AMAZON SEO – Product optimization explained holistically

How professional amazon optimization works

When you hear the word “search engine”, most people automatically think of Google. And when you hear the word “Amazon”? Hardly anyone associates the e-commerce giant with one of the world’s most successful search engines. Nevertheless, wherever digital searches are made, they can also be optimized, because the basis of every search engine is always an algorithm. This uses various criteria to evaluate whether and to what extent content matches a search query. If you know the criteria behind this evaluation mechanism, you can adapt content accordingly and thus influence the search results – it’s as simple as that.

On this page you will learn the most important Amazon SEO basics to get you started in the world of marketplace optimization. To go directly to the topics you want to know and learn about, you can use the following buttons to go directly to the respective areas.

AMAZON SEO RANKING.

You should keep this in mind before you start with Amazon optimization.
The first and fundamental starting point for any Amazon optimization is content – just like with traditional Google SEO. However, unlike with conventional SEO measures for websites, you need to concentrate much more on the most important keywords for Amazon, as the following rule of thumb is generally used for evaluation: Keyword relevance = How well the entered search phrase matches a specific product.

While you have virtually unlimited possibilities for creating content on a website, on Amazon you have to be brief in the area visible to buyers. The following criteria must be observed:

Product title

approx. 120-150 characters
(maximum 200 characters)

Bullet Points

5 list items / bullet points with approx. 200 characters each

Product description

maximum 2,000 characters possible
(for “normal” sellers)

These are precisely the essential elements that a potential buyer sees. Although you can use significantly more characters in both the title and the bullet points, this is viewed negatively by both Amazon and customers. Nobody wants to read through entire novels before placing an order in order to fully understand the article. The rule here is: less is more.

AMAZON OPTIMIZATION.

THE PRODUCT TITLE

Short, concise, formulated to promote sales, but still peppered with the most important keywords – this is how the title of an Amazon product should be structured. The decisive purchase arguments and search terms should be placed in the first 70 characters, as these are displayed as a short summary in the search results list (also known as SERP, Search Engine Result Page).

Everything after the 70 characters is abbreviated to “…” and is initially not noticed by users. Only if you can get potential buyers excited about your product in less than 70 characters can you even take the decisive step: users click on the Amazon search result and are taken to the product detail page. But what should be included in the product title? The following aspects can help with Amazon optimization or serve as a small guide.

Optimize Amazon product titles – the brand

Should the brand of the product be mentioned in the product title? In principle, yes, because Amazon itself recommends this to its sellers. However, you have to add a small “but”, because it doesn’t always make sense in all cases. Basically, the product title of your Amazon product is the most important place to include the decisive keywords. Anything that is not covered here will not be rated with full power by the search algorithm. So concentrate here on the most relevant keywords for Amazon optimization.

A well-known brand is of course part of this and should also be mentioned here for reasons of trust. However, if you come from the private label sector, for example, and sell with your own brand, you should consider whether the as yet unknown brand is not taking up valuable space that you should rather fill with another keyword. Nevertheless, mentioning the brand name in the product title can be worthwhile in the long term.

Optimize Amazon product titles – Unique selling points

Imagine that you are not the salesperson, but the customer. You are standing in front of a virtual shelf with many similar products that are all in a certain price segment. How do you decide which product to buy? This is where you, as an Amazon Seller, can exert influence and provide potential buyers with the decisive selling point. This should, of course, be placed prominently in the product title if possible.

Think about what makes your product special and how it differs from the competition. This could be a certain material, a special color or a special function. When formulating this USP (Unique Selling Proposition), try to put yourself in the shoes of buyers and then formulate your USP. An example: “red pillow” says the essentials, but doesn’t exactly sound sales-promoting – “crimson, super-soft cuddly pillow” is likely to achieve a much better conversion.

Optimize Amazon product titles – the search words

One thing should always come first in everything you do on Amazon: the real customer. Nevertheless, the first step is to get them to your product page – and for this you need the machine, or more precisely Amazon’s search algorithm. To “satisfy” it in the best possible way, you need the right search terms, also known as keywords. The better your product is optimized for the most relevant search phrases of potential buyers, the higher the probability that many Amazon users will find your product in the search results list.

