Experiments with Google Base and eCrater
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These past couple of days I have spent updating items on my Privateer Hobbies eCrater comic store, doing some product research via Google Base, and writing a mysql/php utility to allow me to take the items I have up on eCrater and publish them directly to Google Base.
The tweaks to my Privateer Hobbies store are primarily to increase the keyword usage in order to be placed a bit higher in Google Products and search engines in general. The main problem that I am running into is that I like to have my policies included in my listings since items on eCrater show up in the Marketplace…where people cannot access my stores help pages.
If keyword density is a factor, then I may well be killing the ability for my items to show up in the first couple of pages by including so much information. Fortunately, with my new php/mysql tool I will be able to tell very shortly which way shows up better. If my hunch is correct, and keyword density is a decent factor, then I will be trimming my policies out of my listing and perhaps replacing them with a short line such as “Select my Store Link above and then my Terms page for full details on shipping, getting free comics with coupons, charitable donations, etc.”
The tool I made is a very basic database created to hold product information. It is tied to a simple set of pages for displaying what is in the database, adding, editing, and removing items from it, and generating RSS2 xml files for Google Base. I put up one file earlier today so I should be able to start seeing what kind of difference in ranking there is between items with policy information and items without. If there is any interest in a tool like this, feel free to let me know…I might decide to take the time to clean it up a bit and place it on my Experiments in Selling store.
For the first newsletter ( coming up here tomorrow or the next day ), I am going to cover:
- some basic keyword research
- the use of keywords in a product description
- an interesting way to help with both search rankings and product placement for those who sell items that they have ready access to
- a roundup of blogosphere news related to eCrater this past week
- an idea for turning more browsers into buyers
- a review of one of my own stores ( as much to take notes on what I need to do to clean it up as anything…but I figure it will be a good place to start for store reviews )
I may touch on a couple of other items, but that should give me enough for this week.