what causes a google merchant error shopify

Website needs improvement error. If you're  facing this error on your Google Merchant  ,Center. That means you're trying to get your  products listed on Google Shopping free listings,  ,then this is the video for you to watch.  I'm going to explain to you exactly what's  ,causing this issue, why Google has this  new policy on "website needs improvement",  ,and what you need to do or make changes to your  store so you can make your store eligible for  ,Google Shopping free listings. Hi, I'm Clarice  Lin, the ROI Doctor who help small businesses  ,and online stores get more sales and traffic by  getting on Google and YouTube page one. In today's  ,video, I'm going to talk about this new policy  update by Google: website needs improvement.  ,What is website needs improvement error? Back in  May 2021, Google announced a new policy changes  ,update. So there will be a new error that's called  "website needs improvement". Basically, they want  ,online store owners, Shopify WooCommerce,  BigCommerce, anyone who has an online store,  ,all of their store needs to adhere to a certain  level of professional and editorial standards.  ,Basically, what it means is Google  want your store to look presentable,  ,wants your store to look trustworthy, wants your  store to create an experience for shoppers. So  ,when Google shows your store products on Google  Shopping, and users come to your store, and they  ,really like what they found, it means that they  will continue to go back to Google Shopping to  ,use their feature when you want to shop. Basically  they (Google) want to create a win win situation,  ,so it's a win for you as a owner and will be a win  for Google as well. So they will keep their users.  ,Essentially what you need to do as a Shopify  store owner is to make it presentable. Just  ,like anyone who has a physical store, if you have  a shop, you know, you want to create a good, neat  ,tidy storefront, people can see what your store is  selling, people will see that your store is clean,  ,looks pleasant, they want to come inside.  That's the same for online store as well.  ,You need to be presentable, do you need  to have the right text, you need to have  ,the right images, you need to present everything  in a specific way that makes the shopper enjoy  ,the entire experience. And of course, trust  your products and hopefully buy from you.  ,And of course, if your store is not meeting  these requirements, then your store will be  ,suspended from Google Shopping, which means that  you can't have any Google Shopping free traffic  ,coming to your site. If you want to tap  into this Google Shopping free traffic,  ,then you want to make sure that you're doing  your store, doing it up correctly, properly,  ,accurately. So your store is meeting the minimum  standards set by Google. What are the different  ,guidelines you need to do if you encounter this  error on Google Merchant. So Google has listed  ,out a page all by itself, where they list out all  the different guidelines and have grouped them  ,into six different categories. So you can better  understand why is your store still not meeting  ,the standards. I'm sure you can read the page  by itself. But as we know that Google sometimes  ,doesn't give very clear or detailed explanation,  so in my video, I'm going to go into a little bit  ,more into what they mean when they talk about  the different guidelines. So follow on with me  ,to get a clearer explanation. And I'm also going  to give examples to give a better illustration.  ,So category number one is useful. So your store  needs to be useful, needs to have all the right  ,information that's needed for a functioning  store. So if a shopper comes to your store, what  ,will they be expecting. So there are a few things  that falls under useful. First, if you have a pop  ,up that's blocking the view of the user doing  something like maybe you have a very annoying pop  ,up that keeps asking for an email, so users can't  really click on what they want to look at. So this  ,is not very useful. And if Google finds that it  will suspend your website or if you have links  ,on your website, and then when the user clicks on  it, it's not working properly, or they're sending,  ,you're sending them to an error page, which  means that your store pages haven't been fully  ,constructed. So that's a no no as well. And of  course, if you don't have the full amount of  ,information needed for your store, you don't have  your store information, maybe you don't have a  ,good refund policy. All of this is also important  for a shopper. So you want to put that in, if  ,it's not there, then you're not providing useful  information, you're not meeting the standards. And  ,also if your pages are loading too slowly, maybe  it's taking like someone clicks on it, and they're  ,waiting one second, two second, three second, four  second, five second, and si still not loading,  ,you're not providing a good experience. And you're  also out and of course, if you want the user to  ,download something, for example, if you want  them to download like a page before they can  ,actually buy a product, it's also not allowed  by Google. So please don't do any of this.  ,And once you fix all of this information, then you  will have fulfilled the usefulness of your store  ,criteria. The second category that Google wants  your store to fulfill is the spelling and grammar.,If you are presenting your store in English,  so make sure you have the correct spelling  ,you're communicating correctly, you have the right  grammar in place. If you have problems and English  ,is not your first language, you can look at the  different tools. For example, using Grammarly  ,to do like a spell check to make sure all your  spelling is correct, because any of these spelling  ,error, it makes your store seem untrustworthy.  So you want to present a trustworthy front.  ,That's Google's criteria. So make sure you  do your own spelling check, make sure it's  ,correct. And if you're using any punctuation,  don't overdo the punctuation, don't go around  ,adding exclamation mark to your maybe product  title, or your product description. If you're  ,thinking you want to get people's attention,  so you're putting a lot of exclamation marks,  ,that's also not allowed. If it's not needed,  you shouldn't put like an exclamation mark  ,or question mark that you're trying to put  in this punctuation mark to grab attention.  ,That's not allowed. So please do your grammar  checks properly, make sure you're using the right  ,punctuation marks. If you're having a product  title, it should be ideally in title case,  ,they don't want them to be all in capital  letters and description should be in normal  ,format. Because yes, maybe you think you  want to grab your customers attention by  ,putting them all in capital letters. But Google  doesn't like that. Okay, you don't do this little  ,gimmicks. Gimmicks is a sign of untrustworthiness.  So you don't want that. And of course, not missing  ,out, is putting emojis is not encouraged to  put any emojis in your product description,  ,or the product title as well, because the product  title is going to appear on Google Shopping.  ,And they only allow text, definitely no emojis.  So if you have that, please remove it. That's  ,a basic criteria by Google, Google doesn't want  everything to look unprofessional. Product title  ,means only text. So please stick to that.  Category number three, unclear relevance.  ,So there are many people who try to trick  the algorithm, they put like a title for the  ,product itself, and they have a different picture  altogether. So when someone looks at the title,  ,maybe they come looking at your store,  and then they see a different picture.  ,So if you say t shirt, and then you have  a picture of a T shirt and shoe together,  ,it's definitely very misleading. You don't want  to do that. Have a clear picture of the shirt.  ,Maybe you can have the shoe as not the main  picture. You could say, Okay, this is for  ,acompaniment only. But your main picture should  ideally be clear what you're selling. The title,  ,product title, your description, and your picture  should be matching. If your title description and  ,images put together, they are creating confusion  for your shopper, then that's a no no. So please  ,make sure you're not causing any confusion.  Category number four style requirements.  ,Make sure that you have a standard way  of putting up all this information,  ,the title and the description, how you describe  each of your products, ideally, be consistent,  ,make it the same. So any store visitors who come  to look at your products will know okay, they're  ,from the same store. If the way you're presenting  all this information looks totally different,  ,there is no consistency, then Google doesn't  like it as well, because you're creating  ,untrustworthiness. If you don't have a certain  level of consistency, you know, using the same  ,fonts, using the same title, the way you describe  your product should ideally be the same. If it's  ,not the same, then to Google that's a signal of  untrustworthiness. Let's say for example, if you  ,have, you're selling T shirts, you are selling  blue t shirt, so you might have a pink t shirt.  ,So you, if you have the color in front, you want  to have the same consistency. You don't want to  ,have blue t shirt and then the next thing t shirt  pink so that means you're inconsistent. That's an  ,example. So make sure you don't do that make sure  the way you're titling your product and the way  ,you're describing it is similar across all your  different products. Also, if your products are not  ,up yet or is not ready, please don't publish those  products, products that are published or are found  ,on your store should be products that people  can buy. If it's a placeholder, your product  ,is not ready yet, you don't have the picture yet,  then don't publish that page itself. Only publish  ,the products that you're ready to sell. What I  notice some of the store owners what they do is,  ,the product is not ready and then they  put placeholder one, that's not a product.  ,So you don't really want to have that on your  store. If your products are not ready to be sold,  ,then leave it in draft mode. Category  number five domain safety. You want to,provide a safe environment so shoppers can  trust you, can trust you with their credit  ,card information, can trust you with  their card details, personal details,  ,so you want to make sure that your store  is secured. Make sure you have all the  ,safety signals on your store as well  having the credit card and telling them  ,the information will be protected. And of  course on your browser, you should have  ,the safety sign. So it tells the users that  your store is safe they can safely come to your  ,store. Category number six, your product details  needs to be accurate, it needs to be complete.  ,If you haven't filled out description for your  product, please put that in. Let's say if you  ,have like, you're selling like trousers, you  need to have like the length of the trousers,  ,the waist length of the trousers. So all this  information should be complete, should be part  ,of the store. You shouldn't have duplicate. For  example, if you have one product itself, and  ,you duplicate it to be three different products,  and trying to give it a slightly different name,  ,it's not allowed. If you have only one type  of product, you only have one product page,  ,make sure you do that. If it's not, Google  doesn't like it. And if Google doesn't like it,  ,it could result in a penalty. That's a Google  Merchant error, which is website needs to be  ,improved. So these are different areas that you  can work on to improve on the pages of your store  ,on the presentation of your store, make your  store trustworthy, help your store users feel  ,safe when they come to your store. So they want  to buy and they feel safe in handing you their  ,personal details and credit card details. And  that's it. That's the six different categories of  ,different guidelines your store needs to adhere  to if you have a Shopify or WooCommerce store.  ,So fix all of that, then go back to Google  and tell them that you have completed your  ,changes and ask them to review again, and  wait for them to look through your store,  ,review your store before they click on Approve.  It will take like a few days or even a week or two  ,before they will come back to you. You've to be a  little bit patient with that. Once it's approved,  ,then you can start getting Google Shopping free  listings traffic. If you're struggling to get  ,more traffic to your store, you can check out  my other video right here where I talk about how  ,you can get alternative traffic to your store  without running ads. So there'll be a useful  ,video if you're not ready to run ads. However,  if you are thinking of running Facebook ads,  ,and you're thinking of how to reduce the Facebook  ad budgets, you can check out my other video right  ,here, where I talk about the different ways to  reduce your Facebook ad campaigns. So that will be  ,useful for you. And if you don't have a marketing  budget for your store, you might want to check  ,out my other video right here where I explain to  you why you need to plan for a marketing budget  ,and what are the different things you need to  consider as part of your marketing budget so you  ,actually get more sales. Do check out this video  right here that's going to be important for you  ,as you go about your year. Many people have found  it useful because they didn't really know about  ,planning a budget in the first place and they  don't quite know what to spend if they decide to  ,get more traffic and get more sales. They're  not quite sure how it works, so there'll be  ,a useful video for you to check out. So please  check that out. If you want to learn about the  ,various online marketing channels you can leverage  on to grow your store and get more store visitors,  ,I have created a Shopify marketing guide  where I talk about the pros and cons of  ,the different marketing channels and how you  can use that to get more store visitors so  ,check that out, you can download it, it's a  35-page PDF file, and you can find the link  ,down in the description and pinned comments. So  do check that out. And if you need one-on-one  ,support to get more traffic and sales for your  WooCommerce and Shopify store then check out my  ,services page right in the description and pinned  comments below and if you enjoyed this video,  ,found it useful and helpful for your store, please  give it a like, subscribe to my channel and turn  ,on the notification bell so you don't miss  any future videos on how to get more traffic  ,and more sales for your Shopify and WooCommerce  store. And I'll see you in the next video. Bye!

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