applicable. They can use them to promote in-store inventory or deals for items picked up in-store.

Brands can also leverage online reviews by showing product ratings on shopping ads. These can help highlight your most highly-rated products.

Prepare for future digital commerce trends

The advent of new technologies and consumer privacy regulations are driving changes in digital commerce. To stay competitive, marketers must not only be aware of these emerging trends but continually experiment with shopping ads to find the best solutions going forward.

“We have some interesting challenges that are presented within the [shopping] ecosystem,” said Basheer Bergus of Growphoria in the same presentation. “We’re seeing less control for advertisers in terms of the data and information they can report on. We’re seeing some data privacy limitations and more automation.”

“It’s incumbent on us as advertisers to continue to test and iterate, but to also be aware of the various regulations that might be local, national or international. We need to make sure that we can get as much data as we can but also abide by the law,” he added.

E-commerce revenue is growing with the expansion of digital marketing channels, so brands that haven’t optimized their shopping ads could be missing out. Free product listings and other new features on platforms like Google Shopping have made it easier for brands to enter the digital commerce ecosystem than ever before.

“When we look at the future of shopping ads, what we’re seeing is that it’s becoming less and less convoluted in terms of getting up and running,” Bergus said. “That barrier to entry for the advertising ecosystem has gotten more simplified.”

“The future of shopping ads is looking pretty robust,” he added.

Watch the full SMX Next presentation here (free registration required).

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With Google on its way to over $200b per year in ad revenues, companies that aren’t yet advertising online should think long and hard about why everyone else but them seems to be growing their business with Google Ads.

Perhaps they’ve tried and failed. Let’s face it: Especially in recent years, Google advertising has gotten increasingly automated, yet strangely also more complex with a multitude of campaign types, bidding strategies, and targeting options to choose from. 

In what appears to be an effort to simplify, Google recently introduced a new, streamlined, all-in-one automated-campaign type: Performance Max. This new campaign needs minimal setup and promises to run a company’s ads as appropriate across Google’s six primary advertising channels: Search, Maps, Display, Gmail, Discover and YouTube. 

But as with any automation, Performance Max shouldn’t be thought of as a set-it-and-forget-it campaign. After all, as we’ve established many times before, the best PPC results come from humans and automation working together. Or as Frederick Vallaeys put it in his first book, Digital Marketing in an AI World:

What inputs does Performance Max use?

To get started with automated ads on Google, you need to provide:

• Your marketing objectives and goals
• Budget
• Creative assets 
  • Text 
  • Images 
  • Video (optional, since this will auto-generate)
• Geo-targets
• Feeds (optional)
  • Google My Business
  • Google Merchant Center
  • Dynamic Ads feed
  • Business data feeds
• Audience signals (optional)
  • First-party Audiences, including remarketing lists
  • Google Audiences, including custom audiences

From there, automation is off to the races and promises to show your ad when it expects to be able to get you a conversion.

Where do Performance Max ads run?

To find conversions that meet your stated objectives, Performance Max can, as appropriate, automatically serve your ad across its six channels: Search, Maps, Display, Gmail, Discover, and YouTube. Performance Max will replace Smart Shopping and Local campaigns but is intended to be a supplement rather than a replacement for the other campaign types like Search and Display.

For new advertisers, this is a big deal and significant simplification because the same possible coverage would have previously required creating a separate campaign for each channel. And for advertisers who are just getting started with Google Ads, they may not have the time, or necessary experience and skill, to set up each and every one of these campaigns correctly to drive success. Now, with only a single campaign to create, advertisers can start seeing immediate results and focus on optimizing those aspects of their campaigns that have the biggest upside potential.

What could go wrong?  

It’s important to understand what any automation’s capabilities and limitations are. If you overestimate an automation’s capabilities, and it fails to deliver, you really have only yourself to blame.

A good analogy is to self-driving cars’ five levels of automation, as defined by the SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) and National Traffic and Highway Safety Administration: 

What happens when a ‘self-driving’ car crashes?

