The best way to get started in Comparison shopping is to start of with Google base, as its free and generates decent amount of traffic and its built and operates on the same rules like any other comparison shopping engine. The feeds uploaded on Googlebase will show up on Google search and Google product search formerly known as Froogle apart from Googlebase.
To get started on
Google base you need a Google login. Then we need to decide if we need a multiple client account or a normal account. A multi client account helps you to handle multiple data feeds from the same account but with a multiple client account the reporting is bad we don’t even get the basic reporting that we usually get with the basic account.
Today we shall talk about setting up the basic account. So now that the account is set we need to build and upload feed. This can be done in multiple ways however the most common being, sending a .txt or .csv file or sending an .xml file are using the API to built tools to automatically deliver feed.
Today we shall talk about uploading feed using the very simple and basic excel file.
Now that we have decide excel is the file that we are going to use. We need to select the kind of products or categories that we are going to advertise on Google base. This is the feed specification file that will help in deciding the kind of attributes you are going to use in the feed file.
Chose the kind of products you are planning to list on Google base and then pull out the maxim no. of attributes that describe your products apart from the usual once. And Googlebase also gives you an option of adding custom attributes. The more the attributes the more searchable your products are. Once your excel file is ready with the header (all the attributes you have chosen fill the respective columns with your product details. And save the file in a .txt format. With a name let me call it the Googlebase feed file name.
We need to setup the Google base account with the basic information like the website url, communication email, payment method accepted and the time zone and stuff. So once the account is all set and the feed file is ready we need to upload the feed.
Feed can be uploaded through the interface if the feed file is less than 20mb else we need to FTP the feed using a ftp client. the FTP information can be had from the interface where there is an option to upload the feed. And before upload the feed we need to register the feed file name on the Googlebase interface with the same name with which we have saved our Google base feed file.
Once the upload is done do not for get to upload the feed at regular intervals the feed expires every 31 days. So make sure to upload the feed atleast once in a month.
Now that the account is set, feed is built and uploaded its time for us to track the results. We can track the basic data on the interface but its always good to start using the free analytics tool from Google, Google analytics. Sure will give you all the details on setting up the Google analytics account in the coming posts.
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