Retailers looking for help in developing a successful keyword strategy can turn to Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. for help. Both search engines have resources to assist retailers set up paid search marketing programs.
Google analyzes a retailer’s site by category, product and SKU to help it determine which keywords are working and which aren’t, says John McAteer, Google’s director of retail for vertical market growth. In some cases, retailers don’t know some of their categories are receiving little or no coverage in the Google system, “obviously, red flags if you’re trying to maximize the revenue you’re getting and your products aren’t even in our system,” he says.
Based on an analysis, Google works with the retailer to develop new keywords tied to the retailers’ product SKUs. Google also provides free analytics to help retailers make sure their keywords are efficient and providing a good return on investment, McAteer says,
“That helps with landing page optimization, it helps with knowing what keywords are working, which ones are not, and we make it very easy to implement,” he says.
Google also recently began testing a new tool—the Google Website Optimizer—which allows retailers to see which combination of headlines, copy and images produce the best results. “It’s really an extension to our analytics package,” McAteer says. “We want to make sure the right keyword lands on the right page and have the right outcome for the advertiser. Most savvy marketers understand that minor tweaks to the web site can make huge differences.”
Yahoo, too, is launching a new ad platform that will allow retailers in its paid search program to test multiple ads against a keyword, says Diane Rinaldo, senior director of retail categories for Yahoo Search Marketing.
“You can put two or five or 10 different pages up there and ask the tool to auto-optimize—pick the best performing one and turn the others off, if you choose,” she says.
In addition, Yahoo provides seasonal keyword guides that enable retailers to select the words most likely to produce the best results at different times of the year. For example, near Mother’s Day, keywords such as Mother’s Day Gift or Gift for Wife would produce the best results. “We have lists of hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of seasonal keywords,” she says.
In addition, for retailers using natural search, Yahoo’s Search Submit program will incorporate data feeds from the merchant into its index. “The index will determine which of the retailer’s pages should show up on different keyword searches,” Rinaldo says. “We’re not relying on the web crawler to go out there and find all of those pages.”
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