On the basis of the statistics that Google Analytics shows, merchants should improve their data feed so that it becomes easier for Google to decide the right placement for your ads. You can do this by changing the product titles and descriptions by including the search keywords that users are using to search your products.
Here are a few resources that you can use to know more about Google Shopping feed & more:
Google Shopping Data Feed Specifications
Google Shopping Data Feed Guideline
Sample Data Feeds And Feed Specifications
Google Shopping Data Feed Product Titles – How to Optimize them?
A very handy principle that all merchants should follow while writing their product titles is ‘Search Importance is from left to right’. That is, when Google looks for the relevant terms in the title, it checks how far it is from the left and gives it weight-age accordingly.
Therefore, merchants should make sure that when they are creating important product titles, the most relevant descriptors should be used in the beginning of the title i.e. on the left of the titles, and the not-so-relevant ones on the right. The most widely used title format is “Brand, Gender, Product, Color, Size.”
However, what descriptors should be given more importance depends on the product which is being searched. For example, for ‘blue Patagonia jacket’ search, since Patagonia is a really important brand and a highly significant search filter, it is used in the beginning of the title by many products while blue is used on the far right. Here is the example.
But in products where the brands are not that important, there the significant terms can be swapped with size and color etc.
For instance, if one is searching for unicorn design flip-flops where the brand name is not important, other things like the descriptive term for flip-flops, their color and the gender associated moves up in priority.
On the basis of the product you are listing and the searches that they are getting, make sure that the titles with variables in order of importance from left to right. In case of confusion, use product description but avoid keyword stuffing. Test different titles to see what works better.
Just like Product Titles, Also Optimize the Product Descriptions
Yes, just like product titles, product descriptions are also to be written as per the relevance and importance of keywords in the left to right order. The more important descriptive terms should be placed to the left.
It is interesting to note that though descriptions vary on the basis of the product-type that you are listing, make it a point that you are formatting them as per the key terms the users are using to search them.
Also, the fact that a description which has a hook or a motivation is considered just fine, yet that sort of information is not valuable to the online shopper. But if search modifiers are used instead, they prove quite economical to the merchant.
Try not to create longer descriptions because Google cuts them off if they exceed the allowed word limit. It is not that you can’t write bigger descriptions, it is just even if you are doing it make sure that all the important information is covered at the beginning of the description. The allowed character limit on Google is 500 to 1000 characters without space, and if you count spaces it 10,000.
The following snip shows a fine example where the left to right rule has not been used in the description:
Note that in this example, since the left to right importance rule was not used, the more useful information was missed. And the information that was given, it was put on the far right of the description & was truncated by Google. Therefore, such a description will not be enough for a successful conversion.
Those merchants who are creating descriptions as per Google’s character limit but are not including any product information are also loosing on conversions. Here is an example:
The merchants who are optimizing their product descriptions as per the importance rule and Google character limit, they can do one more thing. They can add the title of their product at the beginning of their product description.
Here is an example from brand Teva:
In the above snip, notice the highlighted words in the description which makes that information relevant as per Google search query. And see for yourself – though there is more information right there, all the important information and the keywords are present in the beginning of the description and that too, to the left.
Don’t hesitate to Set Aggressive CPC Bids
It is natural that because of spend concerns merchants usually hesitate to bid aggressively, but on Google Shopping, going ahead for some aggressive bidding is totally doable because Google Shopping allows the option of daily budget. By setting a daily budget you can keep a limit on the daily-spend you are allocating to your PLA campaigns.
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