Turning your Amazon product pages into a sales powerhouse is possible, especially if you give up the wishful thinking, roll up your sleeves, and get into the fascinating world of SEO tools and tips.
Meticulous keyword research is 90% of the Amazon SEO Optimization heavy-lifting.
Every drop of sweat, blood, and every bitter tear you left in the SEO land of excel sheets or trying to find the perfect *Free* Amazon keyword tool will pay off, I promise.
There’s no universal "SEO services" or "Amazon search" manual (well, not yet!), but this short and efficient checklist could help you beat the competition with cleverly-executed SEO strategies.
Know your seed keywords
The best way to start keyword research is to create a seed list by using words that describe your product. If you’re selling “office chairs”, then spend a few minutes on Google and Amazon searching for “ergonomic chair” and see what comes up. You’ll see both google and Amazon suggest “Office chair”, “Computer chair” “Swivel Chair” “Drafting chair” “Executive chair” “Managerial chair” “Adjustable chair”, etc.
Investigate keywords’ popularity
Use at least one Amazon Keyword tool to find the estimated search volume for each main keyword plus more long-tail key phrases, derived from your primary keywords. For instance:
Merchant words - collects the search terms used by online shoppers on Amazon (they also estimate the monthly search volume for any given key phrases, which is extraordinary)
Sonar - finds the most profitable key phrases from 75 million Amazon search terms. Their free reverse ASIN lookup tool is a very useful investigator of your competitors' keywords.
Keywords Everywhere - the FREE browser add-on for Firefox and Google Chrome that displays search volume, CPC & competition on Google, Etsy, Amazon, and other websites used by Internet Marketers.
KWfinder - is a fantastic keyword tool that will find hundreds of long-tail keywords with low SEO difficulty.
The Scientific Seller - they proudly call themselves "the world's slowest keyword tool that steadily wins the race." They run more creative search strategies, they often go further away from the seed words to find new terms and gather keyword ideas from many sources including Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI). In the end, they filter them out in case they’re not viable Amazon keywords.
For instance, all the SEO research and analysis tools above will suggest longer key phrases like: “ergonomic office chair” “Ergonomic desk chair”, “ergonomic chair back support” and many more. If you spend a few good hours researching, you can end up with thousands of keywords.
Export them and copy-paste them in one excel file, “Remove duplicates” and sort what’s left, having the higher estimated volume on top. This, my friend will be your SEO gold mine.
By picking the right (most relevant) keywords AND the ones with a relatively high volume of search, you’ll create a massively-optimized listing.
Next step: use keywords throughout your listing, in this particular order: Title, Bullets, Search Terms, and Product description.
Remember to exclude: model names, product numbers, brand names, or any other details that hint at your direct competitors.
DID YOU KNOW THAT…
EBC content DOES NOT count for Amazon product ranking, but it’s still recommended to use keywords in its text boxes because it helps your product page get indexed properly by search engines such as Google. (Many shoppers start their purchase with a Google search and it’s best to have your Amazon listing well optimized and ready to be discovered).
And since we're here, we should add the following:
Only the first 1000 bytes (spaces included) of all five bullet points (in total) are indexed by the Amazon search algorithm. Keywords/phrases beyond this limit will not be considered. Therefore, next time when you ask yourself: what's the optimum length for a product feature? The answer should be (at least from an SEO-search indexing point of view) - 1000:5 = 200 CHARACTERS/bullet. This is a great option for readability as well. 500 characters/bullet are hard to follow sometimes, especially from a mobile device, unless you're really into the product you want to purchase. 200 characters is a perfect solution for a good conversion rate AND for SEO.
Perform a killer Amazon Search Terms Optimization
This is a crucial component of the Amazon ranking process. Overlooking it would be a big mistake because the “Search Terms” tab is the 3rd most important Amazon SEO section in your listing (after #1 Title and #2 Product Features).
On August 2nd, 2018, Amazon updated the search term fields Character Limit from 250 bytes to 249. This means you’re only allowed to have 249 characters (including hyphens and spaces) in the Search Terms field.
Search Terms rules and hacks
Use as many keywords related to your listing as possible – the ones you left out from the Title or Product Features Bullet Points
Include synonyms, alternative names, different spelling or abbreviations
ASINs are not allowed in Search Terms.
