TKHanson Consulting

Google Base - SEO Through Products Part 1

This will touch on product names. The importance of the product name is paramount. It is the backbone of the data feed.

The product name needs to be solid. It needs to be friendly to search engines. The best way to do this is keeping them short and simple. Truncate unneeded symbols and descriptive elements that will look like spam and shy away customers.

Shorter product names are good for catching the customers eye. If they are looking for "Widget X" and your product name is "Widget X" they are more likely to venture to your listing as opposed to "X Widget" because of the name match, thus, leading them to your well written descriptions for the product which we will talk about more in Google Base - SEO Through Products Part 2.

So, a few guidelines to keep in mind when adding the product name.

Stay under 50 characters for the name.  Search engines truncate after a certain amount of characters.  Name the product what it is, but allow the name to entice the customer to find out more.

Do some research and see what people are searching for. If they are typing something similar tweak your product name to match what they are searching for. Refer to the "Widget X" example in the third paragraph.