Amazon is the third-largest search engine in the world after Google and YouTube. But Amazon has one key difference over Google & YouTube: every search made on Amazon has buying intent.
While Google & YouTube searches primarily focus on informational or research-driven intent, Amazon is all about the transactions. Getting your products to rank highly for specific keywords is a great way to grow your sales on Amazon, but it can be tricky to get right.
Amazon search engine optimization (Amazon SEO) focuses on optimizing your brand’s Amazon product listings to rank highly in Amazon searches for specific and related keywords. When your product listing is optimized, it’s easier for Amazon to understand listings and show relevant products to shoppers.
At its core, Amazon SEO focuses on:
A9 is Amazon’s search ranking algorithm, which displays product results based on search queries.
The products shown are not only based on the queries themselves but are also influenced by customers’ past purchases, browsing history, and a number of other factors.
For example, inventory levels, price, and sales history help determine where a product appears in search results (products with a higher sales history are likely to rank higher). More on these factors:
The first part of Amazon’s algorithm focuses on the keywords used in the query (you shouldn’t expect a baseball bat to show up if someone searches for a football helmet).
In the image above, we searched for “Vietnamese coffee.” The first four products are a great match because they show products related to the search query.
Some of the results directly mention “Vietnamese coffee,” but the others don’t. Chances are, the brands that didn’t mention “Vietnamese coffee” in the title used it as a backend keyword (which we’ll get into later in this article).
So, what happens if someone searches for “blue men’s pants” but your product’s title only mentions “blue pants?” Your product is less likely to show up at the top.
Amazon’s algorithm determines the likelihood of purchasing a product and ranks products in the search results. To do this, Amazon looks at the past performance of the products in the search query.
Performance is measured on a few factors, including click-through rates, conversion rates, reviews, and sales. These are essential factors for Amazon, as they want to ensure that customers will make a purchase.
Amazon looks at these factors on a keyword-specific level. For example, the “MacBook” keyword will have different click-through rates, conversion rates, and sales for the keywords “MacBook Air” and “laptop.”
As a seller, the better your CTRs, conversion rates, and sales are for a keyword, the higher your product ranks for the specific keyword.
You can manually research keywords by looking up products similar to yours and seeing what keywords they have in common.
This process is manual and time-consuming, so we recommend using Amazon SEO tools like Merchant Words, which can help you see what people are searching for on Amazon and help optimize your product descriptions.
This is especially useful when you have a brand new listing and don’t have data to lean on: you can learn from your competitors’ rankings instead.
Additionally, you can layer your own Amazon PPC data to figure out which keywords help your product listings convert. Then, optimize for those keywords.
For example, if your PPC ads convert highly for “blonde roast coffee,” you should optimize your listing to focus on the “blonde roast coffee” and potentially other coffee-related keywords.
As your brand grows, chances are that customers might search for products using your brand’s name. Amazon’s algorithm is smart in that it’ll show your products first. But competing products can show up, too.
To help overcome this, use the Amazon Brand Registry.
The Amazon Brand Registry lets sellers who manufacture and/or sell their branded products have greater ranking power than other brands selling their products. So, if you have wholesalers selling your products, you can ensure you’re more likely to rank higher than them.
With the Amazon Brand Registry, brands can:
The information you submit to the product detail pages for registered products displays automatically as the brand owner. This helps brands specify accurate titles, details, images, and other attributes for their products. This way, you don’t have to worry about other sellers including inaccurate information about your products.
Registered brands get to use enhanced brand content and product listing videos all of which help your products rank more highly in search results.
A great product listing presents all the product information customers need to decide whether to buy a product. With product listings, it’s vital to be as accurate as possible with the product’s information.
For the “product description,” shoppers don’t want walls of text (neither does Amazon A9!). They prefer clear and descriptive bullet points.
But, be cautious with how you write the bullet points. For example, avoid keyword stuffing. You should be able to describe the product’s size, color, weight, etc., since they’re most likely going to be the keywords people search for.
To summarize, the product listing should include:
Here’s a great example of these strategies in action, from one of MVMT’s products:
The product title is the first impression a shopper will have of your product. The product title should reflect exactly what the customer is getting. In this case, Amazon makes it easy for sellers because the character count for product titles is generous.
For Amazon, product titles must meet the following requirements for character length:
Best practices for product titles include:
For example, here’s one of Tula Skin Care’s product listings:
Amazon has a few restrictions for product titles. DO NOT mention the following in your titles:
Product descriptions are a few paragraphs long and might need light HTML coding when writing (check out the example below of how a product description looks with code for images and designs).
