Ready for a stat that will blow your mind? Over half of customers, 56% to be exact, begin their searches for products on Amazon, NOT Google. Plus, 51% of customers also stated that they would look on Amazon to find alternative ideas, compare prices or gather more information even if they found something on another website first. Because customers are altering how they shop to include Amazon as the critical element in their buying decisions, rather than in-store shopping or searching on Google, Amazon SEO has never been more important for Amazon Sellers. Even though Amazon isn’t a traditional search engine, users are forgoing Google to start their buying journeys, so you don’t want to miss out on showing up as high as possible in their searches!
Amazon used to give weight to keyword fields in product listings in the following order:
Title (Product Name)
Bullet points
Description (for indexing purposes only in some cases)
Now, after an update in October, the placement of a keyword is no longer as important for organic ranking in search results. Amazon’s A9 algorithm is now focused on the keyword-specific performance of your products. This means that click rate, conversion rate, sales, etc. are what’s being looked at by the algorithm. Readability is key: stop cramming keywords in your titles (don’t lie, you’ve totally done it).
Instead, you should be focusing on conversion-optimized content that follows these Amazon SEO guidelines:
Product Name (Title)
This is fully-indexed for searches, so it’s important to use a good title for the sake of your Amazon SEO! There are some category-specific guidelines for title length that should be followed. If your product title is too long, it may be suppressed by Amazon, which means your product won’t be shown. It’s best to not exceed 200 characters, including spaces.
Your product titles should include:
Product brand
Description
Line of product
Color
Material
Size/Dimensions
Quantity
Of course, some of these are not applicable for every product. You want to entice customers to click on your product when they see it in their search results. The product title plays a big role in your Amazon SEO and whether or not they’ll click on your product. So, avoid keyword stuffing in your title, but give the customer the information they need to be convinced to click on your product!
Backend Search Terms
This is an often-overlooked facet of Amazon SEO that can provide some great benefits. The limit currently for backend search terms is 249 characters (spaces included). If your search terms exceed the limit, none of your backend search terms will be indexed. For more information about backend search term optimization, check out our video!
Bullet Points
In your product listing bullet points, only the first 1,000 bytes (including spaces) are indexed by Amazon. Anything after that is pretty much a waste, so make sure you are using those 1,000 bytes wisely! Each bullet point can be up to 500 bytes, but it’s best to spread out your content between all of your bullet points. This makes it easier for customers to read the information in short snippets, rather than long run-on descriptions. It’s best to keep each bullet point to 200 bytes or less, while still keeping you at or under the 1,000-byte limit.
Things to include in your bullet points include:
High-converting keywords (duh!)
Branding
Size
Color
Important features
Description
The product category your product falls in dictates the indexing of your product description. The maximum is 2,000 characters (spaces included). Some categories allow all of the keywords listed in the product description to be indexed, but it’s best not to rely on that. For your Amazon SEO, product descriptions are a good place for longtail keywords. The best strategy for your product descriptions is to use persuasive content that will help optimize your conversions.
A+ Content and Enhanced Brand Content (EBC)
A+ Content and EBC are used by vendors and brand owners and are not indexed for Amazon searches. No keywords listed in this kind of content can be used to help your products get found through customer searches. Your regular product description will be replaced by EBC if you choose to use it. It’s advisable to use EBC rather than the regular product description because in most cases your relevant keywords will be used in your bullet points, title, and backend search terms. It isn’t necessary to use keywords multiple times for Amazon SEO, so if you’re able to get the most important keywords in at least one spot, you’re doing good! EBC offers better opportunities for conversions, and is also indexed by Google, so use it if you can!
Optimized Images
When you’re searching for products online, are you lured into clicking on a product that has terrible images? Not likely. Pictures are one of the most crucial pieces to product listings because that’s how a customer is able to visualize what they are buying before actually seeing it in person. Amazon SEO is not just packing as many high-converting keywords in as many places in your listing as you can. It’s also ensuring your images are optimized to give the customer the best shopping experience possible (and to get them to buy your stuff!). Amazon wants sellers to use images that are 1000 x 1000 pixels or larger, so customers can use Amazon’s zoom feature. These kinds of images help products sell better than those that are not zoomable.
Amazon SEO is an important aspect Amazon Sellers should not discount when it comes to how successful their products are at being found by customers. If your product listings are not optimized and are not showing up in search results because of it, then no one will be able to buy your stuff. Take some time to go over your listings and make sure they are full of good content that is persuasive and helpful at convincing the customer to hit the ‘Add to Cart’ button!
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