Black Friday PDF Guide

Oct 31, 2011 |  Partnerships

Volusion.com, a VersaFeed ecommerce partner, released a great guide to surviving (and hopefully prospering!) during the "Black Friday" weekend. The PDF is available here.

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Creating adCenter account for Bing Shopping

Jun 22, 2011 |  Bing Shopping, Knowledge Base

Shortly after the end of Bing's Cashback program Microsoft bundled Bing Shopping into adCenter -- Microsoft's multi-channel advertising platform. Since then, listing on Bing Shopping requires the creation of an adCenter account. Although we would like to create this account for you, we can't. Since adCenter requires a credit card during the account setup we will need you to create your account then send us your account info. Keep in mind Bing Shopping ...

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Claim Your Website in Google Merchant Center

Jun 22, 2011 |  Google Product Search, Google, Knowledge Base

While more than one Google Account can verify a website URL, only one account has the right to upload and publish products via Google Merchant Center for a given website. VersaFeed will be creating and uploading your data feeds to this claimed account. Once you have verified your website URL with Google Webmaster Tools you can now claim your website in Google Merchant Center: 1.Sign into your Google Merchant Center account.2.On the ...

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Verify Your Website URL with Google

Jun 22, 2011 |  Google Product Search, Google, Knowledge Base

In order to claim your website URL in Google Merchant Center you first need to verify your URL with Google Webmaster Tools. This is Google's way to ensure you have ownership of a website in order to use their suite of website tools like Google Merchant Center and Google Analytics. It's relatively painless, but you do need access to your website admin area: 1.Log into Google Webmaster Tools.(Note: Make sure to ...

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VersaFeed Partners with Shopify

Apr 05, 2011 |  Partnerships

Today VersaFeed is pleased to announce a partnership with Shopify, a leading ecommerce provider. VersaFeed works with just about every shopping platform on the market, and Shopify easily ranks among the best. So when we were approached about a possible partnership, we were very excited to get started. VersaFeed will begin offering data feed services to Shopify clients immediately via the Shopify App Store. Shopify's ecommerce platform blends the perfect amount of high-tech and ...

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Product Listing Ads: Google AdWords Done Right

Jan 05, 2011 |  Google, AdWords, Product Extensions, Product Listing Ads

Summary: How to promote your products, on a budget, using Google AdWords Advertising. The most popular form of online advertising is, far and away, Google AdWords. It is a proven platform that, when configured properly, can drive massive traffic to your website. The problem is, AdWords is extremely complex and professional management can cost a fortune. However, there is an elegant solution to this problem: Google AdWords Product Listing Ads Utilizing Product Listings Ads, you ...

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Google AdWords Product Listing Ads

Dec 18, 2010 |  Google Product Search, AdWords, Product Listing Ads

What Are Product Listing Ads? Product Listing Ads, or PLA's, are a new ad format on the Google AdWords Network. Google has been beta testing these ads for a year, and as of November 11th, 2010, are now allowing all U.S. retailers to utilize the new format. Below are two screenshots demonstrating what these new ads look like (click to enlarge): Notice in both of these examples the ads with images in the ...

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Linking Google Merchant Center with Google Checkout

Dec 13, 2010 |  Google Product Search, Google Checkout

Linking your Google Merchant Center (aka, Google Base or Google Product Search) account with your Google Checkout account can provide the following benefits: Product listings in Google Product Search can appear with the Google Checkout badge.It helps establish a Google "seller rating" for your Google Merchant Center account.Product listings can be filtered in Google Product Search via "Show Only Google Checkout" links.To link the accounts: 1.Login to Google Checkout and copy ...

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Recommended Comparison Shopping Engines

Dec 10, 2010 |  PPC, On a Budget, Best Practices

Our core recommendation is to maximize your product exposure on free shopping engines first. There are three of note: Google Product Search, Bing Shopping, and TheFind. These three free shopping engines, once properly tuned, can provide a solid stream of new customers to your website with no pay-per-click fees. The only downside is that competition is fierce among the free shopping engines. Having an optimized product data feed created by VersaFeed will help ensure your ...

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Top 10 Data Feed Tips & Tricks

Dec 10, 2010 |  Google Product Search, Best Practices

Looking for some sure-fire methods to maximize your exposure on the shopping engines? These time-proven techniques will help ensure your success on comparison shopping engines: 1.Craft your product titles carefully. Product titles are given extreme importance on the shopping engines when matching against consumer searches. Ensure you include the brand, what the product is, and any distinguishing features. More info on product titles »2.Focus on the three free comparison shopping engines first: Google ...

