You want to sell your products on Amazon, but you don’t know how to use Amazon SEO to increase your sales figures? This article gives the answer. We’ll tell you everything you need to know about Amazon SEO and give you useful tips for practice.
A survey showed that the majority of “Amazon buyers” find the right products using the classic search. Accordingly, significantly fewer users find the desired product via bestseller lists, external links, etc.
As with all other Internet search engines, Amazon can also assume that customers usually only look at the first page of the search results. Only a few click through to page 2 or 3, let alone page 4, 5 etc. There are currently no comprehensive studies in this regard. However, if you look at the results of studies on the click behavior of Google users, something can be deduced for Amazon. Unlike Google, 16 results are displayed per page instead of ten. As a result, the user is presented with 48 products on pages one to three. Only in the very few cases will the user not find the right one among this large number of products. The “message” is clear: just like with Google, the maxim “who is on top wins” applies to Amazon.
Good to know : A good ranking on Amazon also has an impact on other sales channels. For example, the Amazon product pages are usually also ranked high on Google , ie with Amazon SEO you can also optimize the presence of your product in the search engine.
Table of Contents
Aroused interest?
Let us advise you!
Gain more customers, generate more sales, present yourself in a contemporary way and benefit from our know-how!make an appointment
Promote sales figures – through “Amazon SEO”, high-quality product images and a good product description
Before we go into the topic of Amazon SEO in detail, we would like to address two other factors that affect sales figures: the quality of the product images and the product description. Yes, these also make up part of Amazon SEO, but should be deliberately viewed separately from our other Amazon SEO tips.
Good, high-resolution images are one of the online selling points. The reason is clear: unlike in retail, customers in online retail do not have the opportunity to touch and feel the item. The pictures are everything that gives the buyer an idea of the nature of the product.
To “look good” on Amazon, high-resolution images with 1,000 x 1,000 pixels should be used. This is a minimum specification. As a rule of thumb, the higher the resolution, the better. However, more than 1,500 x 1,500 pixels make no sense because Amazon automatically adapts the format.
Incidentally, the optimal number of images is six. No more than eight images should be set. The first image is particularly important because this is also displayed when the buyer searches, ie it has a decisive influence on whether the respective search result is clicked on or ignored.
Emotionally convey the positive attributes of the product – with a good product description
Another important factor is the product description. This is neglected by many sellers. The description of the product is not as important as a high quality photo, but it definitely has an impact on the purchase decision.
Attention : The keywords that are placed in the product description have no essential influence on the ranking on Amazon. Rather, it is about packaging sales arguments as emotionally as possible. The product properties or the features should therefore not be stupidly listed. Instead, you promote sales by cultivating a personal approach with a lot of emotion. It is important to convey the positive attributes of the article according to the so-called AIDA principle (AIDA for “Attention, Interest, Desire, Action”). This emotional type of communication also includes a clear structure and optimized headings.
Amazon SEO – place ALL relevant keywords
Amazon is the largest e-commerce sales channel in Germany and other European countries. And the trend is increasing, ie the company is continuously expanding its market leadership in all areas. Accordingly, it is of enormous importance for many dealers and manufacturers to be listed accordingly and thus to be easily found by potential buyers. And that’s exactly what Amazon SEO is for.
The basis for optimal visibility and findability is a thorough keyword optimization of the product or products. An article can only be found on Amazon if it has all the keywords for which the customer has searched or will search. The relevant keywords can be placed in Amazon Seller Central. In the following sections, we provide important tips to get the most out of your keywords and avoid placement errors.
Good to know : The algorithm used by Amazon is known as A9. Amazon always strives to optimize this algorithm. So it changes again and again. Until recently, for example, it was still the case that the keyword fields could be filled with a maximum of 250 characters. Fields with more characters were ignored by the system. This should result in a better presentation (also for the customer). After increasing the possible number of characters to 5,000, 250 bytes are currently possible per field.
Tip 1 for Amazon SEO: enter the keys in the correct field
A question that many sellers on Amazon ask themselves is what the so-called platinum keywords are for and what should be entered here. If you are not a “platinum dealer”, ie a dealer with the status “platinum”, you can safely ignore these keywords. The keywords are mainly there to structure the Amazon retailer shop. Registered platinum keywords are not related to the findability of a product. If you want to improve the findability of your articles, you have to enter the keys in the General Keywords or Search Terms field instead.
Tip 2 for Amazon SEO: enter several keywords in a row
Many sellers who do Amazon SEO think that only one keyword can be entered per field. This is a common mistake! Entering just one key per field is wasting a lot of potential. You can simply enter different keywords one after the other. The individual keywords must be separated from one another with a space.
Tip : Even if you have already entered several backend keywords, you should check them again. As already mentioned, some time ago Amazon reduced the maximum possible number of characters per field from 5,000 characters to 250 bytes. Since all keywords over 250 bytes are not taken into account, there can be considerable losses in visibility. It is important to ensure that the keys entered are still indexed. A special tool such as the “Sonar Tool” can be used for this.