Amazon’s search algorithm prioritizes the position of your keywords and weights them differently accordingly. The keywords that are placed in the product title have the highest priority and are therefore the most important for your Amazon optimization. However, the selection of keywords is not about a random string of search phrases (watering can method), but rather the targeted selection of the absolutely most important keywords.

As it is unfortunately not possible to measure search volume (possible search queries for a specific word per month) on Amazon, you have to use various other methods and techniques to analyze the most relevant keywords. The Google Keyword Planner is an effective aid here, but the Amazon autosuggest function can also provide very valuable insights into suitable search terms for your product.

RELEVANZ VS PERFORMANCE.

THIS IS WHAT MARKETPLACE OPTIMIZATION IS ALL ABOUT

With professional Amazon optimization, you always have to keep an eye on two sides: relevance (i.e. how well relevant keywords and search phrases are placed on my product page on Amazon) and performance (how successfully my product sells on the marketplace and how I perform as a seller). There is a simple reason for this dichotomy: Amazon earns money from every product sold on its marketplace and is therefore naturally interested in positioning top sellers as high up in the search results list as possible.

However, in order for the products to be at the top of the rankings, they must also be found by buyers, as over 90% of Amazon users almost exclusively use the search mask to start a shopping trip. And this is exactly where relevance comes into play, because customers will only buy a product if it is clearly visible in a search query.

The same basic SEO rule applies as with classic Google optimization: those who are in the first 3 to 5 places of the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) are best perceived by users and get the most clicks. It is precisely these clicks that are worth cash on Amazon, because anyone who is on this marketplace has a clear goal: to shop online.

These are the most important Amazon ranking factors

As already mentioned, Amazon optimization is all about relevance and performance. Here is an overview of which ranking factors are most important on Amazon:

Amazon Optimization – Relevance

Keywords in the product title
Keywords as general keywords (only visible in Seller Central)
Keywords in the bullet points
Keywords in the product description

Optimization tip: In addition to the product titles visible to every user, the so-called “general keywords” or “backend keywords”, which can only be seen and maintained as a merchant in Seller Central, are particularly important. A normal user will never see these keywords, but you shouldn’t just enter any search phrases here. Above all, optimize your Amazon keywords for conversion probability, i.e. for terms that will actually lead to a purchase of your product.

Another important note: Amazon is not the same as Google. Although you can draw conclusions from one search engine to the other, the search intentions and user behavior are different in both cases. So always think in terms of buyers when optimizing Amazon. Unlike Google, Amazon does not focus on information, but on conversion or the product.

Amazon Optimization – Performance

Sales rank (also abbreviated to BSR = bestseller rank)
Rate of order deficiencies
Cancellation rate of your orders
Rate of late deliveries
Dissatisfaction with returns
Violations of guidelines
Contact response time
Keywords in the bullet points
Customer feedback (or seller ratings)

Optimization tip: If you compare the list of relevance and performance factors, you can quickly see where Amazon prioritizes here. Of course, relevant keywords are extremely important in order to be found in the product search at all. However, it is even more important to deliver a clean performance, i.e. to sell as much as possible and receive as few returns and/or complaints as possible.

Amazon is primarily concerned with customer satisfaction and sets the bar very high for retailers. Respond quickly and customer-oriented to your buyers’ requests and sell as much as possible at a good price – then Amazon will be happy and reward you with good rankings.

AMAZON OPTIMIZATION.

INCREASE CONVERSION

In addition to the two main pillars of relevance and performance, there is a third aspect to consider, which stands somewhat on its own, but has interfaces with the other two ranking factors. We are talking about conversion, i.e. when a search query actually results in a purchase.

Traffic alone does not lead to more sales. Whether it’s Amazon or any other online store, conversion is ultimately the key performance indicator for measuring success. On Amazon, whether a user actually converts to a buyer depends mainly on the following three factors, which must always be evaluated in relation to any competing products:

Selling price

Does the sales price actually meet the expectations of the potential buyer? A price that is too low can be just as sales-inhibiting (product appears “too cheap”) as a price that is set too high (product appears “overpriced”).

Reviews

You can’t really have enough good product reviews on the Amazon Marketplace – there are no upper limits. The more reviews with 4 to 5 stars an Amazon product has, the better it will convert.

