SEO for Amazon: How to make your products stand out

The only way you can sell your products on Amazon is if they’re visible. It doesn’t matter how good they are if shoppers can’t see them.

To be noticed, appearing near the top of the search rankings is crucial. The more visible, the better.

Amazon SEO works differently to web search engines such as Google and Bing but appearing on the first page is just as important.

While there are some similarities, Amazon’s focus is connecting consumers with the most relevant product to their search as quickly and as easily as possible.

Product relevance and performance drives the Amazon search engine algorithm. So making your product listing standout to shoppers and Amazon’s algorithm is key.
 

Amazon’s A10 algorithm

Understanding Amazon’s algorithm for how products rank in search will help you make your products stand out.

You might see Amazon A9 mentioned on some websites, that’s the name of the company that developed the latest officially announced algorithm.

There’s since been an update to the algorithm, although Amazon is yet to publicly confirm the change, widely known as Amazon A10.

Despite Amazon not confirming changes to how the algorithm works, it’s generally accepted that A10 gives a different weighting to factors that determine search rankings.

The weighting is more customer centric, meaning increased relevance and importance on products that connect consumers to their search more quickly than ever before.

It’s about making your product the best possible match to a shopper’s search query.

Some of the factors that are the same between A9 and A10 are:

• Relevant keywords – terms that match a customer’s intent play a key role in search rankings
• Conversion rate – higher the rate, higher your product will rank
• Sales history – product has sold well during its time listed, better the organic ranking
• Reviews – high numbers of quality reviews, more people drawn to your product
   

While these factors have taken on greater importance determining search results:

• Click-through rate – the number of times consumers click on your product
• Organic sales – no promotions, just how often customers search, click, and buy your product
• Internal sales – sales started on Amazon without a search, such as through ‘frequently bought with’
• Seller authority – how long you’ve been a seller, product range, feedback, and performance metrics
• Traffic from offsite links – links from your own online store, social media, or blogs to your Amazon product page
   

With greater emphasis on organic, as well as relevance to customer searches, creating standout product pages will influence these factors and drive visibility, traffic, and sales.
 

Keyword research for Amazon

Keywords are a crucial pillar of SEO in Amazon search rankings.
 

Your keywords need to match a customer’s intent, so they find what they’re looking for in the shortest time possible.

If someone clicks on your product, but leaves the page quickly, your bounce rate goes up telling Amazon your product isn’t right for customers.

Choosing the right keywords helps avoid a high bounce rate.

Just focusing on broad terms could lead to consumers struggling to find what they’re looking for, and with SEO generally, broad terms are highly competitive.

A good place to start (and it’s free) is the Amazon search bar suggestions.

For example, searching ‘bike lights’ will give a huge range of results, so your keywords need to give more detail with long-tail keywords to reflect what people are searching for.


 
Keyword research tools like Sonar and Keyword Tool for Amazon provide valuable insight into keyword variations and search volumes, but you’ll need to pay for the full versions.

Looking at competitor pages can also help with research, as can seeing what customers buy together in the ‘frequently buy together’ suggestions.
 

How and where to use keywords

Product titles

As the first thing a consumer sees, the product title should be compelling, concise, and hold enough information for an Amazon user to click on your product with the intent to buy.
 

The same applies for SEO for your online store as it does for Amazon SEO, the most important keywords should appear at the beginning of the title, especially as only the first 70-80 characters are visible on mobile.
 

You do have a maximum of between 150-200 characters (maximum character count varies because Amazon uses bytes) but you don’t need to use all of them. You only need to include information that is relevant to a shopper’s search.

So, if you have a complex product that needs more detail, the extra information is viewable when someone clicks on your product. However, generally speaking, the more concise, the better to make titles stand out.

Writing concise titles will also help you focus on the most relevant information and avoid keyword stuffing.

Amazon’s product title requirements provide guidelines to write titles to fit your keywords, such as including brand name, model, description of what it is, size and colour, quantity, etc.

Not following Amazon’s rules for titles, or going overboard with keywords, will get you penalised, and your products will rank lower in search results.

Including unique features and uses of your products in the title helps improve the relevance of your product to a shopper’s search. Also, highlighting something your competitors don’t could be a way to get your products ranking higher.
 

Backend keywords

These are the words that you can include in your product listing in your Amazon Seller’s account that shoppers don’t see on your product page but Amazon crawls for search results rankings.

This is where you can include key terms you may have wanted to include in your title, but that maybe aren’t quite as relevant as those you’ve chosen.

An important tip to remember, you don’t have to repeat any keywords in the title in the product listing search terms, and Amazon detects misspelled words, so you don’t have to.
 

Bullet points and product descriptions

Amazon also has its own rules for writing bullet points that you need to follow in the same way as writing titles.

Bullet points are prime space to include keywords, and they naturally fit into the product listing’s features.

While product features are key, you should also include the benefits.

Writing in benefits will help your descriptions sound natural when you’re adding in keywords that may reflect some of your product’s unique uses and are a great way to incorporate long-tail keywords.

It’s also important to avoid sounding spammy or overusing the same terms. Don’t repeat keywords, use the bullet points to include a range of key terms. Otherwise, Amazon will detect keyword stuffing and push your product lower in search rankings.

That said, you need to strike a balance between including keywords and making your listing reader friendly.

As with writing product titles, you need to make your bullets concise and compelling so that shoppers find the information they need quickly, in turn improving your conversion rate and boosting your product ranking in search results.
 

Amazon A+ content

Depending on how you sell on Amazon – whether you’re a seller or a vendor – will determine the A+ content you can add.

As mentioned earlier, Amazon SEO is dependent on a number of factors.

The extra detail, images, and enhanced content A+ allows you to add can increase dwell time, reduce bounce rates, and gives you more time to convince the consumer viewing your product listing to buy it.

These factors will contribute to a higher conversion rate and in turn a higher search ranking on Amazon.

If more shoppers are buying your product because you provide greater detail and more relevance, shoppers can make better buying decisions and Amazon will reflect it in search results.
 

Relevance boosts performance, and vice versa

By using keywords effectively alongside your content and images, you increase the chance of connecting customers with your products.

Boosting your product’s relevance to a shopper’s search through compelling keyword-rich titles, bullet points, descriptions and backend search terms helps drive the performance metrics that determine the Amazon SEO rankings.

Better performance through more clicks, longer dwell times, lower bounce rates, and higher conversion rates all improve your chance of ranking higher.

Better buying decisions coming from your product’s relevance to consumer searches result in fewer returns and better reviews, driving better performance and SEO.

You’re more likely to get 5-star reviews if your product was suited to your customer’s search in the first instance. And reviews influence conversion rates as shoppers look at them – see the pattern?
 

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