Google Base and Google Product Search: The Twin Keys to greater Search Engine exposure!
Google launched Universal Search over a year ago and since then we’ve all been busy optimizing our content to take advantage of its ability to blend videos, pictures, news stories and product listings. This optimization has mainly consisted of placing videos on YouTube, alt tags in images and maybe adapting blogs to suit Google News. That’s enough, right?
Well, no, I’m afraid not. Not if you sell products, anyway. Whilst the adaptations listed above are important, it seems many sellers have been missing a trick so far. I’m talking about the possibilities of Google Base and Google Product Search.
For the uninitiated, Google Base is essentially a massive database available to anyone wishing to publish content online – anything from product reviews to personals. Google Product Search is a subsection of Google Base which allows sellers to submit their products, buyers then find those products through a traditional Google search. Proper use of Google Product Search is how companies get their products into those coveted ‘shopping results’ places at the top of Google search results.
Google Base offers a way to access customers for free, and usually requires less effort and time than organic or paid search. It also increases your exposure in terms of search results, if someone searches for a particular product that you sell and your product is listed in the organic results, the paid for results and the shopping results you’ve tripled you exposure.
Lastly, and most importantly, as I mentioned at the start, most people still aren’t using this tool properly. This is your chance to get a jump-start on your competitors! If you’re a company that sells products you really can’t afford to ignore this latest innovation.
So, how do I optimize for Google product Search?
First things first, you need to get your stuff up there. Luckily this is fairly simple. Google offer three ways to upload your products, by simply uploading them one at a time, using a Data Feed like a spreadsheet or XML file, or even via Google Base’s API.
As you are uploading your products you’ll need to start refining the attributes or descriptions associated with them. Google Base allows you to be detailed in your descriptions so take advantage of this to ensure that your product description is unique and has the highest possible number of key words associated with it. Write full information about colour, model number, ISBN code, size, specifications, or weight, to suit your product. Remember, somebody searching online probably has some idea of what they want, so be specific.
Once you’ve done all that, you should be well on your way to maximising your search results.
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