Product images

The photos of a product are often decisive for a purchase, as users need to be offered a certain “experience”. Crisp colors and contrasts, great details and recognizable scales can increase conversion enormously.

Optimization tip: Converting means selling on Amazon – and that’s what ultimately matters. While a “normal” online store achieves an average conversion rate (CVR) of 3 percent, Amazon often achieves three times that figure. Depending on the price and existing reviews, the CVR on Amazon can quickly rise to 10-20 percent.

If a retailer participates in the Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) program, conversion can rise to astronomical levels of 70 percent and more, as the small Prime logo encourages shoppers to buy like no other.

BASIS FOR A GOOD AMAZON RANKING.

THE PRODUCT CATALOG

If you want to offer your goods for sale on Amazon as a seller, you have to select one of the more than 30,000 different categories in which the respective product is sorted. Amazon calls the whole thing the “product catalog”, which essentially corresponds exactly to the fact that, in addition to the various subject areas, there are also numerous filter options that can be assigned to an item.

The following main categories are available to retailers on Amazon as a basis for their goods:

Books & Audible

Movies, series, music & games

Electronics & Computers

Household, Garden, DIY store

Beauty, Drugstore & Food

Toys & Baby

Clothing, shoes & watches

Sport & Leisure

Car & Motorcycle

Trade, industry & science

Although the “Fire TV” and “Fire tablets” categories can theoretically also be filled as resellers of Amazon’s own products, they tend to be the exception for most retailers. In the “Kindle eReader & Books” category, at least the share of e-books is quite strongly represented by “external” sources, i.e. authors and publishers, and is therefore also an area that is definitely interesting for Amazon optimization at product level. The categories “Prime Photos and Drive”, “App Shop for Android”, “Prime Music” and “Amazon Video” are special areas that are generally only populated by Amazon itself.

There are many more sub-categories for each of these main categories. It is not uncommon to be able to click through to the fifth level in each area. One example:

Electronics & Photo > Camera & Photo > Accessories > Lens accessories > Adapters & converters

Each of these intermediate steps also represents a separate sub-category in which your own items can be sorted. It is not necessarily required to reach the lowest level of a main category on Amazon, but in most cases this is very useful and helpful for the organic ranking – but more on this later.

Amazon assigns each category a unique identification number called “Amazon Node” – in other words, the Amazon product catalog is divided into different nodes, which can always be seen in the URL bar of the browser. A sub-category therefore has several such nodes, which can also be understood as a kind of path.

One product but several sales ranks

You might think that a product on Amazon only has one sales rank – but far from it, because every listing has at least two, sometimes even three or four bestseller ranks. This is simply due to the fact that each item is always classified in at least one main category and the corresponding sub-category in the Amazon product catalog. Although both categories are directly related, they each have their own node and therefore their own sales rank.

Now it can happen that Amazon “finds” one or two other suitable categories after the product has been listed by the retailer, which could also match the item. This is also the reason why a product can have many different bestseller ranks.

AMAZON OR GOOGLE.

WHICH SEARCH ENGINE IS BETTER?

If you want to carry out search engine optimization sustainably and professionally, you have to keep the search intention in mind.

The intentions of a searcher are about anticipating how users are on the web and with what intention they type in a certain search phrase. To answer the question of which search engine is better, searchers must be divided into three categories:

I want to know something.

The “Know Intention” is the most common use case for Google searches. A user needs specific information (e.g. “iPhone 6 technical data”) and uses the search engine to find it.

I want to do something.

The “Do Intention” is often referred to as a transactional search query in SEO (e.g. book, buy, order, reserve, etc.). Here, the user wants something specific (e.g. “buy iPhone 6”) and with regard to products, such search queries are increasingly landing directly on Amazon.

I have a specific goal.

With the “Go Intention”, searchers are less concerned with obtaining information or products, but with a specific goal (e.g. “iPhone help service”). Such search terms are also entered very frequently on Google.

For the first and third cases (for “Know Intention” and “Go Intention”), Google is probably the best search engine, as the company has been dealing with precisely these search intentions since it was founded in 1998 and has developed its search algorithms accordingly.