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Linking Google Merchant Center With Google AdWords

Oct 28, 2010 |  Google Product Search, AdWords, Product Extensions

Google is experimenting with a variety of AdWords features that can only be enabled by linking your Google Merchant Center Account with your Google AdWords account. This gives AdWords access to your raw inventory data feeds. If you have a professional Google AdWords management team, we recommend that you have them read this article and enable these features as they see fit. Step-By-Step Linking Instructions 1.Log in to your Google AdWords account and write ...

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Increasing Product Rank in Google Product Search

Oct 02, 2010 |  Google Product Search, Best Practices, Product Titles

Before we can address how to increase rankings in Google Product Search, we need to examine exactly what criteria Google Product Search uses to determine product rank. Unfortunately, Google keeps most of this information secret — so much of our information is gleaned from observational experience over the years. Google published facts Include as much info about each product as you can. There are many product attributes that can be specified in the data feed, use ...

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Writing Effective Product Titles

Sep 08, 2010 |  Best Practices, Product Titles

Carefully crafted product titles can dramatically boost your inventory's visibility on the comparison shopping engines (CSE's). It can also help with SEO. Let's dive right in with some example product titles: BAD: Golf Polo, PlaidGOOD: Tommy Hilfiger Men's Golf Polo Shirt, PlaidBAD: Red Schwinn Beach CruiserGOOD: Red Schwinn "Winwood" Beach Cruiser 3-Gear BicycleWhen consumers search for your products on shopping engines we don't know what search terms they will use ...

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Adding Your Business to Google Places / Google Local

Aug 25, 2010 |  Google Places, On a Budget, Best Practices, Google

If you are a business owner with a website and a brick & mortar storefront, you can increase your Google visibility for free by adding your business to Google Places. Google Places is simply Google's method of allowing companies to register information about their physical store. Google then uses this information in a variety of ways to boost your store's online presence. Here are some examples: A search on Google for "San Francisco pet ...

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Goodbye Cashback, Hello Bing Shopping

Aug 16, 2010 |  Bing Shopping

On June 4th, Bing announced they were retiring the Cashback shopping program in favor of something else. It looks as if most of the dust has finally settled and we now have a fairly accurate look at where Bing Shopping will be headed: 1)  It's a free shopping engine, with no pay-per-click or pay-per-action (aka CPA) fees of any kind. This is obviously going to attract a lot of new retailers to list with ...

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Bidding Strategies for PPC Shopping Engines

Aug 16, 2010 |  PPC, Best Practices, PPC Bidding

Bidding strategies are important for PPC (pay-per-click) shopping engines. All major shopping engines (with the exception of Google Product Search and Bing Shopping) are PPC, and most allow for a variable bid. To be successful on sites like Shopzilla, PriceGrabber, Amazon Product Ads, and NexTag, you must have a competent bidding strategy. There are two important tasks to consider: Initial bidding strategyOngoing bidding strategiesInitial Bidding Strategy Don't list your inexpensive products.For example, it ...

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Google Product Search Seller Ratings, Part 3

Jul 08, 2009 |  Google Product Search, Seller Ratings, Best Practices, Google

In previous blog entries we've looked at the importance of Google Product Search "seller ratings" and how to use Google Checkout to obtain these ratings. This blog entry will focus on an alternative way of obtaining seller ratings utilizing ResellerRatings.com. ResellerRatings was founded in 1996 and allows consumers to review online merchants. They are generally regarded as fair to both merchants and consumers. We are interested in ResellerRatings because Google periodically extracts merchant ...

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Google Product Search Seller Ratings, Part 2

Jul 08, 2009 |  Google Product Search, Seller Ratings, Best Practices, Google

Last blog we discussed the best methods to have "seller ratings" listed next to your products on Google Product Search. We focused on two methods: using Google Checkout, and using ResellerRatings.com. This article will focus on the first option, Google Checkout. While Google Checkout doesn't seem like a product that has anything to do with customer reviews, it actually does. Part of the Google Checkout system includes automated emails which request reviews from ...

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Google Product Search Seller Ratings - Part 1

Jul 08, 2009 |  Google Product Search, Seller Ratings, Best Practices, Google

(This post has two sequel posts: Part 2 and Part 3) While searching on Google Product Search you'll frequently notice that some merchants have a "reviews" or "seller ratings" listed next to their store (see example). These ratings are incredibly important as consumers are more willing to do business with retailers they consider trustworthy — even if the product price is not the lowest. Google seller ratings consist of a 1 to 5 star visual ...

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