Why is Amazon SEO important?
Not ranking on Amazon’s search engine, called A9, will dramatically affect your sales. Organically gaining traffic to your product listings is crucial for being successful on Amazon.
Every search on Amazon is transactional as it’s eCommerce platform first. Amazon SEO is all about gaining traffic that has a high purchase intent by the customers.
Investing time with proper research will help you combat the competition in the search engine.
Amazon’s search engine is all about providing the most relevant products to their customers when they are searching for them.
Being first in Amazon searches can make your business a lucrative venture.
Understanding what increases sales for Amazon is the key to understanding how amazon SEO works. Serving customers with relevant keywords increase conversions and leads to higher rankings.
Like any other search engine Amazon A9, can and will change in the future through updates, and should consistently be on your radar to keep succeeding.
If you’re running an online store, too, you should learn more about ecommerce SEO from our guide.
Amazon Key Figures 2019:
Amazon is the largest eCommerce site in the world and reaches around 210 million U.S visitors every month.
2019 Key figures:
- 150 million Amazon Prime members
- 57% of U.S Amazon customers were Amazon Prime members
- The most popular product category was electronics, and the price was the biggest factor driving buyer decisions.
- On average a Prime member spent 1,400 USD on Amazon in 2019.
- Read more statistics on Statista.
Amazon SEO Ranking Factors and How To Optimize
Relevant Keywords
Utilizing relevant keywords is one of the most important parts of Amazon SEO. You want your products to be found with the right keywords at any given time.
Choose keywords that are relevant to your products and make sure that the chosen keywords have the highest search volume as possible. Simple keyword variations might have drastically different search volumes at play.
Start by creating a keyword list that consists anywhere between 3-6 keywords.
Search through Amazon and see what words the competition is using. Especially look for the first five products and analyze them.
Remember to search with variations as well. Amazon’s algorithm is getting better at recognizing variations, but there are still opportunities to be found.
Use Amazon keyword tools to discover more relevant keywords for your products:
The best keywords are those that your customers are using. Acquiring the mindset of the buyer will help you discover the best keywords for any given product. Document your search patterns and use the pattern to discover more words.
Keywords and their search volumes can change. Keep ahead of the competition by updating your keyword list accordingly.
As with updating your keywords, remember to test new variables from time to time to see which combinations of keywords might work for you the best.
Product Title
The product title is the first thing that a customer will see of your product listing in the search engine. A title is the opportunity to convert the customer to your product instead of the competition.
The title has to have the most relevant keywords that match the product.
Tips on making the best title for amazon products:
- Be descriptive of the product
- Include essential features or ingredients
- Include materials and colors
- Packaging and size, when it’s relevant.
- Product quantity, if your product comes in multiples.
- Include the Brand name
The best titles only add the most relevant keywords and don’t try to add too many of them. Too many keywords fall into keyword stuffing territory and make a title unnatural to read.
A title has to be readable, and a title with too many specs, features, or keywords will be confusing for your customer.
Chosen keywords should be at the beginning of the title. It’s important to influence the customer the first time they see your product and make them convert right away. In some cases, including your seller name in the title, can increase your results. You can test it by choosing your keyword and having your seller name in front of it.
The method will have varying effects on results and should be tested and then decided upon if it brought the wanted results.
Including the seller name can be beneficial if you have been on the platform for some time successfully, and customers are directly trying to search for you.
As always, remember to test it carefully first.
Product Description
The product description is key when selling to a customer online and should be very detailed and convincing to make a sale.
Produce a description that is readable first and includes the chosen relevant keywords naturally.
Think about what your target customer would want to read about your product. If you have data available, see what combination has worked the best for you in the past.
Introduce a clear call to action (CTA) in the end. A Clear CTA will increase conversions and will be a subtle reminder for the customer to finish their purchase and not choose a competing listing.
Utilize storytelling in your descriptions to make them stand out from the competition. Explain and tell your customers why your product would make their life better and always solve a customer’s problem.
Bullet points
Using bullet points to tell your customer your product’s main features is important.
The bullet points are before the product descriptions and are a method to keep your customers reading further.
The bullet points should include:
- The best benefits of your products
- Materials, ingredients, and sizes
- Include relevant keywords naturally
Brand Field
Users tend to search for products with brand names, and it makes optimizing the brand field a crucial step.
The brand field is located above headlines and titles, and it functions as a link to search products from the same brand.
Always make sure to spell the brand name correctly to be matched properly.
In some cases, your product might include more brand names, and in that case, it’s best to research which of the brand names are the most searched.
Backend Keywords
Backend keywords tell the Amazon search engine that a product is targeting a certain group of keywords in the search engine.
Backend keywords help Amazon better serve its customers and the products to be more relevant on the platform.
The backend keywords are not visible for the customer in the listings. They are only seen by you in your backend section in your account.
Inside the backend section, there are five fields with a 50 – character limit to be filled with keywords. Any character over the limit is not indexed. Avoid going over the limit.