For the second case – wanting to order something – Amazon is now the better search engine, and users see it that way too. Users search for products directly on Amazon around three times more often than they do on Google. There is a simple reason for this: Amazon does not have to process and serve different search intentions, but can concentrate fully on the so-called transactional search queries (queries with the intention to buy) and optimize the search results accordingly.

And since almost every item can be bought on Amazon, more and more users are turning their backs on Google when they start a specific product search. Moreover, even Google has long since recognized Amazon’s high relevance for transactional searches. This is evident, among other things, from the fact that Amazon is very often assigned a particularly prominent position in Google search results when someone enters a transactional search there.

IMPROVE AMAZON RANKING THROUGH REVIEWS.

THE INFLUENCE OF CUSTOMER OPINIONS ON AMAZON

One of the key success factors for Amazon are reviews, i.e. product ratings from buyers of a particular item. For customers in particular, this is an important reason to start their product research directly on Amazon and not use an upstream search engine such as Google.

In online retail, customers like to buy what others have already ordered before them and found to be good. In retail stores, you can look at a product closely, touch it and perceive it better than in e-commerce. In order to minimize the risk of a bad purchase, customers have to rely on other indicators – and in the case of Amazon, this includes the opinions of other users. The more positive reviews an item has already collected on Amazon, the greater the interest of potential other buyers will be. For sellers, the rule of thumb is therefore: more reviews = more attention from other buyers = better sales opportunities. It can be assumed that products with many good reviews are generally much more attractive to users than those items with only a few or no product reviews. However, it should also be noted that the marginal benefit of a positive review decreases with an increasing number of reviews. And “more attractive” in this case means a significantly increased click and purchase probability. From a number of 50 customer reviews with an average rating of 4.5 stars, the conversion rate increases significantly, as the study “Power of the stars” by Bosch/Siemens Hausgeräte GmbH (BSH), HTW Aalen (E-Commerce and Chair of International Business Administration) and BIG Social Media GmbH has shown.

Many reviews therefore act like a magnet for potential buyers, and with increasing sales, the sales rank of the product also improves – one of the most important ranking indicators on Amazon. Reviews therefore have an indirect but very significant influence on the ranking in the search results list. Amazon’s algorithm rates products with many reviews positively, as the marketplace has a keen interest in ranking well-rated products at the top. These sell significantly better, which means that Amazon earns more from these products.

AMAZON SEO OPTIMIZATION.

FREQUENT QUESTIONS

In many conversations with customers, the same questions often emerge that are asked in connection with Amazon optimization. We have compiled the most important areas and answers relating to the topic of “Amazon SEO and ranking optimization”:

Questions and answers about Amazon reviews

To answer this question, you need to put yourself in the shoes of a buyer. Imagine a customer searches for “yoga mat” on Amazon. The first five products (if you search for “yoga mat” on Amazon) each have at least 400 reviews – so you can assume that you should get a similar number of reviews with a comparable item, otherwise your product would get less attention. The situation is different with the search term “special cleaning products”, for example, as the products displayed here have few to no reviews. You can therefore score points in this area with just a few product reviews. However, experience has shown that it is advisable to have at least a double-digit number of reviews. In principle, however, you should always orientate yourself on comparable products from your competitors and then assume an approximate average value.

Very few customers know that you can rate any product on Amazon – regardless of whether you have ordered it there or not. The only requirement is an existing Amazon account with at least one completed order, and you can rate any product with your opinion. You can distinguish between these two types of reviews by the “verified purchase” label. Those product reviews with this label were made as part of an Amazon order, and reviews without this label are not directly linked to a purchase on Amazon. The only exception: If an order is placed on Amazon with a high discount (e.g. instead of 30 euros you buy the product discounted for only 5 euros), Amazon will also not display the “verified purchase” label in many cases, as this is not a “natural” order.

