Video Length: 50 sec.

In an interview with Webpronews at the SES conference, ToolBarn.com’s Brian Mark and NeO1SEO’s David Brown spoke with us about Google Base. This online database is another opportunity to get listed in Google, which in turn, generates a lot of traffic. Although it does make your products available, a lot more is involved than simply the process of throwing your product out there. Optimization also plays a key role in the process.

Various formats are usable when feeding to Google Base. For users previously involved with Froogle (Google Product Search), Google Base will still accept a flat file. If that is not the case, users can simply fill out a form and submit it on the Google Base site and their products will be listed. Another option users can use is to create an xml-feed. After the products are set into Google Base, many times companies want OneBox results. To get OneBox results, users can click on the More option, followed by the Froogle option, and then click on one of its listings. According to Mark, the results should show up within the next 10-15 seconds.

As a retailer, if your product is not placing very well in the searches, there may be a simple solution to your big problem. First, go to the top three products and see what their companies are submitting. They may have longer title tags, keywords in the description, or even their own custom attributes. According to Mark and Brown, retailers should always put the product first when making the title tags. Many retailers make the mistake of putting the company name first, but it is actually recommended to put it at the end of the title tag. The company name at the end will help with branding and future search results. The title tags may be long, but the more information they contain the better they will do in searches. Each title tag does have a limit of 54 characters, but each page can contain as much information as possible. All these suggestions could aid to bring products to the top three in searches.

Both Alan and Brian have noted that since implementing common SEO strategies into their respective online shops, their businesses have seen almost exponential growth in both traffic and revenue streams. What areas did these intrepid entrepreneurs focus on with their site optimization strategies? One fundamental aspect they both agree upon is the balance between paid and organic search listings. Focusing too much on one or the other is not the most efficient way to achieve optimum search rankings, but a holistic approach that takes focuses on the interdependency of paid and organic listings has proven to be the most effective strategy in the long term.

Also, pay-per-click should be viewed as more of a testing mechanism to chart the conversion rates for certain keywords, rather than a complete marketing tool. Social media is playing an increasingly important role in online retail, so it may be in the best interests of retailers to tap the blogosphere for product reviews, with the caveat of full disclosure if the reviewer is receiving product compensation for his or her time. The goal should be to facilitate discussion about your products, and not to influence the conversation.

What other tips and tricks to Alan and Brian suggest for e-tailers? You’ll have to watch the video to find out!