Tip 3 for Amazon SEO: upper and lower case does not matter for the ranking
With Amazon SEO it is not case-sensitive, ie it is irrelevant for the ranking algorithm. The same applies to umlauts. Amazon considers keywords with and keywords without umlauts to the same extent.
An example : If you enter the keyword “purse”, the product will also appear when potential buyers search for “geldboerse”.
Incidentally, filler words such as “with”, “from” or “for” are simply ignored by Amazon, ie you can simply leave out filler words when placing keywords.
Tip 4 for Amazon SEO: The position and order of the keys has no effect on the ranking
The order and the position of the keywords are irrelevant for Amazon SEO. This means that the algorithm treats the words that were entered in the five keyword fields together. Amazon bundles the keywords from the first to the last field, so to speak. Accordingly, you do not have to follow the correct order or ensure that the individual words result in a search phrase (eg “skin”, “cream”, “night” “skin cream night”).
The only thing you have to pay attention to is that every word used by customers in the search query appears in one place in the backend keywords.
Amazon SEO Tip 5: The density of keywords is irrelevant
It makes little sense to repeat individual keywords. The density of the keywords does not play a role for the ranking algorithm, ie there are neither advantages nor disadvantages from repeating keys. This also means that keywords already used in the title – by the way, the title is the most important “field”, ie the most important keys should be placed here – do not have to be repeated again in the backend keywords.
Example : If the title of the product is “soccer shoe”, this term does not have to appear again in the backend keys.
Amazon SEO Tip 6: Use Hyphens
There are keywords that can be written both together and separately. Both variants are used by customers. If you connect a keyword with a hyphen, you cover all search queries.
Here is an example . If you enter the keyword in the form “xy”, the following search queries are covered: “x”, “y”, “xy”, “xy” “yx”, “xy”, “yx” (attention: the search query ” yx “is not covered).
Such a spelling of the keyword makes sense for words like “anti-aging”. Customers can also search for this keyword as “antiaging” or “antiaging”.
Tip : Now that 5,000 characters or 250 bytes per field have been available for Amazon SEO, it is no longer necessary to use hyphens to “save” characters as it used to be.
Tip 7 for Amazon SEO: take advantage of the additional keyword types
In addition to the general keywords, there have been additional keyword types “at Amazon SEO” for some time, namely in the product processing mask under the “Search terms” tab. These keywords are used by Amazon to assign the respective product to a filter category or several categories. This should facilitate navigation and the search result for the user. The new types of keywords are: Subject Matter, Target Audience, Intended Use and Other Attributes. Depending on the category of the product, additional keywords are available. Fixed options are offered for the keyword types. The selection is made via a drop-down menu.
For effective Amazon SEO, you should check which keyword types are available for the article and select the appropriate names. In the case of “Target Audience”, these are, for example, “Women”, “Men”, “Children” etc.
Practical tip : Only if a product is assigned to its corresponding category will it appear in the “filter search results”. If you don’t fill in the new keyword types, you are wasting unnecessary traffic.
Amazon SEO tip 8: place slang words and misspellings
The backend keywords cannot be seen by the buyers. This means that you can also place slang keys or even misspelled words here. After all, not everyone knows German spelling, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t find the product.
Incidentally, with regard to the plural of a word, you do not have to store it separately. Amazon takes this variant into account. This also applies in the other direction, in other words “from plural to singular”. In some cases, however, it can still be useful to store both forms. This is especially true for less common words and for plural / singular forms of compound words. If you do this for the corresponding words, you are, so to speak, on the safe side.
Amazon SEO at a glance
In order to operate Amazon SEO or to optimize the backend keywords, one should consider the aspects explained above. These are clearly summarized below.
- Platinum keywords are only relevant for sellers with Platinum status. “Normal” salespeople should focus on the general keywords.
- More than one keyword can be entered per field. You should use all of the space.
- Neither upper and lower case letters nor umlauts and filler words have any influence on the ranking.
- The order and position of the keywords are irrelevant.
- The density of the keywords does not affect the ranking. Therefore you do not need to repeat keys.
- If you write certain keywords with a hyphen, all spelling variants of the word are covered.
- New keyword types are available. These should definitely be used to make Amazon SEO as effective as possible.
- Potential buyers cannot see the backend keywords. Therefore you can also place slang keys and misspellings.
If you take these rules for Amazon SEO into account, you make sure that the product is found for all relevant keywords. Online retailers like Kavaj have shown it: with Amazon SEO you can significantly increase the visibility of your products, which ultimately leads to higher sales figures.
Amazon SEO does not mean a single-digit percentage increase in sales. In this way, many retailers have quadrupled, if not even fivefold, their sales on Amazon in just a few weeks. Of course, that doesn’t always work. But one thing is certain: Amazon SEO makes sense for almost every online retailer!
