SEO – How to rank number one in Amazon

What is Amazon SEO?

Amazon SEO is the process of optimising your product listing in order to rank higher in Amazon search results under relevant keywords.

While Google is used for a wide range of searches, most of which are informational, Amazon searches are almost always transactional. Therefore, Amazon’s aim is to create an algorithm that maximises the number of transactions. In other words, everything they do is with the aim of generating the maximum number of sales. In order to do so, the product most likely to be bought by a customer will be placed in rank 1, the second most likely on rank 2, and so on.

The question then is how does Amazon figure out which product is most likely to be purchased by a customer? Amazon’s search algorithm, or A10, does this job and it is based primarily on two factors: relevance and performance.

Factors related to relevance:

WHAT IS RELEVANCE IN REGARDS TO AMAZON SEO?

Your product title

A crucial aspect of Amazon SEO is the relevance of keywords within your product title. In order to maximise relevancy of your product title it is important to:

• Include a clear description of your product
• Include your brand name
• Specify colour/size/material of the product

At the same time, it is important to avoid using too many keywords as this can decrease readability of your title and can negatively impact Click Through Rate (CTR).

Your Amazon product description

It is important to be detailed in your product description to persuade the buyer to purchase your product. Explain the benefits and features of your product and include any important information.

Your product description should read well and sound natural.

Your seller name on Amazon

It is sometimes possible to improve rank on certain products by including relevant product keywords within your seller name.

Customers often search for a product based on brand name, therefore it is also important to include an accurate name in listings.

Backend keywords in Amazon

Backend keywords are hidden keywords that only Amazon sellers can see. They are a means of telling Amazon’s algorithm that a specific keyword is relevant to your product. They are crucial for helping your product rank for other important keywords without trying to cram them all into your listing, helping keep your listing clean while still ranking for useful keywords.

There are five fields your can fill out with backend keywords, each line having a 50-character limit.

It is therefore important not to repeat keywords and to avoid extra punctuation that will add to your character count (other than commas which are ignored).

Now, we look at the second impacting factor – which is…

Factors related to performance:

Your shipping speed on Amazon

How fast you ship your product is a major factor in ranking. It is very common to see prime products with less reviews, higher prices, and less sales outrank other products because Amazon know this is a great customer experience and it’s likely customers will be happy and return for more purchases.

Your Amazon pricing strategy

The amount you decide to charge for your product greatly impacts on your conversion rate. If your pricing is competitive in comparison to other sellers selling similar products, it is self-evident that you are going to have a lower conversion rate than therefore less sales.

If your price is considerably higher than competitors, it is important that there is justification for this like a differentiating factor, e.g extra features, or social proof like more reviews.

Your Amazon conversion rate

Unfortunately, it is difficult to compare your conversion rate with competitors, without access to Amazon analytics.

However, you can check Business Reports found under the reports tab in Seller Central. The Unit Session Percentage (i.e. number of items bought per visit) will give you a close idea of conversion rate for your product page. In general for lower priced items, under $30, you should be aiming for 10%, and higher priced products will be 5% or lower.

Your Amazon product images

It should be noted that products with good, high-quality images often have a considerably higher conversion rate. Amazon recommends that:

“Images should be 1,000 pixels or larger in either height or width. This minimum size requirement enables the zoom function on the website. Zoom has been proven to enhance sales. The smallest your file can be is 500 pixels on its longest side.”

In following these guidelines you can should be sure to see an improvement to your Amazon
search-results rankings.

Your Amazon product reviews

Reviews are another important factor affecting performance. Products that rank higher for a specific keyword tend to have more and higher reviews than those lower down on the list.

In order to increase the number of reviews on your product page, it’s as simple as sending customers reminder emails after a purchase, asking them to leave a review.

It is also important to take into account any negative reviews and address any problems consistently highlighted in order to improve your rating.

Summary of Amazon SEO – How to rank number one in Amazon

In short, ranking highly on Amazon comes down to understanding how the Amazon algorithm works. Although a product page can be optimised in many ways, it is important to remember that there are two main factors which affect rank: relevance and performance.

Through optimising your listings with these two factors of relevance and performance in mind, you should expect to see a gradual improvement to your conversion rate, organic ranking and therefore overall sales.

The most important point to understand is that Amazon are always looking to maximise sales b providing the product most likely to be purchased in the top spot. The one with the most sales is likely to be that.

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