You have a unique, innovative product, launch it on Amazon, and wait in anticipation for the sales to come rolling in.
But wait. What’s this? Zero sales? How can that be? You know your product is better than anything on the market, yet people aren’t buying it.
The truth is, if you want to succeed on Amazon, you need more than a great product. You have to optimize for Amazon SEO.
Right now, buyers probably don’t even know your product exists. Despite putting it on the largest online marketplace in the world, it isn’t coming up in search results, and your competitors are mopping up all those lucrative sales.
Here is what you need to know about Amazon SEO and how to make it work for your Amazon store in 2021.
How Does Amazon SEO Work?
Amazon’s search engine is one of the key reasons behind its dominance in the online retail market. Keeping ahead of competitors by providing the best search experience possible is a critical part of Amazon’s business strategy.
What this means is that customers need to get the best experience when they search on Amazon.
When typing in a keyword, customers want to get the most relevant, high-quality product that matches what they need.
Keep this in mind when optimizing your Amazon listings, and you won’t go wrong. You need to know who your product is most relevant to, and the seven tips in this guide will show you how to do that.
The Benefits of Boosting Your Amazon SEO
Having good Amazon SEO strategies for 2021 will be critical to hitting your business sales targets.
Most people don’t scroll past the first few pages of results before they purchase on Amazon. If your product is hidden away on page 6, you may miss out on potentially hundreds of sales for your target keyword.
So by spending time or money optimizing your product listings, you can expect far larger returns in terms of revenue and profit for your business. It’s going to help you make money, and it’ll help you grow faster.
What’s more, the vast majority of Amazon sellers don’t fully optimize their listings. If you go one step further, it will put you ahead of the competition and give you a distinct advantage now and in the future.
Tip #1: Do Keyword Research
Keywords are as relevant to Amazon SEO as they are to Google SEO. To know what keywords you should use on your Amazon listings, you need to get inside the head of your buyer.
Start with some keyword research for your product. Use Amazon’s keyword tool to look at the most popular and relevant keywords for your product.
Next, look at the keywords your competitors are using, especially those with a high sales rank and many reviews. These products are selling, so they will likely be using the right keywords.
Once you’ve done that, you can start typing keywords into Amazon and looking at the autocomplete options. That will give you an idea of the most popular keywords in that category.
Lastly, good keyword research is about thinking laterally. Sometimes buyers don’t behave in ways that are obvious to a business.
You might think you’ve developed a fun, innovative chew toy for dogs, but what your buyer actually wants is a destruction-proof dog toy, and that’s the term they are searching for on Amazon.
There is no substitute for thorough research, which means listening to what your customer wants. Never assume you know what you are selling to them.
Tip #2: Create Keyword-Rich Product Titles
When optimizing for Amazon SEO for the first time, your initial focus will be on your product titles. Titles are the most significant ranking factor for Amazon’s search algorithm.
Think of your title as your instructions to Amazon about how to list your products.
You are dealing with a faceless algorithm and how that algorithm performs depends solely on the information you give it. Provide high-quality data, and expect high-quality results. Provide limited data, and expect unreliable results.
Don’t forget that your title has to be equally friendly to your potential buyers as it does to the search engine.
Once you have done your keyword research and determined what words to include in your title, you need to create a title that is relevant to the buyer.
From a buyer’s perspective, your title has to be easy to read, easy to understand, and it needs to attract their attention.
Finally, when creating your keyword-rich title for your listing, add the most relevant and significant keywords at the start of the title.
Both the Amazon algorithm and potential buyers will interpret these as the most relevant words in your title.
Tip #3: Convert Listings to Sales
This point might seem obvious, but it is worth including here because it is critically important to how your product performs on Amazon, irrespective of SEO.
If you list a product for a keyword and people are buying that product after finding it during that keyword search, Amazon will use this as a feedback loop. They will decide to rank that product higher.
That goes back to what we said earlier in this guide. Amazon succeeds if it can give buyers what they want and quickly. They want people to be able to do a fast search and then make a purchase.
If a product is selling for that keyword, that tells Amazon that people want to see it in those search results.
It becomes a positive feedback loop. The more you sell, the higher you will rank, and the more you will sell. Likewise, the fewer you sell, the lower you will rank, and the more difficult it will be to sell.
What is the takeaway point? Get your product selling well right from the first launch day.
