2021 Amazon Listing Optimization Guide

What Are the Benefits of Organic Amazon Keyword Ranking?

Let’s be clear here. There are dozens of benefits to using the right tools to rank your product listing organically on Amazon:

• You get more visitors to your product detail pages, the most likely pages where customers will buy from you.
• You get visitors that are more likely to buy from you – these are targeted buyers who know what they want and just need a push to buy it.
• Those visitors who come to your site begin their brand journey with you on this listing. If your listing is basic, boring, or lacking information, they will quickly start looking  for another buyer.
• You’re leaving money on the table if you don’t invest in ranking. Simply, you will see less success on the site if you don’t optimize including from a lower click through rate and less traffic.
• If they do buy, perhaps because your product is the only option, your buyers are not likely to come back to you. They won’t remember you or what you provided to them.

It’s valuable and it’s necessary. With Amazon product listing optimization, you will have higher conversion rates, more sales, and bigger profits. There isn’t a top-earning product listing on the site that’s not properly optimized.

Though more comprehensive keyword research is best, you don’t have to start there to get your listing up. If you are not interested in investing much in keyword research just yet, consider these tools to help you get started.

• Google’s Keyword Planning Tool
• Moz’s Keyword Explorer
• Keywordtool.io

To get started, work to create a list of the most likely words people use within their searches for the products you offer. You’ll want to include a mixture of keywords including those that are more in-depth and those that are very specific. Longer keywords may have less competition from other listings and therefore may be easier to rank for and corner a consistent source of sales.  Broader, shorter keywords may be harder to rank for but may have such a great search volume that just making it to the first page of search results is a win.

How to Find Keywords – A Prime for Keyword Research

Let’s break down the process of finding keywords by a few rules. Follow these steps to get your keywords organized and ready to include: 

• Use the tools recommended. Create a list of the keywords that seem to fit your products the best across each of the tools. You’ll need to come back to this list over time. Keep it organized in a spreadsheet, for example, so you can list the popularity of each keyword.
• Come back to this list over time, at least one time a month, to update it. Search terms will change throughout the year.
• If you are not sure a term fits with the products you offer, go to Amazon.com and type that keyword into the site. Does it bring up products that are similar to your own?
• Take a look at your competitor’s listings. Check out what keywords they are using. You don’t have to use the same thing, but you want to include some of those keywords if their listing listed before your own.
• Keep track of which keywords you use and where. Over time, you’ll want to test these keywords to see which ones work best to create the best sales for you.
• For content that is to be seen by users, make sure your keywords don’t repeat often, and are formed into logical statements (no stuffing!).
• For optimization inside of the backend keyword section, be sure to add your product’s categories, misspellings, features, variants and any way you might imagine a potential customer would search for your product.
• You also want to consider who your target buyer is. In some areas, keywords need to be selected based on that audience.

Optimize Your Amazon Listing Product Title

Here’s where to start. Your product listing title is the first thing that should grab the attention of your buyers. It’s always important to ensure this has your main keywords included. Here are some rules to remember:

• Use your brand name. If your brand name is important to your target audience, include it. There is always an advantage to customers recognizing your brand name and associating it with a quality experience, and it is significantly more cost-effective to maintain repeat purchasers than it is to acquire new ones.
• Add keywords that “sound” right. You don’t want to include keywords that don’t read well or flow in normal speech. It’s a good idea to ensure these keywords are spot-on specific to your product.
• Include a keyword (if possible) with features listed. Choose a feature that helps your product to be more desirable to the buyer.

They also must be accurate. Here are a few key rules to follow:

• Incorporate long-form feature lists. This gives you more room to include a keyword that’s important to your product.
• List out features based on importance to the consumer. Those that are most likely valuable to them should be at the top of the list.
• Incorporate features that help your product stand out from the competitor’s. This is where the reader will scan first, making it a valuable element within their buying decision.
• If you have any to offer, including guarantees here. This is one thing that eases the minds of consumers, giving them a reason to buy from a seller they don’t know.
• Provide a least one benefit statement. That is, your product listing should include one example of how the product works to solve a problem that your customers have.

