Google

Google Search Console is a free tool provided by Google that helps website owners monitor and maintain their site's presence in Google Search results. It's essential for ecommerce websites as it offers insights into how Google views your site and helps identify and fix any issues that might affect your search engine rankings.

Key features of Google Search Console include:

• Performance Reports: Shows data on how your site performs in Google Search, including metrics like total clicks, impressions, click-through rate, and average position. This data helps you understand which queries drive traffic to your site and how users are interacting with your search listings
• Index Coverage: Provides information on how many of your pages are indexed by Google and alerts you to any issues that might prevent certain pages from being indexed. This is crucial for ensuring that all your important product and content pages are discoverable by potential customers
• URL Inspection Tool: Allows you to check the status of a specific URL on your site to see if it’s indexed and how Google sees it. This is useful for diagnosing issues with specific pages and for requesting indexing of new or updated pages
• Sitemaps Submission: Lets you submit your sitemap to Google, helping the search engine discover and index your pages more efficiently
• Mobile Usability: Highlights any mobile usability issues on your site, ensuring that your ecommerce platform provides a seamless experience

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the latest version of Google's web analytics platform, designed to provide more in-depth insights into how users interact with your ecommerce website. GA4 offers a more comprehensive view of the customer journey, with a focus on user-centric metrics and enhanced tracking capabilities.

Key features of Google Analytics 4 include:

• Event-Based Tracking: Unlike previous versions, GA4 uses an event-based model, allowing you to track a wide range of user interactions, such as page views, clicks, and conversions, without needing to set up custom tracking
• Cross-Platform Tracking: GA4 enables tracking across websites and apps, providing a unified view of user behaviour across different platforms and devices
• Enhanced Reporting: Offers a new set of reports that focus on user engagement and retention, giving you deeper insights into how users interact with your site and where they drop off in the conversion process
• Machine Learning Insights: Utilises machine learning to provide predictive insights and identify trends in your data, helping you make more informed decisions about marketing strategies and user experience improvements
• Privacy-Centric Design: GA4 is built with privacy in mind, offering features like cookieless tracking and enhanced data control options to help you comply with privacy regulations

Google Consent Mode Version 2 is an enhanced feature that allows websites to adjust how Google tags behave based on the consent status of their users. It's designed to help you comply with data privacy regulations, like GDPR and CCPA, while still enabling useful measurement and analytics when users consent to cookies.

Key features of Google Consent Mode Version 2 include:

• Consent-Based Behaviour: Allows Google tags to adapt based on user consent choices for analytics, ads, and other tracking purposes. If a user doesn't give consent, tags can operate in a limited mode, still collecting some anonymised data to maintain essential functions
• Granular Control: Provides more granular control over the types of cookies that can be used, distinguishing between purposes such as analytics, advertising, and personalisation, and adjusting tag behaviour accordingly
• Enhanced Reporting: Enables more accurate reporting by sending signals about user consent to Google Analytics and other Google products, helping you understand the impact of user consent on your data
• Cookieless Measurement: Facilitates measurement in environments where cookies are not available or consent is not given, using aggregated and anonymised data to provide insights while respecting user privacy
• Seamless Integration: Easily integrates with Google Tag Manager and other Google products, making it straightforward to implement and manage consent preferences across your ecommerce website

Google Tag Manager (GTM) is a free tool that allows you to manage and deploy marketing and analytics tags (snippets of code or tracking pixels) on your website without needing to modify the site's code directly. It simplifies the process of adding tags, making it easier to track user behaviour, conversions, and other vital metrics for your ecommerce platform.

Key features of Google Tag Manager include:

• Simplified Tag Management: Allows you to add, edit, and manage all your tags in one place without the need for manual code changes on your site, reducing the dependency on developers
• Event Tracking: Enables you to track specific events on your website, such as button clicks, form submissions, and downloads, helping you gather more detailed data about user interactions
• Built-In Templates: Offers a library of built-in tag templates for popular services like Google Analytics, Google Ads, and third-party marketing tools, making it easier to set up tracking without needing to write custom code
• Version Control: Provides version control and a built-in debugging tool, allowing you to test changes in a safe environment before deploying them live
• User Permissions: Lets you control who can access and manage tags, with different levels of permissions to ensure that only authorised users can make changes

Google AdWords, now known as Google Ads, is an online advertising platform that allows businesses to create and display ads across Google's search network and its partner sites. It's a powerful tool for ecommerce websites to reach potential customers, drive targeted traffic, and increase sales by displaying ads to users who are actively searching for products similar to what you offer.

