Updated: Apr 28, 2022
Leveling up your Amazon sales rank is tough, but not impossible.
Amazon page ranking is a gold mine because unlike Google, Amazon is an online store. People who get there (your future clients included) are determined to buy something, and according to several studies:
33% of Amazon online shoppers make a purchase from the first search page
75% of Amazon visitors don't reach the second page of results.
So, before hitting the Amazon SEO optimization road with your product listing, first, you must know the most relevant sections and their priority as per the Amazon algorithm.
#1 Listing master URL ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
#2 Product Title ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
#3 Features (Bullet Points) ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
#4 Back-end Search Terms ⭐ ⭐
#5 Product Description ⭐
These 5 are the direct, in-your-face factors that influence your ranking on Amazon.
Now how can you maximize their SEO efficiency, get them to work for you and help your products rank higher?
Follow these golden rules whenever you either write a new listing (launch a new product on Amazon) OR you try to optimize an existing one:
Pick the most relevant and searched keywords that define your merchandise:
You can use the Seller Central Keyword’s Tab.
Go to some of the best Amazon keyword tools [#AmazonKeywordTools], such as Sonar from Sellics, KeywordInspector and my favorite: Merchant Words.
Choose your top 10 competitors that have similar or relevant products and meet the following criteria: [1] they show up on the first 2-3 results pages for your main keywords. [2] they have many reviews (hundreds or thousands). Copy-paste their product titles here: https://wordcounter.com/, then press "GO" and you'll get a list with all the keywords used by your main competitors and the frequency of their appearance in the Amazon product title.
Harvest all key phrases from the keyword tool sources above in an excel file. Alternatively, you could use Magnet from Helium 10 for a quick scan of relevant keywords for a given long-tail or short-tail search phrase. The results should be partly similar to what we did "manually" via word counter.
If you're using Merchant words, you can download one .csv file for each main keyword, then add them in one file.
Next, open that excel file, go to Data -> Remove duplicates -> make sure to de-check the "volume" box - you want to eliminate any keyword duplicates, not keywords with the same volume data.
This will increase your ranking more than if you'd use them in the product description. In other words, the keywords used in the product listing's link and title weigh much more in Amazon's ranking comparing to search terms used when writing the product description.
* Listing URL - also known as the "canonical URL" - but you can read more about it in this blog post.
Know your character limits for every product page section and use them all, wisely. In general, it goes like this:
Product Title -> 200 characters
Bullet Points -> 5 fields x 100 characters each
Back-end Search Terms -> 5 Fields x 50 Characters Each
Product Description -> 2000 Characters
Never, ever forget your business relies on people. Not on SEO, sales, marketing, and business plans. People are your priority. Sell TO THEM, write FOR THEM.
If you abuse SEO and your listings are ultra-stuffed with all the keywords, even if your product ranks higher and people click on it, if the writing is not enticing enough to keep Amazon shoppers interested in what you offer, they'll just bounce...where to? Straight to your competitors who are...a click away!
We don't want that, right? Also here's what you can do:
Establish trust - offer refunds in case they don't like your products
Promote benefits (especially in your title and Amazon bullet points/highlights/attributes) - don't just describe product features. Explain what they do. Show people how your brand solves their problems because that's what they're looking for. Give your customers reasons to buy or try your brand out.
Upload short tutorials or product videos
Read product reviews from your line-up or from competitors. See where they fail, and show your future buyers how your product will not fail in those exact instances where your competition does.
Add beautiful, bright photos of your products: [1] close-up product shots + [2 VERY IMPORTANT!] happy people enjoying/wearing/using your merchandise. Help anyone landing on your Amazon page visualize themselves in specific real-life situations WITH your product.
For instance, take a quick look at this listing for an action camera (not a static, regular, boring camera, you see?):
It shows you what you can do with it in a fun, vibrant way.
You can almost feel the breeze in your hair while flying above the waves AND recording every second of your exciting adventure without worrying that your camera might suffer water damages because... BOOM! This is a waterproof action camera. The bullet points are simple and they explain how and why this must-have camera has it all:
Full HD resolution (Video and Photo) - for high-quality videos and pics;
Wireless remote control - you can operate it straight from your smartphone;
Rechargeable long-lasting batteries - never miss a happy moment or worry about power running out;
Large LCD for clear views and mounting gadgets that safely attach your camera to your wrist, bike, helmet, etc.
Well, you get the picture. The only thing left is to book your next trip to some exotic destination.
Keyword repetition might work on Google (I've talked about this in another blog post) but it doesn't help you succeed on Amazon unless you want to waste precious listing space.
Use keywords once. It's enough: when a term is included in one section (the title, bullets, product description or backend search terms), Amazon remembers it, so you don’t have to write it again anywhere else (in another section).
When you can, use hyphens: if your keyword is written"AB" it can only be found if people search "AB", but if you write it with a hyphen"A-B", then your product page will be found by shoppers who search for "A", "B", "A B", "AB" and "A-B". So if you're targeting "Aviator sunglasses" it's better to write it "Aviator-sunglasses".
Clean your keywords list (use Excel's Data -> "Remove duplicates" button
Use tracemyip to delete repeating search terms. You just have to copy/paste your keywords list in the upper input window (text section). Next, press one of the buttons below and it's done.
conducts the time-consuming keyword research for you,
then uses the hundreds of keywords found to write enticing listings that sound like music to your target audience's ears.
Speaking of which: check out our professional Amazon listing deliverables here.