As a seller on Amazon, it’s easy to believe that once you’ve launched a product page listing, the sales will come rolling in. Unfortunately, if it were that easy, everyone would be a smashing success on the platform. The reality is, there are now more than 560 million products listed on Amazon in the U.S., with that number growing by the day. The competition has never be fiercer and the marketplace has never been more congested with products fighting for shopper attention.
As such, ensuring an optimized product page listings is an essential piece of any successful Amazon SEO strategy. But sellers and marketers alike often overlook an essential first step in doing so — conducting an Amazon audit.
What to look for when conducting an audit of your Amazon presence?
Just like any comprehensive content audit, an Amazon audit examines current copy and brand elements, seeking areas of both strength and weakness. In undertaking an Amazon audit, a marketer will address the following:
- OVERALL BRAND PRESENCE ON AMAZON – Is the brand properly established on the platform? Are the products both competitively priced and in-stock? Are you winning the Buy Box?
- KEYWORD + COMPETITIVE RESEARCH + KEYWORD IMPLEMENTATION IN COPY: Has the brand conducted keyword research to target the most relevant searches for your brand and within your competitive set? Do product page listings integrate keyword research?
- PRODUCT PAGE LISTING OPTIMIZATION: Is the brand implementing best practices in terms of Amazon SEO and Amazon copywriting? Do they integrate the five key elements of a successful product page listing?
#1 OVERALL BRAND PRESENCE
Own Your Brand in Search Results
When conducting a search for your brand, what do you see? Are you in the top search positions on page one, or are competitors advertising against your brand terms? Being in the top position for your brand terms is table stakes on Amazon. More importantly, you want to ensure that your listings are the ones that rise to the top. Oftentimes, resellers will duplicate your product listings or competitors will try and conquest your brand terms with Headline Search and Sponsored Product Ads. Your goal is to make sure it’s your listings at the top of the page.
Establish Your Brand + Create a Storefront
Amazon gives companies limited space to “brand” themselves on the platform. Images, Enhanced Brand Content (or A+ content if you’re on Vendor Central) and the increasingly important Amazon Storefront. Your Storefront acts as a brand hub; not only does it help organize your products, it offers valuable real estate to engage in brand storytelling.
In addition, Amazon is now providing brands with information on where traffic sources (i.e., did traffic come from your website, Facebook, etc). Your Storefront can be a powerful tool when driving external traffic to Amazon.
Are You Winning the Buy Box?
A savvy Amazon SEO strategy takes into account the key factor of its A10 algorithm: Driving sales. Two important determinants for this objective? A product’s price and its availability. In fact, next to sales history and keyword relevance, availability and price are the most important features driving search results.
In terms of product availability, Amazon’s algorithm reacts in real-time. If you are out-of-stock another seller will win the Buy Box. If you are beat on price, the seller with the lowest price (as long as they’re Prime eligible) will win the Buy Box.
#2 – KEYWORD + COMPETITIVE RESEARCH
Conduct Keyword Research
As previously mentioned, keyword relevance is a major determining factor for Amazon SEO. As such, any solid SEO optimization strategy integrates SEO best practices like conducting keyword research and crafting keyword-rich content. On the former, we recommend using resources like Keywordtool.io or Helium10’s Magnet or Cerebro. Google SEO tools like Google Keyword Planner are also helpful tools and can be leveraged for the sake of Amazon keyword research.
In addition, take a look at what keywords your competitors are targeting. We recommend taking a look at 3-4 established competitors to gain a good understanding of how they’re positioning themselves. What words and phrases are they highlighting in copy? If they’re relevant to your product, does it make sense for you to weave some of these terms into your copy?
#3 – PRODUCT PAGE LISTING OPTIMIZATION
Implement Amazon SEO Best Copywriting Practices
It’s not merely enough to integrate keywords into already-existing copy. A nuanced Amazon SEO strategy acknowledges copywriting best practices specific to the platform, including:
- TITLE – Although character count restrictions can vary according to category and across placements (desktop vs. mobile), a good rule of thumb is staying under 50 characters or less. Integrate your primary keyword into this copy piece, as it is the first and most important element Amazon scans. Other elements to consider including are brand name, product name and variants like color, quantity and size.
- FIVE BULLETS – The second most important copy feature, bullets should be keyword-rich, incorporating both primary and secondary keywords. Consolidate into five points in order of importance; avoid repeating the same benefits or differentiators from bullet-to-bullet. Lead with key selling points / keywords in all caps (“ARTISAN ROASTED FOR PREMIUM FLAVOR:”) and stay within a 250-350 word character range for each bullet.
- DESCRIPTION – A longer copy piece towards the bottom of the page, the description section allows for more narrative and brand-driven copy; use up to 2,000 characters to do so. Keep integrating keyword research into this section, focusing on more in-depth storytelling.
- BACKEND KEYWORDS – Amazon gives sellers the opportunity to provide a list of “hidden” keywords on the backend in order to enhance product discoverability. Order these keywords from most important to least important, separating by commas. Do not repeat the same keywords over and over.
Be Smart About Content Rollout
A savvy Amazon marketer understands that there’s no need to rewrite and rework content entirely across many product page listings, particularly when SKUs vary just slightly from each other. In fact, when it comes to product variants such as flavor, copy only requires slight tweaking from listing to listing — usually in the form of the product title and 1-2 bullet points. Implementing this strategy not only saves time, it helps potential buyers on Amazon “shop the line” with ease.