I submitted my feed today and I rank LAST on one of the product names that i offer on my store on the "Google Merchant Center"... is the SEO procedure the same? Back links? or there something else we can do higher positioning?
By my point of view Rank higher in product search depends on the landing page relevancy and full description of your submitted products.
this landing page and relevancy issue is really not clear. i mean i have seen a store listed on top of product search results and when i clicked on the link, i was shocked to see that that kind of landing page will qualify as superior over other sites that were listed at the bottom of the results page. i mean the design was horrible! you couldnt even read because the text on the page was so badly organized and the add to cart button was no where to be found. its really a mystery sometimes on how google does these things.
Yes, you'll be last when you first submit your feed. Longevity and lower prices seem to push my products to the top.
Use product name from manufacturer + add product reference number. Low prices will give also more clicks coz people are used to sort products by price.
The new left side column with its new functions and displays, opens up new opportunities for webmasters to get their listings within Google on that all important first page. There are also many new ways to view the results such as view everything or you can view with more or less shopping links.
Not backlinks - reviews. That's what propels you to the top on product search - after that - fill in as many fields as possible, and use relevant keywords http://www.google.com/support/merchants/bin/answer.py?answer=160635 http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/base/thread?tid=4c21c48967a45ded&hl=en http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/products/reviews.html
Having a well-thought-out and keyphrase rich description is important. As far as I can see, Google doesn't crawl the URLs you submit to them for any ranking factors - they take all the information from your data submission, so a description can help you rank for long-tail phrases which you can't cover in your title tag.
It does take some good skill at using keywords correctly plus low prices AND a lot of patience. Unless you are selling a very unique product that you own the monopoly to, it's a nightmare of competition out there!
how does google link third party reviews to the actual product page? This has been an utter mystery to me for some time.