Tips for setting up backend keywords:
- Don’t use commas
- Don’t use quotations
- Don’t repeat keywords
- Include synonyms
- Don’t use too similar variations of the keywords
- Try different spelling variations within the keyword.
- Utilize the 50 character limit to the max
Product Price
Prices that don’t match the competition will have a harder time ranking higher. A product price too low or high from the average will negatively affect your Amazon SEO.
Optimizing product prices to match your competition will not only help the ranking but will make your listing more appealing to the end customer.
It doesn’t mean you can’t sell with higher prices and receive a worse ranking, but you must provide the added value that justifies the higher prices. Your customers will know the difference.
Having lower prices than the competition has a positive effect on sales, click-through rates, and conversion. Make sure to be on top of your margin at all times, though.
Sales & Conversions
As the biggest eCommerce platform out there, Amazon rewards sales with higher rankings to achieve even more sales.
Optimizing sales can be hard organically, and if possible external traffic should be generated at first.
Employ paid online advertising like Facebook Ads, and Google Ads to receive your first sales.
You can always try to achieve your first sales from your network, as well.
Driving traffic with Amazon Advertising is an option to be considered.
Getting the first sales are crucial for Amazon SEO and having a strategy for obtaining it is important.
Out-of-Stock
Not having your product available on Amazon, is a bad signal, you don’t want to have.
All the hard work building up your product listing and its ranking will go to waste if there’s no product to be purchased.
Your out-of-stock products will increase your bounce rates, decreasing your rankings as amazon is about selling more.
Keep sure to have your products in stock at all times to not lose ranking in the short term.
Product Images in Amazon SEO
High-quality and inviting images have a higher chance of converting into clicks, and sales, and it leads to higher rankings.
Utilize quality images that are relevant to the product and images that display the product as best they can.
Amazon recommends using images that are at least 1,000 pixels in height or weight to enable its zoom function on the site. Amazon says zoomable images enhance sales in product listings.
Quality images should be used in your overall marketing strategy, as well. Having additional quality content around your product increases the variety of your marketing opportunities.
Product Reviews: An Essential for Amazon SEO
Product reviews play a big part in Amazon SEO. The number of reviews you have on your product listing the higher chance of ranking higher it has.
Having many positive reviews helps your product to rank in more broader keywords that have larger search volumes.
Positive product reviews increase sales as reviews create trust and have a major impact on click-through rates.
Product with low or none reviews tends to rank lower, especially if there’s a lot of competition in the targeted keywords.
Not all reviews are created equal, and negative reviews have to be taken seriously. Address the negative reviews as soon as possible and learn why the reviews are negative in the first place.
Reviews and especially negative ones, give the seller a chance to make their products and business better.
Collecting reviews can be harder at the beginning, as limited sales won’t leave you with many opportunities to collect reviews. Start collecting reviews with sending follow-up emails as soon as possible, because having quality reviews is the slowest process in Amazon SEO.
Tools like Salesbacker help you create follow-up emails to collect reviews faster.
A key thing to remember: Never fake reviews.
You will be punished for fake reviews, and your customers will recognize that the reviews have been faked if the algorithm doesn’t catch you first.
Amazon SEO Strategy
Thoroughly read and understand the Amazon ranking factors and start implementing them.
Produce and execute a well-round relevant keyword list for every product and choose the ones with the highest search volumes.
Don’t get distracted by initial successes, or failures, and always try to understand why something has occurred. Follow through with your Amazon SEO plan even if your other marketing channels are generating more sales today.
Amazon SEO is not an instant trick to boost sales. It’s a long-term strategy and a process that takes time and practice. Every product and category has its specialties, and to get to know them will be your goal for success.
Take time to create quality content like engaging copy and beautiful images. It’s easy to start mass-producing your content, but in the long-term, it will hurt your rankings.
Learn about Content Marketing.
Remember to test new things all the time and document every result. Successful businesses always document everything to make better decisions in the future.
A good Amazon SEO strategy is never to stop updating. Even if you become the first in the search on Amazon, you have to realize that the position is highly contested. Being ahead of the competition at all costs is necessary.
Be conscious of sales and conversion metrics and improve them every day.
Recognizing failing products or categories early on will provide you with time to invest in other products and categories.
Keep ahead of the trends with Google Trends.
It’s better to understand where you’re at your product’s trend curve, seasonality, and to know when to move on.
Conclusion
A well-optimized Amazon SEO strategy goes beyond using relevant keywords in your product pages and accounts.
Everything that also improves your sales eventually improves your search positions.
Even unexpected algorithm changes to Amazon, can be predicted by creating product listing that is customer-friendly and is geared towards higher sales. By following that rule, you might have a chance to securing your positions to last longer.
Compared to other search engines like Google and Bing, Amazon’s A9 includes less ranking factors in general, but it doesn’t make it easier or less time-consuming.
Learn more about Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Always check your competitors how they have been doing their amazon SEO, Then you can try to make your product pages and accounts even better to rank higher than the competition.
The better, convincing, and relevant information you’re providing for the customers, the better you’re results will be.