Product listing features should not be copied from other listings. This doesn’t help your listing to rank better. Even if you have a product that is just about the same, you want the features to make it stand out. Remember, A10 uses this list to rank your product. What do you want it to rank for?

Optimize the Amazon Listing’s Product Description

The product description is an area where you’ll have more room to talk about your product. To a degree, this is a good place to include keywords because it gives you more freedom. However, if you pack it full of keywords, it’s not going to read well. This is your primary way to sell your product – don’t let it short-sell your product. Here are a few rules for optimizing this area:

• Expect your buyer to read it. As a result, it needs to read well. Make it feature-focused and detailed.
• Use a feature – benefit structure when possible. Don’t just talk about a feature, but tell the reader what that feature is important to them.
• Keep it easy to read. You can incorporate taglines, for example, to help to break up the sections to ensure it remains easy to read.
• Use keywords as they fit with the features you’re describing. Be sure to be descriptive. Use power words within your product descriptions.
• When possible, explain to the customer more than what the product is. Give them an indication of why they need it.

Product description areas are a good area to provide a storytelling experience. Discuss what the product is and why customers buy it. This is where you’ll want to polish your marketing a bit to ensure it is thorough but easy to understand. Keep the tech-talk to a minimum unless that’s what your target audience expects.

These are also areas to add a few keywords. Here are a few rules to keep in mind when it comes to videos and images:

• They simply must be professional.  Professional product photographers have different skill sets from other disciplines of photography, and Amazon photographers are an even more niche subset of that discipline.  Do not rely on the expertise of your cousin who loves photography. Search for and hire a professional with experience with commercial product photography. If your images do not look professional, your customers will move on to the next best thing.
• Include keywords and descriptive words within the tags for your images. This is an easy place to add a few more.
• Choose images that make sense. For example, show the product being used. Show the product from all sides. There’s no benefit to pictures that don’t tell the specific story of your product.

Invest in clear and easy-to-read images. Close-ups can be important for many products. Remember, this is a big selling feature. If you can’t show people what they are going to buy – and ensure they understand it – chances are good they will look for another product that gives them what they need.

Boosting Customer Reviews

A component of your optimization needs to focus on getting customer reviews. When you sell a product, you need to connect with the buyer to encourage this. Don’t assume it’s going to happen. Most of the time, customers will leave a review if they are happy with the customer service they get.

• Send them a message over Buyer-Seller Messaging Services asking them how well their product fit their needs.
• Ask for the review in follow-up messages.
• Use your package for a bit of help – a simple parcel insert requesting a review can help this to happen.

It’s important for you to know all of Amazon’s guidelines for reviews. You can view them at the Customer Product Reviews page. These can change from time-to-time. Most importantly, don’t try to pay for reviews. Don’t ask people to review your product if they have not purchased it either.

What To Do About Negative Reviews

This is one of the biggest fears for many sellers: the dreaded negative review. It’s important to have a system in place to help mitigate when negative feedback is received. If you receive a negative review, you can always comment on it, or identify the reviewer and send them a message in Buyer-Seller Messaging. Provide your perspective of what happened or went wrong. However, never attack or accuse the reviewer in a negative way, or tell them to remove their review.  Rather, provide good customer service here. Although unlikely, doing so might convince the customer to come back to the review and amend or remove it.

Utilizing Questions and Answers

There’s another area of your product listing that can provide an excellent amount of support for you – the question and answer section. This is an area where prospective customers can ask you, as the seller, or other customers, to provide information and clarity about the product to them. Sometimes, the questions are answered in the product listing’s description (if not, you may want to add these details). However, there’s more to it than just this.

