Shopping Channel Management has a lot of topics in order to product the best possible results, however we thought it be best to leave the ones with the most technical jargon for later months. Today I want to talk about an aspect of Data Feed Creation normally overlooked: Keyword Density.

First of all: What is a Data Feed?

When trying to describe my job to people I often come to the quick realization that they have no idea what a data feed is, so I’ll explain it here like I do to people outside the marketing field. A data feed is like a product catalog which holds information on every single product a store has to offer. Here is an example using a Google Product Search template. As you can see it has everything from the product price to accepted currencies, but it can hold information such as keywords, video links, compatibility with other products and bestsellers. The more information the better, but to rank well in free comparison sites like Google and TheFind you need a keyword dense data feed.

What keywords should I use?

The first question a data feed manager should ask when optimizing a feed is: which keywords will I use to optimize my feed? This is not necessarily the meta-tag keywords on your website or the keywords in your Google Adwords campaign, the keywords you need to optimize are low-competition keywords with high search volumes. The best tool to find the correct keywords is the adwords keyword tool. You can search any keyword combination and see which keywords will bring you the highest search volumes. You also need to focus on synonyms and similar words, so for example if you are selling handbags you will need to search for handbags, purses, traveling bag, etc; as well as similar spellings like hand bag and purse (singular).

Where should I place these keywords?

The most important column for keyword dense data feeds is the product description. Although most shopping channels do not show descriptions of products in their search results (Nextag is the exception), all search engines take into consideration descriptions to match the customer with their best result. All descriptions should be as concise as possible, 80 words or less is the standard. I normally try to aim at 40-60 words as customers don’t tend to read past that point. To create a keyword dense description you should try and add as many descriptors and synonyms as possible.

For example, let’s change an imaginary description to make it a better fit for shopping channels. Let’s say that the description on the site is the following: “This hand bag features two zippers, an inner compartment and a shoulder strap that fits both teens and adults alike perfectly. It comes in both red, blue and yellow variations and is handmade with care. They are made from 100% Argentine leather and look great in any occasion.”

The term handbag only appears once, and it does not have any synonyms or similar spellings. The target audience is not specified correctly and colors are not specified. It is an okay description for when the customer is already on the site, but it needs to be more specific for search engines. Another tip is to create a new product for each product so you can be more specific in your description.

This is how I would change the description above: “This handmade handbag features two zippers, an inner compartment and a very comfortable shoulder strap. This red purse is perfect for adults and teenagers. This 100% Argentine leather luxury hand bag is durable, strong and space-efficient.” By making a couple of changes this description will make the bag rank higher on the shopping engines as it contains more terms people search for to compare products. It is also 13 words shorter than the original and states the same points.

Another field to focus on is the keyword field. Not all shopping channels allow you to have a keywords field (Onewayshopping is an example), but you should take advantage of the ones that do. Simply create a list of keywords for all products (so in this case: “purse, handbag, handmade bag, handmade handbag” etc…) and then add specific qualitative adjectives to each product (so for a red bag: “red handbag, red leather bag, red leather purse, shoulder strap red purse” etc…). This will help you rank better and is also great because based on your analytics you can see which keywords are doing well and which ones are not. I try to update keywords twice a month based on the search traffic for specific products, as well as seeing were products rank in Google Product Search for specific terms. You should also focus on the terms that are not working because you might be using a spelling that is not widely known, or it is simply not a good search term.

That sums up the basics on keyword dense data feeds. If you have any questions please feel free to email me at Mario(at)allinclusivemarketing.com.