Make sure that everything in your listing is fully optimized to help that product make sales. You need high-quality images, video, sales-focused copy, and fantastic reviews.
Tip #4: Get Fantastic Reviews
Even if you can get your product at the very top of an Amazon search listing, it will only stay there if people love your product.
Reviews are always a challenge for businesses, especially if you are a new startup. But there are strategies you can apply to get four and five-star reviews on your Amazon product listings.
Run a Marketing Campaign for Your Product Launch
Organic traffic on Amazon is a goldmine for a company, but if you want that, expect to do some legwork first. Run a marketing campaign before your launch and capture email addresses from potential customers.
When your product launches, use email marketing to encourage people to write a product review.
Remember, you cannot incentivize customers to write a review, but you can build genuine and positive relationships with your customers and ask them to leave a review.
Do Thorough Product Testing
Do not leave it up to your customers to test your product. That is a surefire way to attract poor reviews. Spend time and money testing your product and sending it out to focus groups.
The feedback you get from this will be priceless if it helps you get better reviews once you launch on Amazon.
Use The Request a Review Button on Amazon
Even your happiest customer often fails to leave a review. People are busy and move on quickly once they’ve made a purchase. Take the time to use Amazon’s system for requesting product reviews from your buyers.
Tip #5: Invest In Professional Product Photos
When your buyer is scanning Amazon listings, it will be the pictures that will entice them to click on your product. That is important because if you are getting clicks and purchases, Amazon will move you up the rankings.
Buyers will make their judgment about a product based on how good the product image is. Buyers place more trust in that seller. Professional and high-quality product images translate into higher sales for a product.
If you are getting started selling on Amazon, find a photographer who specializes in product photography. They will understand the importance of lighting and positioning to get the perfect image.
If you have been selling on Amazon for some time and are disappointed with your sales, it is certainly worth taking an honest look at your photos. Compare them side by side with your competitors to see how they fare.
Don’t forget that many products benefit from video too. If you are selling something in the home, such as furniture, include a video of how that piece will look inside a house.
Lastly, make sure your photos show your product to scale. Set it against a backdrop that will help customers understand the dimensions.
Even if you list your dimensions in the description, many people don’t read them before making a purchase. Product returns due to incorrect sizes will hurt your rankings.
Tip #6: Invest in a Copywriter for Your Product Description
A product description often feels like a tick in the box when it comes to listing a product. It seems cumbersome but necessary to write a bit about your product, even if it is clear from the title and image.
However, if you aren’t spending time on your product description, you will miss out on a big part of SEO for two reasons.
First, a good description will allow you to optimize for keywords. Second, the description is your opportunity to make your final sales pitch to your potential buyer.
If you don’t have in-house experience writing sales copy, invest in a professional copywriter who can turn your product description into the next must-have purchase.
Don’t forget to optimize your description for your chosen keywords. Though the description isn’t as relevant for the Amazon search algorithm, keywords should still match the title.
It will reassure potential buyers that your product is the perfect choice when they search on Amazon.
Tip #7: Be Relevant, But Be Unique
A big error that some Amazon sellers make is to use default images, titles, and descriptions for their products. Sometimes, they take this information directly from the supplier without adding any originality.
If you are selling a popular product and there are limited suppliers, another business is likely selling the same or similar product on Amazon.
Don’t try and cut corners by copying and pasting information from the supplier when creating your listings, even if this seems like a time-saving hack.
What will hurt your rankings is a listing that looks like a duplicate of another listing (especially if that other listing is cheaper, has more reviews, or has a better average review score).
Originality goes a long way on Amazon, especially if you can channel your inner salesperson to create titles, descriptions, and images that provide a punchy sales headline.
If you do that, then you are setting yourself apart from the competition. All else being equal (price, product, reviews), your product can win the day with a smartly-crafted sales-focused listing.
Of course, always balance this against the need to be relevant. There is no point swapping out a practical phrase such as ‘dog toy’ with a brand name if you’re going to miss out on having that popular keyword in your listing.
Supercharge Your Amazon Business With Smart SEO
Amazon SEO is more than just ranking for the right keywords. Keywords are critical to getting found, but your real success in ranking on Amazon will come once you can convert those searches into a new paying customer.
Investing in Amazon SEO services is the perfect strategy for any business that wants to grow their Amazon business in 2021 or boost sales.
We offer free, no-obligation consultations where we can discuss your Amazon sales strategy. You can reserve your free call now by completing this consultation form.