Tap Into Videos on Amazon Listings

The largest brands on the site are implementing more use of video because of the response it gets. Why don’t more sellers do so? It could be because it seems hard to do or too costly. Others aren’t sure what to provide in a video.

Here are some tips:

• Incorporate a customer experience video that showcases what a customer purchased, what they received, and how they made it work. Unboxing types of videos aren’t hard to get from your customers who love your product and your excellent customer service.
• Highlight product features in the video. It’s always important to put images to words. Features that are hard to understand or see the benefit of can be explained better in videos.
• Demonstrate how it works. Seeing is believing when it comes to products.

Keep in mind that not all sellers have access to videos. It’s important to consider this opportunity, though, if it is available to you.

Fill Out Search Terms

You want keywords to help get people to your listing. The search terms section of your Amazon listing can help. This is a back-end feature – not something your customers will see. It’s easy enough to fill in. Add the primary keywords you’ve researched here, including any that you could not get into the product’s title. Avoid including keywords you used in the title already. You also do not want to include the brand name, terms like “cheap” or “discount” or your seller’s name.

Split Testing Your Amazon Product Listing

Split testing allows you to test the waters for any product listing you create and launch. It gives you a way to find out what works and what doesn’t work as well. To do this on Amazon, your goal is to find out what consumers are really looking at and reacting to within your product listing.

There are many aspects of your listing that you can and should consider split testing. Here are a few of the key elements of your listing to review in this manner.

Tips and Common Mistakes You’ll Want to Avoid with Amazon Product Listings

You’ve got the key information you need to start your Amazon seller’s account and get your first listing up. The question is, what’s going to hold you back? Before you run off, consider these tips and tricks.

Here’s What Not to Do

You don’t want to get thrown off the site already. That’s why you need to avoid these common mistakes that are costly.

• You can only have one seller account. Don’t try to have a second. It’s a violation of Amazon policy.
• Don’t tell customers to go to your website to learn more or to make a purchase. That’s a no-no. Amazon’s rules are very specific in this area. They want the entire transaction to remain on the site.
• Don’t include inaccurate information or leave out key information that’s critical to the buying decision. You don’t want to mislead customers on your product in any way.
• Never include sales or coupon information in your product titles. You don’t want to include anything like “lowest price on Amazon” in these titles.
• Do not ever purchase your own product, have employees or family members purchase your product, or offer compensation of any kind (discounts, rebates) in exchange for reviews.  Seller accounts can be suspended indefinitely for these kinds of actions.

Here’s How to Improve Your Rankings on Amazon

Now, consider a few tips and steps to take to get better rankings as your product listing goes live. Remember, coming back and reviewing, improving your product listing on Amazon is always a good idea. It gives you a constant way to improve.

• Make your product descriptions tell a story. It’s important to show a real impact in what they can offer to the would-be buyer. It’s a good idea to provide more detail to ensure the reader truly grasps the benefit of the product.
• Use backend terms fully. Include Spanish keywords here. You can also add a lot of descriptive text that you couldn’t really fit well into your product description. For example, add keywords that describe the item in various ways.
• Do encourage authentic reviews of your products. Amazon doesn’t allow fake reviews. However, you can encourage your buyers to leave a review for you. To do this, consider an email feedback sequence that encourages buyers to leave a review. There are tools to help you with this.
• If you have not done so, use Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA). It is one of the best ways to rank above the competition not using the service. For some sellers, this can seem like a big step, but it doesn’t have to be and it can be the catalyst to driving sales to your listing.

View your Amazon product listing as your storefront. If you were selling your product in a store, what would you do to position it front and center? How would you dress up the store to ensure people came to it? Optimizing your Amazon listing page is a valuable step in this process. It’s the best way to encourage people to stop by and get to know what you have to offer.

If your first listing attempt doesn’t seem to create the buzz you desire, update it. Add better photos. Take a look at your keyword usage – is it too much? Look at your description and your competition. When you consistently work at these areas, you are likely to see your listing improve.

Need Some Help with Your Product Listing?