As long ago as 1979, IBM put the prosecution’s case this way:

In Los Angeles, a driver is now being prosecuted for vehicular manslaughter for letting his “self-driving” car run a red light and killing two people in the process. The driver treated his car’s capabilities like a level 5 automation when in fact, it was just a level 2 automation or a driver-assistance feature.

Likewise, in PPC, Performance Max campaigns are not level 5 fully self-driving automation, but more like a level 2 or 3 assist feature. Performance Max handles a narrowly defined task quite well, but it lacks context to be able to do it fully alone.

It’s up to you, the human advertiser, to supply that context, which includes your ultimate business goals. As an account or campaign manager, you’re in the driver’s seat. Google automation can’t be held accountable when problems arise. 

So what can go wrong…

1. You give the automation incomplete goals. 

Think of automation in PPC as your newest team member. When a new person joins your team, whether they’re a hired consultant or a new full-timer, you’ve got to teach them about your business, like your goals and how you make money. If you share incomplete information, for example, by failing to specify that you don’t just want leads but rather leads that convert into sales, they will probably do a poor job.

It’s the same with PPC automation. For example, if you tell the automated Google Ads system that your goal is to get leads, it will probably get you lots of leads. But that wasn’t your real goal. You want leads that turn into customers. It’s critical to have a way to feed this and other goal-related data back to Google so they can deliver what you truly want.

Tools like Optmyzr can help advertisers create value rules to help steer Google automation to better quality conversions. 

2. You supply Google with poorly optimized feeds.

If you sell stuff, or you have multiple business locations, you can give this data to Google through one of their many structured data formats. In the case of products, this is a Google Merchant Feed. 

Google then uses the data from the feed to decide what searches are relevant to your offer and show what it deems the best image, title, and price in each ad. But if your feed contains incomplete data, or if your title text is poorly optimized, your ads will look and feel worse than your competitors’, and you’ll either get fewer or more expensive conversions.

While long-time PPC pros may stress the importance of keywords, bids, and creative, Performance Max lets you control almost none of this. In Fred Vallaeys’s just-published second book, Unlevel the Playing Field: The Biggest Mindshift in PPC History, he explains that modern PPC managers shouldn’t manage every detail but should rather know how to manage Google Ads on the periphery, where they interface with the automated system. 

Knowing how to optimize a feed is a great example of this. The feed connects to the ads system, where Google’s automation takes over and turns it into keywords, targeting, and the ads themselves. 

And if you want more control, PPC software can help turn your feed into keywords, ads, and campaigns from a template you control.  

3. You don’t leverage first-party data.

As privacy concerns mount, there’s a big shift away from third-party data in online advertising. That means that first-party data is gaining in importance. If you have a list of existing customers, feed that first-party data into your Google Ads campaigns to improve targeting. Yes, over time, Google AI could probably learn what type of audience would be best to target. But why let the system potentially waste thousands of dollars to learn what you could have told it right from the start?

And with more advanced PPC tools, you can bring virtually any first-party data into a rule engine to automate your PPC decision-making.

4. You fail to write “helpful” ad components.

If you’re used to advertising on social media and similar platforms, you may have gotten used to writing ads or posts that aim to be attention-getting above all. After all, when a user is rapidly swiping down their feed, the best way to stop them maybe with a controversial title or catchy image. 

Things are different and more complicated with Google Ads. People use Google to search for things they already know they need. If you can help them, there’s no need to stop them in their tracks. Instead, aim to answer their questions and assure them that yours is the best possible solution to their problem. How will you help them? That means including unique value propositions and clear calls to action in the ad text components that will then make up the various parts of your Responsive Search Ads (RSAs). 

For more great insights about how to create effective RSAs, take a look at Optmyzr’s 2021 RSA research and its RSA presentation at SMX Next.

Automation-layering tools can help you avoid these mistakes

So while Google makes it ever easier to run automatic PPC ads, the reality is that these campaigns will deliver far better results with your ongoing help and optimization. You can either do this work manually or get help from automations you manage and control, like those available in PPC-management software suites like Optmyzr. 

