Google Shopping Title Attribute Optimization – Google Merchant Center

The title is one of the essential attributes for ranking and increasing your CTR for both Shopping Ads, Buy on Google, Free Listings, and Display Ads.

Why Optimize The Title?

Optimizing your title increases your data feed quality, which results in better performance. This means you get more eligible impressions due to the higher ranking, and you get better click-through rates due to better visual text and search query matches.

You can expect as much as 200% improvement by correctly building your titles.

Improved titles are beneficial for both Google’s algorithm and consumers reading the title.

The latest client since writing this article, where I improved the titles, had an immediate impact in getting more impressions and more clicks.

Graph When Changing Titles

Can Shopping Ad Titles Be Different VS Landing Page Titles?

Absolutely yes, as long as you describe the products accurately, you can have different titles on your website vs your data feed.

You can also change up the titles vs your website SEO structured data title, and you can add extra keywords.

Basics

Length:

The recommended length for a title is between 60 and 80 characters long, with up to a maximum of 150 characters. The recommendation is based on your ads’ average maximum visible length, based on current ad formats. This is 70 characters long.

Capitalization:

Do not full cap words unless it is a commonly known abbreviation or word. You can, however, capitalize the first letter of each word.

  • Bad Example: ADIDAS SPORT SHOES SIZE 9
  • Good Example: Adidas Sport Shoes Size 9
Section Separation:

Separate your titles using hyphens or pipelines. This helps users to read your titles easily.

  • For example:
    • Thule – Fastride Bike Carrier 564001 – Black
    • Thule | Fastride Bike Carrier 564001, Black
Promotional:

Do not include any promotional text such as shipping, prices, discounts, dates etc.

Language:

Match the language used for the target country. For example, if your target country is the United Kingdom, then make sure your grammar is UK English and not US English. Or, if your target country is the United States, do not submit the French language.

  • Exception: When a foreign word is commonly used in the target country
Spam:

Avoid titles that include repetitive keywords or keywords that all sound the same but written slightly differently. The more spammy your title sounds, the more likely you will get the product disapproved.

Character Type:

Do not use special repetitive characters, emojis, or combinations of characters, symbols that create a smiley.

Variants:

When you submit variants, make sure not to submit the same title for each variant. Instead, each title needs to be unique. You can do this by including what variates between each product. For example, it differs in size and color, then submit the size and color alongside the base title.

  • Bad Example: Adidas Sport Shoes
  • Good Example:
    • Adidas Sport Shoes – Blue Size 9
    • Adidas Sport Shoes – Blue Size 10
    • Adidas Sport Shoes – Red Size 9
    • Adidas Sport Shoes – Red Size 10
Numeric Values:

Use numeric values such as 1, 2, 3, 4 instead of using words such as one, two, three, four.

Generic vs Branded Titles

When selling white-label products, it is better to use generic titles.

  • For example:
    • Black 5 Panel Caps

If you are selling well-known brands, make sure the brand, product name, and model number are included.

  • For example:
    • Samsung Galaxy S11

Title Cutoff

Keep in mind how titles look in different ad formats and different devices. What is more visible on the shopping tab, is less visible on web search carousel. Or what is more visible on a desktop compared to less visible titles on a smartphone.

Titles can be as short as 25 characters or as long as 150 characters.

Visual Comparison

Keyword Research

Analyze your customer search queries and find a pattern of how your customers are searching if you have identified how customers are searching, then include these search terms at the beginning of your title.

It is extremely easy to get underperforming titles from missing keywords to incorrect title structured (explained below). Creating titles based on how consumers search is the best method.

You can use Google Analytics or Google Search Console.

Don’t have your own data? You can also use SpyFu or SemRush.

You can also use suggested search terms on Google, Yahoo, Bing or DuckDuckGo. You might find different suggestions based on each search engine.

And if you are already paying for advertising in Google Ads, you can use Google’s Keyword Planner.

You might find that they search for Brand + Product ID. Then, in this case, including the brand, followed by product id, followed by product title.

Or are they searching by product type/category followed by size or color? Then, follow this pattern in your titles.

Title Structure Recommendations

Some commonly known structures can be used to get you started depending on the type of products you sell.

Electronics

Brand + Attributes + Product Type + Model Number

Consumables

Brand + Product Type + Attributes (weight, count, volume)

Books

Title + Type + Format + Author

Seasonal

Occasion + Product Type + Attributes (size, color, age group, pattern, material, size system)

Homeware

Brand + Product + Attributes (size, color, material, pattern)

Apparel

Brand + Designer + Gender + Product Type + Attributes (size, color, age group, gender, pattern, material, size system)

Tools & Materials

Product Type + Size + Attributes (size, color, material, pattern) + Public MPN or SKU

Accessories

Brand + Material + Feature + Product Type + Public MPN or SKU

Public MPN or SKU’s are identifiers used by the manufacturer that are visually available on the website. For example, Thule, a car accessory business, would list the model number on their page technical specifications. In this case, you should add the MPN in your title.

Store Name

While many manufacturers sell their products, there are many more retailers on Google Shopping. I have a client in the UK that sells curated products. This company is very famous in the homeware sector, and after some analysis, we found that many consumers have a high trust factor in this company. And tend to search for products with the store name.

By adding your store name at the end of the title, you may find a common search pattern to use in your titles.

  • For example:
    • Hasami Porcelain Black Bowl From xyz.com

Title Grammar Variations

It is good to have slightly different grammatical variations for products in the same category, using singular and plural, or non at all.

  • For Example:
    • UGG Premium Scuff Slippers
    • UGG Scuff Slipper
    • UGG Roozee Premium Scuff Slipper
    • UGG Classic Women’s Scuff
    • UGG Premium Ankle Slippers

Targeting Multiple Countries

When targeting multiple countries, make sure you submit a unique data feed for each country. For example, if you sell apparel, you can not use the UK sizing in Europe compared to the United States. The importance of the title is to match the language, grammar, and sizing system for that specific country.

How To Create Your Titles

Data Feed Management:

The easiest way to create custom titles is using datafeedwatch. This tool allows you to use simple rules, reg ex, different source, spreadsheet lookups, and more. It’s by far pretty advanced, and I use this for all my clients.

Feed Rules:

You could use Google Merchant Center Feed Rules. However, the requirement is to submit all your data, be it brand, product title, or custom attributes. This means you do need a data feed solution that can submit your required attributes.

Once you have all the data, it’s as simple as setting up the rules. You can merge, split, append, prepend, combine, and much more.

Google Merchant Center Feed Rules

View Post

Supplement Feeds:

By far, adding a supplement feed is the easiest method. Use a spreadsheet, add your product IDs as a column and add your titles. Once you submit the spreadsheet, you will overwrite the default data.

Supplement Google Sheets

Additional Benefit

The additional benefit for optimizing your titles is avoiding search query mismatch. This happens when poorly optimized titles get a lot of irrelevant search terms. If you are spending time excluding search terms into the negative keyword list then this is a big signal that your titles need improving.

By improving your titles, you should have a small negative keyword list.

Having many irrelevant search terms can also be caused by categories, product type, descriptions, variant attributes, or missing product identifiers.

Need Help?

Subscribe
Notify of
guest
2 Comments
Newest
Oldest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
John
John
2 months ago

What about using words like buy or buy now at the start of the title?

2
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x