5 Tips To Take Your Amazon Game To The Next Level

Over the last two decades, Amazon has shown impressive growth, expanding from an idealistic online book-selling platform to become the world’s leading digital retailer. Today, there are up to 240 million users on Amazon and with added mobile functionalities and a vast delivery network, you should definitely be thinking about incorporating Amazon into your overall product marketing strategy. If you believe you have a great product that people need, the next step is optimizing your presence so that potential customers can easily find your product on Amazon.

Consumers on Amazon primarily use the site’s search bar to find products. This means that for your product pages to rank so consumers can find you among hundreds or even thousands of other sellers, you need to keyword-optimize these pages in the same way you would your website pages.

However, this is not about going in there and throwing in keywords; your keyword research must delve deeper to understand how users search on Amazon.

Here’s how to get the best ranking and visibility for your product pages:

Understand the types of queries

While users on other search engines are increasingly making question-based searches such as ‘What is a substitute for beans’, Amazon users search brands and products. Users may read reviews left by other buyers but they will typically not search for reviews specifically—they simply search products. Your keyword optimization efforts should therefore carefully take into consideration the words and phrases consumers are using to find a product like yours.

Balance between conversion and shorter queries

Consumers typically use short queries comprising of two to three words to search products on Amazon. The advantage of short queries that are descriptive (not vague or abstract) is that they offer more refined results and higher click through rates. Still, conversion rates tend to be higher for searches with more words. This could imply that consumers who use longer queries are further down the buying funnel, ready to make a purchase. Your product pages should be optimized for high click through rates and to keep the consumer engaged enough to achieve a conversion.

Optimize your product titles

Remember, consumers on Amazon search differently even when they are looking for the same product. As such, your product title needs to be extensively optimized using plenty of keywords that could be used to search your product.

Unlike Google search where excessive usage of keywords is frowned upon and even penalized, the nature of Amazon search necessitates the use of what might seem like a plethora of keywords. Do not be afraid to use the entire space available for the product title as long as it actually makes sense to your target customers.

In addition to optimizing the product title, you want to use appropriate search terms to describe your product. According to Amazon guidelines, sellers can use up to five search terms to describe each product. For best results, use broad and narrow search terms that describe your product but do not include words or phrases that you have already used in the product title.

Provide more details about your product

One of the criteria Amazon uses to rank products in any category is the amount of detail available for a product. Leverage the filtered navigation and product variation functions to give consumers more comparison details of the different varieties of your product.

The filtered navigation function for example, lets you add details such as the color and size of your product. Including such details is especially important as it considers the different phases of the buying cycle. Consumers who are closer to the purchase stage or are ready for purchase will tend to narrow down their search to find a product that suits their size or color preferences. Therefore, providing additional, synthesized and very particular details about your product can increase conversions.

The product variation function plays more or less the same role in that it lets you group your product into several variations. This allows customers to look at different product variations from the same page.

Overall, you want to keep your product descriptions precise but detailed; a best practice is to keep the descriptions to 200 words at most. In addition to the main description, you can highlight the best features of your product using bullet points.

Boost engagement with images

Can you imagine buying a product online without seeing how it looks? Probably not. Product descriptions with high quality images drive engagement and deliver greater conversion. Amazon recommends that you upload a large picture with dimensions in the range of 500 by 500 pixels. Avoid including animated images, your logo, links or watermarks to ensure that the image is free of distractions.

More sales on Amazon

Winning on Amazon is entirely possible even with the number of Marketplace sellers increasing. What’s really crucial is careful consideration of the search behavior of your target audience to be able to optimize your product and position it in the most visible way possible. Then, test, test and test your optimization efforts to see what works and what needs tweaking.