These days, getting your product listed on Amazon is the easy part.  Getting that product seen by eager buyers is the real challenge.   Amazon’s Sponsored Products pay-per-click marketing platform should be part of your strategy, but that’s going to cut into your profits and won’t be as effective if you’re listing isn’t optimized.  In fact, Amazon won’t allow your listing to show up for a PPC search term if you don’t have the keywords for the search term in your listing.  So, what other options do you have to get your product seen by Amazon shoppers?

Amazon search terms optimization

Just like traditional website SEO, you can use Amazon keywords to help rank your listing toward the top of the search results.  Amazon uses its own search algorithm known as A9.  This algorithm is different than those used in traditional search engines like Google and Bing because Amazon’s only goal is to make a sale.

By the time shoppers arrive at the Amazon search bar, they most likely have their credit cards in hand, ready to buy.  They know what they want and they know where to get it.  Well, almost.  Because there are millions of products available on the world’s biggest shopping site, the search bar is the quickest way to find what you are looking for.

Whether you use a broad keyword like “pink sneakers” or a more specific keyword phrase “pink Converse high-top sneakers for women size 8”, you will get results.  But what if you typed in “pink basketball sneakers ladies 8”?  Would you get the same results? Probably not.

How would you know what search terms buyers use most often?  As a seller, you may be tempted to simply guess at what keywords would work best for your product.  Or try using some of the free tools that are out there.  This will likely get you lost among thousands of other listings.  You are simply going to miss some keywords and as a result, lose sales.  You could use an Amazon listing optimization service, but these are usually pricey and give you little control or insight into the optimization strategies that, once learned, you can use on your future listings.

Missing sales hurts

When keywords/phrases are not indexed for your listing, they won’t show up in a customers search engine for those terms.   Not only are you not going to get the sales for the searches your listing isn’t showing up, but the missing sales translates to a lower sales velocity.  The most important thing to Amazon’s A9 search algorithm is your listing’s sales velocity.  The higher the velocity the more Amazon will reward your listing by moving it up above the listings that have a lower sales velocity. 

Amazon penalizes listings that show up where they don’t belong

It can be tempting to also take a shotgun approach to your keywords, but the problem is that Amazon is watching your conversion rates.  When your listing shows up in a customer search and the customer doesn’t buy your item, Amazon tracks that and penalizes the listing thinking it’s not a product that customers want.

Learn how to optimize Amazon listings to get found fast

The best approach is a smart, focused approach.

Instead of putting your Amazon listing optimization in someone else’s hands, you can take control with the powerful tools included in the WordTree platform to build the perfectly optimized listing.

This affordable suite of Amazon listing optimization tools will find the top most searched for keywords buyers use to find products like yours.  Just input up to 10 competing Amazon listings that are the same or similar to what you are selling.  A custom organic search report will be generated showing the relevancy score of each keyword, along with broad search volume, exact search volume, and sales velocity.  Using this list, you can choose the best keywords to sell your product.

WordTree is pulling the search volumes straight from Amazon’s ad servers, so you are getting numbers that are Amazon’s numbers.  These search volumes are not only great for keyword optimizing, but for building PPC campaigns, since you now know how often these search terms are being searched on Amazon.

After generating an organic search report, the WordTree Listing Builder then guides you through placing these keywords where they should be used.  WordTree’s Listing Builder will speed up the process of crafting a keyword optimized listing that will aid your listing to moving to the top of the A9 search results.  The process easily teaches you how to use Amazon keywords and also shows you the number of characters you are allowed, updating while you type.  This way, you can use all of the space allowed to create titles, bullet points, descriptions, search terms, and subject matter fields for optimal results.  If you’re looking to optimize an existing product listing, there’s a convenient import feature that puts your current listing’s content into the proper fields so you can punch up your title, bullets, description and the rest.

With WordTree, you also get a free 31 day trial of their rank tracker, so you can keep an eye on where your listing ranks in comparison with your competitors.  This information will give you what you’ll need to make better ad copy decisions and PPC decisions.  Plus, there’s a free Google Chrome extension you can use to quickly see what keywords your listing shows up for (or not) on Amazon with just a few clicks.

Never post an ineffective, under-optimized Amazon listing again! Learn to use the best keywords in the best ways to get your fair share of eager Amazon buyers with WordTree.

To learn more about WordTree.io and their tools, click here:

www.wordtree.io

About the author

Paul SkariePaul Skarie is a cofounder of WordTree.io and has been selling on Amazon FBA full time since January 2014 and started private labeling in the middle of 2015.  He has launched over 20 private label products on Amazon and keeps active with the community.