2 days ago

If you sell off Amazon, Google says do this NOW

Date: May 28th, 2026

Summary: Kevin King breaks down Google's first official guide on optimizing for AI search and why it undercuts the AEO/GEO consultant model, covers Shopify opening its Universal Commerce Protocol catalog to every developer, and digs into what Amazon sellers get wrong selling on Walmart. He also shares a new ChatGPT shopping conversion study, a free Amazon Launch Calculator, and details on the AI for Ecom 2.0 webinar with Norm Farrar.

Key Points Discussed:

Google's first official guide on optimizing for AI search: its position is that optimizing for generative AI search is just SEO — the same crawl, index, and ranking systems, with no separate door or special trick
Two foundations Google names: unique, compelling, non-commodity content (first-hand expertise over generic listicles) and technical hygiene (a page must be indexed, crawlable, and fast to be cited)
Google's mythbusting list — llms.txt files, content chunking, AI-specific rewrites, buying fake mentions, and over-indexing on structured data are all called wasted spend
The Amazon seller angle: Merchant Center feeds and Google Business Profiles drive product visibility in AI responses, plus Business Agent and the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) point to agentic commerce in the next 12–18 months
AI for Ecom 2.0 webinar with Kevin King and Norm Farrar — the new AI playbook for ecom sellers, with a replay available
Marketing Misfits episode with Mike Kaput on the shift from prompting AI to orchestrating AI agents
ChatGPT shopping study from Kaiser and Schulze: ChatGPT beats traditional channels on conversion for complex products that need explanation, while traditional channels still win for simple, impulse-driven products
Shopify opens the Universal Commerce Protocol with Shopify Catalog to every developer — any app, content platform, or AI agent can tap millions of merchants and billions of products through one protocol
Amazon Launch Calculator by Isaac Gross at IG PPC: models required PPC spend, clicks, orders, ACOS and TACOS against a revenue goal, month by month
What Amazon sellers get wrong on Walmart: it's a full-funnel problem, not a listings problem — stop copy-pasting Amazon content, stop optimizing once, build off-platform traffic, and hit listing benchmarks before running Walmart Connect ads

Links Mentioned:

Hot Picks:

Stump Bezos Answer: Attorneys and Legal Services — the most expensive Google Ads category at an average of $9.87 per click, almost double the overall average.

Parting Shot: "No matter how busy you are, you must take time to make the other person feel important. Everyone has an invisible sign hanging from their neck saying, 'Make me feel important.' Never forget this message when working with people." — Mary Kay Ash