Google has been pretty good about providing holidays tips lately. They’ve discussed ways of getting found in Google Product Search easier, and they have continued with this theme in a new blog post on the Official Google Base Blog.
The five tips they are now offering include:
– Submit tax and shipping data for your items
– Indclude unique product identifiers
– Use effective titles
– Write accurate descriptions
– Submit your feeds frequently
Submit Tax and Shipping Data
Google provides two ways to submit this data:
1. Set account-level default values in your Google Base account: These preferences will serve as the default values for all of your items. This is the easiest way to set up tax and shipping for your account.
2. Include item-level override values in your data feeds or via the Google Base API: These values will override your account-level default settings for that item.
The company notes that this feature isn’t available for single item posts.
When it comes to taxes, Google provides three options:
– Don’t Charge Tax
– Set a tax rate based on the state the item is shipping to
– Use a ZIP code-based estimate.
There are also three shipping options:
– You can specify a flat (or free) shipping rate
– Define custom tables if the shipping rate you charge varies by price, weight, or number of items
– Apply a carrier-calculated rate (if based on UPS, FedEx, or USPS)
You can find more information about Tax and Shipping options at Google’s Help Page for this category.
Including Unique Product Identifiers
We’ve touched upon this before. When you’re setting up your data feeds, Google suggests using key attributes like MPN, UPC, ISBN, condition, or brand to help increase visibility for relevant queries.
Use Effective Titles
This is the same principle that should be applied to titles of all kinds – articles, blog posts, email subject lines, etc. You have to grab customers with the title before they will even look at your item, so this is a very important part. Don’t expect to sell much without an enticing title. That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be simple and to-the-point. Google says to keep in mind that Product Search truncates titles to under 70 characters.
Write Accurate Descriptions
If you’ve gotten their attention with the title, the description is likely the next thing they will look at, so here is where you want to provide accurate and specific details about your product. Google Product Search also truncates these if they are too long (over 150 characters).
Submit Your Feeds Frequently
Google suggests doing this up to once a day. This should give you an additional boost in visibility.
If you are not using Google Base already, perhaps this information will inspire you to do so. Google is laying out details about how you can better utilize their service. Will you take their advice?
