The Funnel

How to optimize your Google Shopping Titles

The title to your Google Shopping Ads is one of the most critical parts of your ecommerce campaigns.

A catchy, concise and accurate title will ensure the right shoppers click on your ads and buy your product.

More importantly, Google uses your product titles to determine if your listing is relevant to a user's search query.

So making sure your title attribute is correct is one of the best ways to make sure your products will satisfy Google's matching algorithm.

We've put together a list of 8 tips for how to optimize your Google Shopping product titles.

1. Think Like Your Shoppers

While it may seem like Google values the product image the most, the product title is just as important.

Effective titles for google shopping ads emphasize the most relevant product attributes.

This is done so that shoppers can easily skim through an ad and determine if the product is worth clicking on or not.

Succesfully selling products online is actually no different to selling in person: you need to know your customer, your target audience.

Researching your customers so that you know what attributes of a product matter most to them is one of the best ways to create good product titles.

2. Why Product Titles are Important

Product titles are one of the easiest feed attributes you can enhance that will cause a direct improvement in the performance of your ads.

Despite this, many retailers dismiss the importance of the title to their ads, whether because of laziness or because they are stretched for time.

A study by by SearchEngineLand a few years ago took three groups of products, one control group with original titles, and 2 groups with enriched titles that included category information, additional attributes and search terms.

So how do you get these results? A big aspect is conducting keyword research.

Knowing how your customers search for your products online will enable you to incorporate those search terms into your product titles. This will cause impressions to increase for your ads, and likewise CTR and conversions.

3. Google’s Requirements for Product Titles

Google has strict requirements for what can and cannot be included in product titles. These include:

Length

The limit to your product titles is 150 characters, and in some cases only 70 characters will get displayed, depending on whether mobile is being used.

Any characters that go past that length will get cut off. So make sure your most important keywords are at the beginning of your title.

Capitalization

Google bans text in all capitals as it is a common spam tactic. Use capitalization only when it is needed, such as in abbreviations, phone numbers or short versions of country names.

Promotional text

Don’t add information such as price, sale price, sale dates, shipping, delivery date, other time-related information, or your company’s name. That information is reserved for other attributes and shouldn't be in the title.

Foreign languages

Mixing up languages in your ads is not a good approach, unless they are understood by everyone. Ensure the title of your product is in the language of the market you are selling in.

Distinguish between product versions

Be as specific as possible with all the different versions of your product. If you are selling bikes, and you have the same bike in a black, red and green color, include the color in the product title with a matching image for each.

4. Keywords in Product Titles

Google uses attributes of your titles as a proxy for keywords, so optimizing them and other feed data is crucial to improving the campaign’s performance.

Best practices that exist already for SEO and PPC can be utilized for your shopping ads.

If you know your industry well, then you will likely already know how your customers are searching for your products.

For example, do they typically search for the brand name? If so, then put the brand name first in your product title.

However, if you have little brand unawareness or are selling unbranded items, then put descriptive words first.

Other important points could be the category a product is in or its UPI.

A great place to look for keywords is in the search query report for your campaigns, focusing on those queries that are converting well.

Most importantly, remember to put the keywords that you want to rank for at the start of your product title, since Google puts more weight to words that are at the beginning of a title.

5. Vary Product Titles based on the industry

The attributes that are relevant for one product may not be the same for another product.

For example, model numbers are important for cars or electronics, but play no role in clothing or books.

Generally speaking, here are some formulas that work well for a few different products:

Apparel

Brand + Gender + Product Type + Attributes (color, size, material)

Consumables

Brand + Product Type + Attributes (weight, count)

Furniture

Brand + Product + Attributes (size, weight, quantity)

Electronics

Brand + Attributes + Product Type + Model #

Seasonal

Occasion + Product Type + Attributes

Books

Title + Type + Format (hardover, eBook) + Author

6. What Does An Optimized Product Title Look Like?

To figure out which attributes should be added to your product title, you need to understand how Google’s algorithm chooses products to be displayed to the searcher.

Generally, Google assumes the wrods at the beginning of a product title are the most important when selecting which ads are relevant to a search query. So the order is key.

Here are some recommended title structures that can be used as templates:

Brand + Product Type + Color + Material
Brand + Size (length, width, height) + Product Type + Color
Material + Product Type + Color + Brand
Style + Color + Product Type + Brand
Product Type + Size + Color + Feature + Brand

Advertising Product Variations Efficiently

If you're selling a product with multiple variants, each color, size, material, and pattern must be submitted as a unique item with the unique title.

This is when you have to decide if you want to advertise a “parent” product on its own, or also advertise its variants. Pay attention to this detail as it’s easy to overlook.

How to Include All The Important Attributes in Titles

When you have completed a comprehensive analysis of your reports, vertical and product types, you can then combine the most relevant attributes in your title. In DataFeedWatch this can be done easily, with the assistance of rule-based mapping.

To include every relevant attribute in your title, you can simply combine them, like below:

8. How to Optimize Google Shopping Product Title

1. Follow Google's Requirements for Product Titles

Google has very strict rules for the use of capitals and exclamations marks. If you add too many capitals and exclamation marks to your title, Google won’t approve your products.

To avoid disapproval, follow Google Shopping's regulations to the word. Check the most important title requirements here.

2. Use Your Search Query Performance Data to Inform Your Changes

Use the Google Ads search terms report to see what the highest performing queries are, and what ended up landing your conversions.

Search console (organic results) and Google Trends may be additional sources for insights.

3. Add Keywords to Your Product Titles

Google digests your feed and chooses what queries, or keywords your shopping ads are the most relevant for. Optimize the titles of your products by putting the most important keywords at the forefront of your titles.

4. Place Important Information First

Google will show as much of your product title as they can, but it will often be shortened. Make sure you put the most compelling information at the beginning of your product titles.

5. Include Modifiers Like Color, Size, Material, and Specifics

Remember that shoppers often use these words to refine their searches. It is worth being as specific, and detailed as possible. This approach will increase your chances of being shown for relevant searches, and therefore increase your conversion rate.

6. Follow the Best Practices for Your Vertical

Depending on what you’re selling you need to adjust your attribute tactics. Try and think about how your customer would search and then decide what kind of features are relevant enough to be added. Check the recommended title structure per vertical here.

7. Add Category and Brand to Product Title

Brand loyalty is one of the most important parts of why people make a purchase. Many shoppers are looking for specific brand products or categories. If your brand is already quite well known amongst your audience, make sure to include it in your ads.

8. Make Ongoing Tests and Improvements

A well-optimized product title can double or even triple your click-through rate, and improve your conversion. But there is no one specific way to create product titles. Remember that different types of consumers search in different ways, and they are all on a different stage of the purchasing path. Try to modify your titles according to statistics and performance.

Conclusion

Without an optimized product title, you may waste precious ad budget and miss countless opportunities to convert shoppers. Going the extra mile, and fully optimizing your product titles is definitely worth the effort.

Start with your 10 bestselling products, or 10% of the best-selling products. It is likely you will see a positive impact of your changes within a few weeks.

By taking the time to optimize your Google Shopping product titles, you can ensure you are always one step ahead of the competition.