Steal Shelf Space from Amazon Without Paying for Ads | E-commerce SEO with Tom Rusling

Google's e-commerce search results look nothing like they used to. Instead of 10 blue links, you get a wall of product images or shoppable tiles. If your products aren’t showing in those organic product grids, you might as well not exist. In this episode of The SEO Party, we sit down with Tom Rusling (Founder, Audience Key) to break down how grids work and how to win them, step by step. We cover the marriage of SEO + Google Merchant Center, what signals matter, and how to measure your true “shelf space” in the SERP. What you’ll learn: Organic Product Grids 101: cards, grids, and why Google ranks stores (not merely domains) Merchant Center must-dos: complete feeds, attributes, and supplemental feeds to A/B test titles & descriptions Schema that gets results: Product, reviews, availability, and product variant / productGroupID setup Site structure for grids: micro-categories, topical authority, and PDP-first optimization Merchandising tactics that lift CTR: price anchors, discounts, image strategy, motion/3D where supported Links & authority: where to point them (categories vs. PDPs) and why it impacts grid visibility Measurement that matters: tracking grid coverage, card positions, competitors, and traffic potential Who this is for: E-commerce leaders, SEOs, merchandisers, and paid teams who want to align feeds, PDPs, and structure to capture more non-branded demand.