The fact that product reviews also have a certain influence on the organic search results on Amazon, i.e. are anchored as a ranking factor in the A9 algorithm, is not 100% proven. However, it is assumed that products with many (positive) reviews are favored by Amazon, because such products usually sell more successfully and Amazon always earns money from this offer. Therefore, the marketplace itself naturally has a keen interest in listing successful items high up in order to earn more. However, reviews have a demonstrably greater influence on the users themselves, because the little yellow stars act like a magnet for buyers. The reason for this is easy to explain: in online retail (and often in retail too), shoppers are always guided by products that have already been bought and approved by other people, as the risk of potential disappointment is much lower (e.g. if the color or size is different from what is shown). The following rule therefore applies: the more good reviews a product has, the higher the probability of clicks and therefore purchases. Each sale in turn ensures a better sales rank and therefore a better Amazon ranking. Reviews therefore have an indirect but very important influence on visibility in the search results.

Questions and answers about Amazon keywords

Simple answer: currently not at all. Unlike Google, Amazon does not offer the option of analyzing the specific search volume of a search query. While you can use Google’s keyword planner to estimate the value of a keyword based on search queries per month, with Amazon you have to guess. Of course, there are currently many different Amazon tools that make keyword research for Amazon easier. However, none of these tools can show the real search volume of Amazon, as Amazon does not pass on any information about search volumes to third parties.

The “keyword density” specification plays an important role in classic Google SEO – but not for Amazon. Repetitions of keywords are ignored by Amazon and do not increase the relevance of a keyword. Therefore, you should create a priority list for professional Amazon optimization and rank the keywords according to importance. The most important keywords should definitely be in the product title, all others should be distributed in the bullet points and the “general keywords” (backend keywords) in SellerCentral.

As a first source for comprehensive keyword research, you can and should use the Amazon Marketplace itself. The autosuggest function provides valuable and important approaches for relevant keywords. If you have a specific search query in mind, simply enter it into the search mask on Amazon and you will immediately receive additional, supplementary keywords, which are usually highly relevant for your product. Competitor products on the marketplace can also be a rich source of new keywords. A comprehensive analysis of competitor products is therefore also part of any keyword research. In addition to Amazon, you can and should use other resources such as online stores, price search engines, W-questions and various keyword tools. Social networks such as Pinterest, YouTube and Instagram are also full of interesting products, so these portals also offer interesting approaches for Amazon optimization. The target group that buys (or should buy) a particular product is always important. Wherever this target group is active in the digital world, there are many opportunities to come across relevant keywords.

Questions and answers about the Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) service

Definitely yes! Absolutely, because retailers who participate in Fulfillment by Amazon (“FBA” for short) automatically receive the small but important Prime seal for sales. Two factors clearly speak in favor of FBA here: On the one hand, the conversion rate for Prime products is often many times higher than for items shipped by Amazon itself. On the other hand, Prime customers spend three to four times more money on Amazon than non-Prime customers. The additional advantage that you no longer have to worry about storing and shipping the items yourself is of course also worth mentioning – although this does incur additional costs.

FBA can be an extremely helpful way to get started in online retail in particular, as Amazon’s fulfillment service provides you with a well-functioning infrastructure in terms of logistics and warehousing and you don’t need to worry about returns either, as Amazon also takes care of this as part of FBA. Another advantage: Due to the enormous order volume, Amazon ships the goods much more cheaply than if you were to organize this yourself. However, FBA is not a suitable option for every retailer. For example, if you sell very large, bulky or individual products, FBA can also be expensive. A comprehensive FBA cost calculator is available directly from Amazon:
https://sellercentral-europe.amazon.com/fba/profitabilitycalculator/index?lang=de_DE

With this FBA calculator, you can work out for yourself what Amazon’s fulfillment service will cost you based on your products and purchase and sales prices and whether it is worthwhile for you. At this point, we would also like to point out once again that by participating in the FBA program, you are automatically activated for Prime and thus receive a very powerful sales booster.

If you look at the range of services offered by Amazon’s fulfillment service, you might get the impression that the whole thing is quite expensive for sellers. But far from it, because FBA is often even cheaper than FBM. On the one hand, you save the space costs (including insurance) of running a warehouse. Even if you don’t employ any staff as a small retailer and do everything yourself (i.e. you don’t have any personnel costs), you still have to factor in your own working time as a countervalue – this is also not necessary with FBA. In addition, the shipping costs under the FBA program are usually much cheaper than if you ship via DHL, DPD or UPS yourself.

