Leapfrogg Newbie and Google Base

Lo and behold, here is another Leapfrogg trainee making the jump into their first blog post. Laurence has kindly made the introductions; I am Claire, the other new addition to the Leapfrogg clan beginning to carve out a career in the SEM industry. I am currently getting to grips with the wonders of PPC, SEO and link building and one of my first tasks at Leapfrogg has been to unravel the mystery behind Google Base product listings. So here goes…

Google Base is a free Google Service that allows users to publish almost any kind of information on Google Base or other Google services. Users can submit products, job listings, house listings, recipes, blog posts, personal ads and much more. Searchers may find items on Google Base in results for searches on Google Product Search and even the main Google Web Search depending on the item’s relevance to the search terms entered.

All types of online and offline content can be submitted to Google Base and all this content is searchable on Google. There is the opportunity to link searchers to the original website if the content is already available online, thus Google Base is potentially a good way for companies to increase their site’s visibility on the web.

How does it work? Users must have or create a free Google Account to use the Google Base service. Users can post individual items by completing a web form or if posting multiple items (10 or more) then there is the option to submit a data feed. Items will be given a unique web address and can be edited or archived whenever the user wants.

All items can be posted with a list of attributes which describe the qualities and characteristics of an item to help people find them when they conduct related searches. Essentially, the attributes make the product easier to find during a search on Google Base. Therefore, users must optimise the individual item and/or data feed to get significant results. By creating custom attributes for an item, rather than using Google’s generic/suggested attributes the user has a better chance of attracting targeted visitors and converting those visitors into buyers. The more information the user provides in the list of attributes for their item, the better the results will be. So the recommendation would be that users should supply Google Base with a concise product description, a photo, product prices, and a specific URL to direct traffic to the relevant page on their website.

Sounds easy as pie doesn’t it? There have been mixed responses to Google Base and its usability issues, for example, items in data feeds can be tricky to update if there isn’t a CMS behind the website to pull all the product information off. It would be great to hear if anyone out there reading this blog has used/does use Google Base and how this has turned out. All feedback is welcomed by this newbie…Claire.

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