“Automation layering” is what we call automation you install that provides checks and balances to Google’s automation. This is automation you, the manager sitting in the driver’s seat, insert in the interface between you and the Google Ads system. To do this, you don’t need to spend inordinate amounts of time monitoring all the minutiae of the ad engine. Instead, use simple rules and scripts to do this work for you. You can then focus on the strategic elements that add the most value when you, the human driver, deploy them in the system.

Automation layering PPC software doesn’t have to cost a lot. Optmyzr recently introduced Optmyzr Lite, a free tier of service specifically designed for new Google advertisers with single-business ad budgets under $10k per month. Advertisers get access to a dashboard, reports, audits, and optimization suggestions different from and independent of those Google provides. It’s a great way to monitor and correct Google AI when it could use your help, as it inevitably will at times. 
Many advertisers say: don’t let the auctioneer tell you how or when to bid. Optmyzr Lite is a trustworthy third-party tool that can offer a different perspective on how to optimize your Google Ads account so that you can focus on growing your business.

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Competitive, modern businesses have digital marketing tools as a central part of their basic recipe for success. Without online marketing, it can be tricky to get access to your target audience or gain new leads. 

For mortgage brokers and loan officers, an effective digital marketing strategy can help generate leads, nurture them, and convert them into clients.

If you’re new to digital marketing or don’t have much experience with it, you might be confused about choosing the best tools to get real results.

The tools and software available in the mortgage industry continue to change rapidly. Staying up to date on trends and popular technologies can be time-consuming, but it’s well worth the effort.

In this article, we’ll highlight the top five digital marketing tools that you can use to boost your brokerage. These tools can help loan officers to connect with customers, produce profits, and gain valuable information about new opportunities. 

1. Social Media Platforms

Any high-quality marketing strategy should include the use of social media platforms. These platforms can be used as networking tools. They can help you to connect with potential clients and encourage customer engagement. 

Cross-promotion and networking with other social media groups can help to create more public interest in your services, which can drive more traffic to your website. Participating in discussions and offering a professional point of view on the industry online can even build your credibility as an expert in your field. 

Platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Snapchat allow mortgage brokers to gain greater visibility and make a bigger public impression. 

Many social media platforms offer standard features designed specifically for digital marketing. For example, Facebook includes Facebook Ads Manager, which allows companies to run and track the performance of their online ads.

A high-quality CRM designed for mortgage brokers can integrate with popular social media platforms, too. This makes it easy to track leads that are generated through social media campaigns. 

With just a few clicks, you can set up new campaigns using templates that are fully branded to your organization. Whether you want to share updates about the current state of the mortgage market, reach first-time homebuyers, or highlight a client testimonial, branded templates make it easy to get the word out. 

Once your campaign is complete, you can even track your success through powerful analytics tools. If a campaign generates a ton of leads, you can use it as a template for future marketing efforts. If it didn’t perform as well as you’d hoped, you can make adjustments for your next one.

2. Design Tools

For digital marketing to be successful, it’s important to produce appealing and authoritative content. However, many businesses lack access to a graphic artist. This can make creating ads, social media posts, and blogs difficult. 

Using high-quality images with your posts and blogs will increase public interest in your company. Customers who notice appealing images are much more likely to seek out detailed information about your services and visit your company’s website. 

Lenders who don’t have access to a graphic artist can look into design tools like Photoshop and Canva. But what if you don’t have the time and energy to learn a graphic design program?

Again, this is where the CRM you choose matters. Many top-quality CRMs provide access to advertising templates and libraries. You can add stock images to your posts with ease, making sure that any design you create is visually stunning.

3. Email Marketing Tools

Email marketing is a key component for any successful online marketing strategy. While email communications are often standard ways to communicate with your existing customers, they are also powerful for new ones!