Leave out connection/stop words ("and", "by", "the", "with","for", "a", "an" or "of")
Use either singular or plural; don't waste precious space with both.
No temporary words ( "new" or "on sale now") nor subjective claims ("Perfect""best", "cheapest", "greatest","amazing)
You don't have to combine languages because Amazon automatically translates search terms into other languages.
Don’t use any punctuation or commas (hyphens help though)
Don’t rely on stemming (adding endings like -ing, -ed, -es to root words).
In a nutshell, cut the fluff and leave only the meat, the substance, the very core of each keyword you target.
Most Amazon SEO articles replicate the "No duplicate keywords in the Search Terms" myth, because, officially, Amazon recommends not to repeat words already used in the Title or Product features) BUT, from experience, I'm pretty sure this is nonsense and I've also tested it myself. The conclusion: on the contrary, I'd say use in Search Terms all the main keywords, strictly related to what you're selling, filter and polish them.
You'll end up with a string of 249 characters that should be the essence of your Amazon page instead of having a string with words that haven't been used throughout the listing. In over 90% of the cases, of Search Terms keywords are indexed ONLY if they're also in the visible listing content. Words that are not featured anywhere in your listing (Title, Bullets, Description) will most certainly not get indexed (and why would they, after all?). If they haven't been used, they have no direct/primary connection with the product, then why assume they'd get indexed?
DID YOU KNOW…
…that, unlike Google, the Amazon listing optimization is not based on keyword “density”?
On Amazon, if you repeat the same root keywords but with various endings (filter, coffee filter, coffee filters, filter, filters, and filtering), the Amazon keyword ranking algorithm labels them as spam because it sees all variations as the same “keyword” – the root word.
For Amazon, high key phrases density is “spam” and could get you penalized.
White Hat Only: Never Use Competitor Brand Names or Products
This is the so-called “keyword bombing” that again, could get you penalized. It’s about trying to “steal” your competitor’s clients by showing up when they search for a competitor’s product.
White hat tactics refers to SEO practices that help you rank without breaking any rules. They're dictated by major search engines (Amazon included) and strictly follow their policies.
Add common misspellings to search terms
Although Amazon says it automatically fixes typos and suggests the correct product name, there are some massively-used misspellings (“hand made” vs “handmade, “tea pot” vs “teapot”, etc).
For instance “white board” (approx. 2 mil monthly searches) and “whiteboard” (900,000 monthly searches). Disregarding this “detail” and only using one of these 2 would mean your business will miss out on a lot of traffic and sales. Therefore, why not include both and one of them could be in the search terms field.
DID YOU KNOW…
… that EBC content is not indexed nor provided to Google?
In fact, A+ Content (for vendors), EBC (for sellers), and image tags ARE NOT indexed for Amazon search at all. According to Amazon,
“The Enhanced Brand Content feature (known as the A+ tool) allows brands to describe product features in a more attractive way, by including high-quality product images, a brand story and different text box options. Done properly, EBC usually generates increased traffic, higher conversion rates, and more sales. EBC focuses on upgrading the shopping experience, by delivering more information about the products. It’s strictly for the internal Amazon catalogue and it’s not indexed on Google.”
When switching to EBC, the regular product description will disappear if EBC, and many sellers don't know if that's good or bad. Many businesses who noticed a significant drop in online traffic when they turned to EBC content preferred to stick to HTML. Others noticed that even if traffic was reduced, conversions went up.
In most cases, you can cover relevant keywords just by using the title, back-end keywords, and bullet points anyway. EBC, if performed professionally, almost guarantees higher conversion rates.
Now it’s up to you to figure out what would work, test, and see what happens.
May the oh-not-so-secret-now Amazon rating forces be with you!
P.S: If it’s too much information and you’re too busy to get down and dirty with all the Amazon search terms, Amazon keyword research, and Amazon tools, don’t worry. Our friendly Amazon SEO service is here, with an equally enthusiastic and highly-skilled Amazon expert (talking about 5 academic degrees here) – always ready to answer your questions and optimize your listings. Contact us: hello@seozonprime.com or go ahead, make our day while saving yourself from the SEO hard work, and just hire us.
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