Key features of Google AdWords include:

• Search Ads: Allows you to display text ads at the top of Google Search results, targeting specific keywords relevant to your products, helping you attract users with high purchase intent
• Shopping Ads: Showcases your products directly in search results with images, prices, and product details, providing a visual way to engage potential customers
• Display Ads: Enables you to create visually engaging ads that appear on websites within Google's Display Network, increasing brand awareness and reaching users as they browse the web
• Targeting Options: Offers advanced targeting options, including demographics, location, device, and audience interests, ensuring your ads reach the right audience
• Performance Tracking: Provides detailed analytics and performance reports, helping you measure the effectiveness of your campaigns, track conversions, and optimise your ad spend

Google Shopping, managed through Google Merchant Center, is a platform that allows ecommerce businesses to showcase their products directly in Google Search results, reaching potential customers at the moment they're searching for items you sell. By listing products on Google Shopping, you can increase visibility and drive more traffic to your site.

Key features of Google Shopping / Google Merchant Center include:

• Product Listings: Enables you to upload and manage your product data, including images, prices, and descriptions, which appear directly in Google Search results and the Shopping tab
• Free and Paid Listings: Offers both free listings and paid ads (Shopping Ads) to promote your products. Free listings provide exposure without the cost, while Shopping Ads give you a more prominent placement in search results
• Seamless Integration with Google Ads: Allows you to create Shopping campaigns in Google Ads, using the product data in your Merchant Center account to create targeted ads that drive traffic and sales
• Performance Insights: Provides detailed performance reports, helping you understand how your products are performing in search results, which items are driving clicks, and where there’s room for optimisation
• Dynamic Remarketing: Lets you set up dynamic remarketing campaigns to show ads featuring products that users have previously viewed on your site, helping you re-engage potential customers and increase conversions

Google Search is the world's most widely used search engine, helping users find relevant information across the web. For ecommerce websites, appearing prominently in Google Search results is crucial for driving organic traffic and attracting potential customers. By optimising your site for Google Search, you can improve visibility and increase the chances of users finding your products.

ShopWired's SEO features provide you with the necessary tools to ensure your website is optimised for inclusion in Google Search results:

• Set a title tag, meta description and URL for each website page
• If you don't set this data, ShopWired automatically creates it for you for every page on your website
• Use the sitemap.xml and news-sitemap.xml files to provide to Google
• An automatically generated robots.txt file that can be customised
• Automatic inclusion of structured data on your website pages

Google Fonts is a free library of web fonts that you can use on your website to enhance its design and readability. It offers a wide variety of font styles that can be easily integrated into your site, improving its visual appeal and user experience without impacting load times significantly.

Google Pay is a digital wallet and online payment system that allows customers to make quick and secure payments on your ecommerce website. By integrating Google Pay, you provide a seamless checkout experience, enabling users to pay with their saved cards and information for faster transactions.

Key features of Google Pay include:

• Faster Checkout: Streamlines the checkout process by allowing customers to pay with their saved Google Pay information, reducing friction and increasing conversion rates
• Secure Transactions: Provides a secure payment method with multiple layers of security, including encryption and tokenisation, protecting customer payment data
• Multi-Platform Support: Works across multiple devices and platforms, including desktop and mobile, ensuring a consistent and convenient payment experience for all users
• Reward Integration: Supports the integration of loyalty programs and offers within the Google Pay app, encouraging repeat purchases and customer engagement
• Easy Integration: Offers straightforward integration with ecommerce platforms, making it easy to add Google Pay as a payment option on your site

WebP is a modern image format developed by Google that provides superior compression for images on the web, helping to reduce file sizes without compromising quality. By using WebP images on your ecommerce website, you can improve page load times and enhance the user experience, particularly on mobile devices.

Key features of WebP include:

• Efficient Compression: Offers both lossless and lossy compression, reducing image file sizes significantly while maintaining visual quality, which is crucial for high-quality product images
• Transparency and Animation: Supports transparent backgrounds (alpha channel) and animation, making it versatile for a wide range of image types, including logos and animated banners
• Faster Loading Times: Improves website performance by reducing image load times, which can positively impact SEO rankings and user engagement
• Browser Compatibility: Is supported by most modern browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, and Edge, ensuring broad compatibility for users across different platforms
• Reduced Bandwidth Usage: Lowers the amount of data required to load images, making it an ideal choice for users with limited bandwidth or slower internet connections