CSEO - Comparison Shopping Engine Optimization

What’s CSEO anyway?

Let’s start by stating what I think is a pretty obvious point: General Internet search engines index web site content whereas shopping search engines typically index merchant product data feed content. This discussion is focused on search engine optimization (SEO) for your data feed driven referral or marketplace channels. We call this type of optimization ‘CSEO’ or Comparison Shopping Engine Optimization.

At Mercent Corporation I coined the application of the acronym C-S-E-O to the optimization of a retailer’s electronic product catalog for placement within the search indexes of comparison shopping search portals such as Google Product Search, Shopzilla, NexTag, Pricegrabber and many others. CSEO has become one of the ways to refer to shopping search engine optimization much the same way as SEO refers to general search engine optimization.

Dust off the 80/20 (or 95/ 5) rule

The concepts behind CSEO are pretty simple though like SEO the application of those concepts is ever evolving and can be time and resource intensive. Because of the level of effort you may need to limit the number of product ads you initially optimize CSE keyword searches on and the number of search engines you optimize for. Don’t worry, the long tail will benefit also. Once you perfect your CSEO placement for the head terms, then programmatically apply these learnings the best you can to lower value product listings.

What’s the goal?

That being said, a little effort should pay off in large gains in referrals that are better qualified. Better CSE search results position on more relevant high value keywords means more sales at an improved ad spend efficiency.

The big caveat

This discussion intentionally ignores (for now) the effects of: merchant ratings; product ad or category level bids; featured merchant status or sponsorships, category mapping; use of logos; promo text / rebates; adjustments to prices and shipping offers or (in the case of Google Product Search) page rank on CSE ad search results placement. Bidding, featured merchant status and sponsorships are not technically CSEO but basically everything else mentioned above is.

CSEO data optimization is the foundation… and can make the long tail wag

What I do want to focus this post on are the concepts of core CSEO or per shopping channel data optimization. You’ll decide how much to rely on data optimization as you optimize the other aspects of your CSE presence.

Key point: If you start with great CSEO keyword optimization you can always push position and drive referrals / conversion in other ways. CSEO also provides a needed foundation for great returns on the long tail of your product catalog on the CSEs where the conversion rates on specific products listings are marginal and can not justify bidding.

Conform to the specs

Generally, each shopping channel has a native data feed specification. In some cases they have more than one for different product types. It’s fundamental that you adhere to the specification closely and make sure the data document (whether it’s a flat file or XML) is 100% compliant with the intent and the letter of the specification. Don’t be afraid to concatenate, truncate, regex and generally parse and transform the data you have available to work with to match the true intent of the data field or element. Go beyond the required fields and include search terms and product attributes whereever possible.

Transform your product content for each CSE

Initially applying CSEO to a shopping channel feed involves research. Ongoing CSEO efforts require testing and monitoring. Here’s the concept…

Phase 1: Initial CSEO… research and feed building that are keyword aware and CSE specific

Identify your highest value natural and paid search terms. The list can come from Google Site Map reports, your site search engine, your Web analytics reports or your Google / Yahoo! search marketing reports. However you compile the list make sure it includes the most popular and highest converting product related searches.

Associate those search terms with the products they actually sold. This can be done with your Web analytics, or with custom tracking that associates a referring query string search term with a user’s cookie.

Research those keywords on your target comparison shopping engine. Re-sort the search results list based on relevancy. See what product listings or groups of product listings come up on the search results.

Optimize for shared product detail pages. If your products are part number driven and will be on a shared secondary product detail page, note the part numbers and model numbers displayed that you will need to match your products too. Use those part numbers in your data feed!

Optimize for stand alone search results. If your products are not part number or UPC / ISBN driven products then note how your competitor’s titles are constructed. Mimic that formula and, if it is natural to do so, include the highest converting keyword(s) for that product ad in your title AND description.

Phase 2: Ongoing CSEO… testing and refinement

Benchmark. After you publish your data feed with your initial CSEO constructs wait at least four days and then benchmark how you did. Do all of your top converting products for each high value keyword show up under those keywords on your target CSE when the search results are resorted by relevancy? If so, you’re a CSEO savant!! If not, don’t sweat it… the testing phase will get you there.

Do controlled testing. Take all the product listings that are not appearing as you intended. Sort them into groups of similar items. What you are doing is creating segments for controlled tests. Now for each group (segment) divide the group randomly into two sets. With one set you’ll do nothing but leave them in the mix. For the other segment you’ll go back to the research in Phase 1 and begin the process again. It’s important to compare your results to those of the control group to know if your CSEO really worked (or not). It could have been that there was a change in a CSE search or matching algorithm that you had no control over.

Monitor. Once you’re dialed in on your highest converting products on the highest value search terms then monitor the product listing search placements weekly to see how you’re doing. Make adjustments and continue to hand optimize the product listings that drive your business.

Comments? Let me know your thoughts below. We’d all benefit by a good discussion.