Email marketing is one of the oldest forms of digital communication. While social media, live chat, and other forms of marketing are still beneficial, email communications have a user base of over 4 billion people worldwide. It’s still a preferred method of communication for many prospective clients.

You can use email marketing tools to create fully customized email campaigns. These can highlight relevant information about special loan programs and services. 

For example, if you want to increase the number of veterans that you serve with VA loans, you can send a series of targeted emails to educate buyers about your VA rates, qualifications, and services. 

Looking to reach customers in rural areas? Create a location-targeted email list to market opportunities for USDA loans. 

You can also use email marketing to reach out to celebrate milestones with your existing customers. For example, you can automatically send a note of congratulations to celebrate a past buyer’s first year in their home.

Personalized Touch

Lastly, you can use email marketing to encourage relationships with real estate agents, title companies, and other valued partners. Schedule emails to go out once a quarter to invite partners to network events, celebrate your first transaction together, or update your partners about new products and services.

These personalized touches can make a huge impact on your clients and partners. Rather than sending vague, generic content out to a massive list of leads, you can refine your approach and connect with various groups in meaningful ways.

The best CRM tools will integrate with email marketing platforms. This will allow you to define customer groups with tags and lists. Once these lists are ready, you can prepare automated email campaigns to be published on a schedule. 

With the top tools on the market, you can even review your results! You can see how many emails were opened, which links were clicked on, who moved from a lead to a customer, and what time of day emails were opened most often. With this information in hand, you can continue to refine your results.

4. Survey and Review Tools

Surveys can be an important part of an effective digital marketing strategy. Small questionnaires can help you to understand your client’s needs and create meaningful solutions to address them.

You can send out a survey via email, social media, or simple text. You can get immediate feedback on services, personnel, and marketing campaigns with a survey.

For example, you can send an automated email survey to every customer after their loan closes. This will give you an opportunity to review your own performance, as well as the performance of other loan officers in your brokerage. 

If a client reports a problem, you can reach out right away to try to make things right. This can help to support a great brand reputation for your mortgage brokerage.

Encourage customers who feel great about their experience with your company to provide reviews online. Public customer feedback, testimonials, and reviews will often establish brand credibility better than traditional ads. 

Incorporating online reviews on your company website or registering your company on Google Business can allow you to quickly and easily request client reviews. 

Once these reviews come in, you can post them on social media. You can also send out a thank you email, ask for referrals, and use feedback to reward team members for a job well done.

When you have served clients well, they’ll be happy to spread the word with their friends and family members. This kind of word-of-mouth support can be powerful for any mortgage brokerage.

5. Analytics Tools

Analytic tools include Google Analytics, Facebook Insights, and Twitter Analytics, to name a few. But your CRM should also work well with your digital marketing tools, allowing you to determine how successful each campaign was.

For example, perhaps you use your CRM to design and publish a Facebook marketing campaign. Afterward, you should be able to review how much you spent, how many clicks/likes/shares you received, how many leads you received, and more. You can repeat successful campaigns or adjust your strategy for future marketing efforts with this information in hand.

Using analytics tools to monitor a company’s website performance is the backbone of a successful marketing strategy. If your analytics are not revealing positive trends, it may be time to change your marketing strategy. But you can’t change your strategy if you don’t know what went wrong in the first place!

Real-time, accurate information is essential for all mortgage brokers. Use this information wisely, and you can become a master of digital marketing.

A Powerful CRM Solution to Take Digital Marketing to the Next Level

Digital marketing trends have changed the ways that mortgage brokers do business. 

It doesn’t matter whether you’re an individual loan officer, part of a small, dynamic team, or the leader of a large mortgage brokerage. Digital marketing can help you effectively market your company to potential clients online. 

Digital marketing requires a blend of experience, strategy, and media savvy. When you use the right tools, you can generate high-quality results. 

At BNTouch, lenders use our powerful solutions to generate new leads, nurture clients through the sales funnel, connect with partners, and close loans easily. Reach out today to schedule a demo for the best mortgage brokerage CRM on the market!

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