Nevertheless, Amazon merchants incur a few costs when they use FBA. For example, Amazon charges a storage fee of 12.50 euros per cubic meter per month (January to September) or 18.00 euros (October to December). Since July 19, 2016, Amazon has been charging an additional fee of 25 cents per package shipped if the Amazon logistics centers in Poland and the Czech Republic cannot be used.

Amazon also offers various other services such as a labeling service, various pre-shipment services and a return and disposal service. You can also find a complete overview of all FBA costs here:
https://services.amazon.de/programme/versand-durch-amazon/preisgestaltung.html

Questions and answers about Fulfillment by Merchant (FBM)

If a:e retailer (also known as a “merchant”) ships items from their own warehouse, they have to take care of the entire shipping and logistics process themselves, but are also less dependent on Amazon. For example, a merchant who uses FBM can design the boxes themselves and strengthen their own brand with the shipping packaging. They can also prevent a customer from receiving competitor products in the same package when ordering several items, for example. FBM is also not a bad model when it comes to parcel inserts, as retailers can, for example, include a voucher code or a request for a review in the parcel without authorization. Nevertheless, the problem remains that with FBM you generally do not participate in the Prime program and therefore have to forego valuable conversions. Only in a few exceptional cases is a retailer invited by Amazon to join the “Seller Fulfilled Prime” program – but then again, this is subject to fairly strict conditions.

If you prefer to ship the goods yourself instead of using FBA, you will most likely have to accept losses in terms of ranking. On the one hand, Amazon naturally has a vested interest in storing the products in its warehouse and shipping them from there. This means they have full control over the entire fulfillment process and can always deliver on time – which increases customer satisfaction. And this is precisely one of Amazon’s central goals. From this perspective alone, it can therefore be assumed that the A9 algorithm favors Prime products – especially if two items are very similar and have the same performance, one product is offered with Prime and one without. In such a case, the Prime item usually “wins” the race and is better positioned in Amazon’s search results list.

Another aspect is the users themselves, as Prime products convert significantly better and are therefore purchased more frequently. This in turn improves the sales rank, which is largely responsible for the organic ranking on Amazon. As a result, the Fulfillment by Amazon program – and therefore every Prime product – has a much better chance of achieving good visibility.

The BuyBox is the so-called “shopping cart field” on Amazon, i.e. the area in which the price, shipping conditions and, of course, the order button can be found. Ideally, a product is only offered by one Amazon seller, who therefore usually controls the BuyBox alone and does not have to compete with other retailers for this field. With resellers, however, the situation is different, as many different sellers offer exactly the same item on Amazon and are therefore listed in groups. However, only one seller can “win” the BuyBox and therefore collect the sales directly. If a buyer wants to explicitly select another seller, they first have to click on the seller via a list and add the item to the shopping cart from there. However, experience shows that hardly any buyers do this, so that logically only the retailer who wins the BuyBox and does not join the list of different sellers makes the most sales as a reseller.

The BuyBox on Amazon is often only won by the price. Here, the offer price and shipping costs count together and whoever offers the cheapest price is usually displayed directly in the BuyBox. What happens now is clear: the various reseller retailers get into an extreme price war on Amazon and constantly undercut each other in order to win the BuyBox. With such a downward spiral, the margins logically become smaller and smaller, so that for many sellers this type of distribution on Amazon is not worthwhile for them. In the event of a price tie (two sellers sell the same item at the same price), it is the individual seller’s performance that counts, which can also beat a low selling price in exceptional cases.

Our tip for a sustainable Amazon business: if you are thinking about this sales channel, you should ideally sell your own products as a manufacturer or with relabeling and your own brand. Resellers only have a chance on Amazon if they generally have very high margins and can therefore calmly face a price war. However, it is always easier if you sell unique products on Amazon and “only” have to endure competition in the search results list, as professional and targeted Amazon optimization can make a big difference here.

IMPROVE AMZON RANKINGS NOW!

Wow! You’ve now read through a lot of information about Amazon optimization. What’s the next step? At ameo, we have a lot more in store to push your products up the rankings on Amazon and significantly increase your sales. We would be happy to discuss possible measures with you personally and without obligation. We look forward to getting to know you!

Through our customers, from different categories, in different seller models, we have been able to gather a lot of experience on over 10 Amazon marketplaces and thus offer a knowledge that you yourself would have to build up over years.