Ever wanted to research your competition’s prices to make sure you are competitive online? In the past the only way has been to visit each website in turn to checkout the price against your own.

Now Google has added more enhancements via filters to the main search engine which makes this research a doddle.

FIRST – have a look at the standard Google search engine view for any product…….

SECOND – click on the “More Shopping Sites” filter in the left hand column

Check out the lists of products and prices available for all your key online competitors. You can easily see what prices and options are available online for your customers.

This is a very powerful search tool not just for your own research but for customers to check out prices across the online options more easily. However, I wonder how many customers will actually click on these filters and make use of the extra functionality provided by Google. Even if customers don’t use the filter, then it’s still very useful for your business market research!

Have fun……

Google shopping or Google base is a free service offered for eCommerce website owners to upload their product information for free.

Website browsers can find quick information about products on the SHOPPING tab or directly from page one of Google. This is a great tool which can provide excellent additional coverage for your products online.

Below are 5 reasons to upload products to Google:

Reason 1   – it’s free and easy to setup if your eCommerce software supports it

Reason 2   – increases your coverage on the search engine of exising keyword phrases

Reason 3   – can be used to cover alternative keyword phrases which you don’t cover from your website

Reason 4  – can put your product on page one of Google when your website product page is struggling to be there

When people click on the Google shopping option they often see a grid list of 20 products, with bigger images and no text about the product. In the past the only option was a list of 10 products per web page with a short description. So make sure you checkout how your products appear so you can adjust your upload accordingly to make the most of what Google has to offer.

Any good eCommerce online website solution should provide integrated Google product uploads directly from your content management system. Have a look or ask your website provider and start uploading products for free onto Google.

If you’re at all interested in setting up a blog, Facebook page or Twitter account then checkout John Hayden’s “31 Day Challenge: Optimise Your Blog with Social Media”

Even if you’re just interested in Twitter or Facebook and don’t have a blog check this one out. It has great suggestions for setting up your Facebook page.

Setting up your website is really exciting, designing the look and feel, writing the content and finally publishing to the world. You install Google Analytics and sit waiting for the visitors to flood to your website and start buying from your shop or contacting you for more information. But no-one ever visits your website, there’s no sales and no-one contacts you.

The problem is that no one knows about your website – how can they find it? Building your website and then not implementing a marketing strategy to announce your website to the world is like building a high street shop in a green field in Derbyshire, miles from any road and expecting passing traffic to find you!!!

There are many ways to market and promote your website from normal advertising and brochure marketing containing your website to full blown internet marketing including search engine optimisation, email marketing and pay per click.

Put a marketing plan together for your website, implement one or two approaches each month and watch your website traffic grow.