If you’re selling products in the Restricted Products category, follow all of Amazon’s requirements. Not following them might result in your listing getting taken down for using wrong or inaccurate terms.
Every product description should describe major product features, such as size, benefits, and what the product can be used for.
Don’t include any of the following in your product descriptions:
Every product on Amazon requires one or more product images. The primary image of your product is called the “Main.” The Main image is displayed in search results. This is often the first image customers see on an item’s detail page, so it’s crucial to make it clear and compelling.
Images can be surprisingly hard to get right. Here are the best practices to keep in mind when choosing product images for your Amazon listings:
Product reviews are one of the most critical factors determining success as an Amazon seller. Those yellow stars can make or break a product’s success. So, it’s no surprise that Amazon factors in reviews when ranking products.
Higher review scores influence the click-through rates and conversion rates of products. The more positive reviews there are, the better the product is perceived.
To take some skincare products as an example, we can see that products near the bottom of the search results tend to have lower ratings.
Here are some products at the top:
And here are products at the bottom of the page:
Not every search query is the same. “blue shoes” and “shoes blue” are two different keywords in the eyes of Amazon’s algorithm. This is why Amazon lets sellers provide a list of keywords on the backend to influence search results.
Backend keywords aren’t displayed on the main listing, so it’s an excellent opportunity to ensure you’re covering all of your bases for keywords.
One key thing to remember here is that these keywords must be “phrase match.” In other words, the order of the keywords matters: “blue mens sunglasses” and “mens blue sunglasses” affect visibility in search results.
Here are some tips to keep in mind with backend keywords:
We’ve covered a lot in this guide, but there are still a few more things to discuss. Amazon SEO is a complex beast. But getting it right can pay huge dividends for your brand.
Here are some of the more general best practices to keep in mind as you embark on your SEO journey:
If you already include a keyword in the title, including it in the product description, the title and backend keywords aren’t going to improve rankings. To customers, it looks spammy. Plus, you’re wasting valuable backend keyword character limits.
If multiple customers ask the same question repeatedly, that’s probably an indication to include an answer to those questions in the content.
For example, if you sell makeup and your shoppers keep asking if it’s cruelty-free, you should probably add that information to your product description or title and get out ahead of additional questions.
The content for a product listing isn’t always based on one seller submitting the content. Amazon aggregates product information across multiple sellers selling the same Amazon item based on the UPC. Amazon compiles all the submissions and creates the best title or bullet points.
Granted, this is somewhat overcome by the Brand Registry program. So, if you’re the product manufacturer, make sure to become part of the Amazon Brand Registry to ensure product information is accurate.
Sellers should maximize the character count for their product’s title, bullet points, product descriptions, and backend search terms. Amazon gives you all this space for a reason. Use it.
Filling out product descriptions and bullet points with the maximum characters helps products rank higher. You also give shoppers a better overview of your products, which helps with conversions–and, those conversions help influence your rankings.
Instead of treating SEO as a one-time effort, incorporate it into your marketing strategy to optimize your brand for success on Amazon, because it is fundamental to your success when selling on Amazon.
Here are the common mistakes that Amazon sellers make with their SEO strategy:
Optimizing your Amazon SEO might seem like an arduous task, but it doesn’t have to be. Most Amazon sellers can lose high rankings because they optimized their listings one time and neglected to keep working on them. You’re not guaranteed to keep high rankings, so you always have to be optimizing, checking your ranking, and checking your competitors.
Why do inventory levels affect your rankings? Well, Amazon needs products to sell. If your products are consistently out of stock, Amazon won’t show your products because they don’t want customers to wait for items to get back in stock.
Don’t forget the most crucial thing to Amazon is providing the best online shopping experience. You have to keep products in stock to keep Amazon and customers happy.
Selling on Amazon is competitive. It’s hard to stand out when you’re going up against dozens of brands in the same category. But competitors make mistakes.
Research their listings to find missing information or advantages your products might have. You can then update your product listings to show why your brand is better and improve your rankings.
This sounds simple, but don’t mislead customers on your listings. Customers are savvy, and if your listings include false information, your seller account will likely be suspended by Amazon after a few complaints come in.
Whew, Amazon SEO is no joke. But treating it as a priority is a great way to set your brand up for continued success as an Amazon seller.
But to truly set your brand up for success on Amazon, you need to rein in your data: turns out, Daasity does just that, by centralizing all your Amazon data.
Learn how by scheduling a demo.
