Amazon’s near-infinite product library is an incredible resource for buyers, but it can also make it incredibly difficult for brands to stand out from the crowd. You need to be appealing not only to potential customers, but also to Amazon’s Search Rank algorithm, which are two entirely different critics.
Some traditional rules of search engine optimization (SEO) apply on Amazon as well, but they need to be adapted for Amazon’s environment because of the company’s secrecy on how the process works. The search engine—A9—is responsible for converting a user’s search query into a relevant result, which is more complicated than it might sound. Unlike Google, Amazon’s main goal is to convert customers, and so A9 uses functional search techniques, algorithms, and correlation/comparison approaches to deliver not only relevant results, but also results that are more likely to convert.
It means that optimizing a product listing is much more than finding the right keywords. Every product listing needs to prove that it can be a converting engine for Amazon.
To make the matter more complicated, a listing that’s a winning bet right now might not always perform strongly—there’s no good way to know when, or how, Amazon will change A9 in the future.
There's been a lot of trial and error when it comes to Amazon, but there are some fairly consistent rules for optimization that remain solid for 2017:
The first step to any good SEO initiative is to understand that search is not only about the system that finds a product, but it's equally important to make the product easier to find (dubbed "findability").
Amazon looks deep in analytics to determine how users make queries to their site to find the products that they need, and this effort could not be more easily seen than in the structure of the product listing backend, which is designed for sellers to enter details that are relevant to their products. They've figured out "what parameters" matter for a particular product category based on reviewing search patterns and the products, and leave it to the seller to provide these values in the appropriate fields. (Note: the fields for a particular product's backend can be different, as it depends on the category that the product is in.)
The full potential of this area is often underutilized by many sellers, despite its clear use in many of the result filtering options used by shoppers on Amazon.
The backend is how you describe your product to Amazon's search engine for indexing, often before a sale (or the customer search) is ever made. It's important to consider the relationship between the specificity of the information you enter here, and the impact it has on your product's relevance to a shopper.
This approach for providing structured data to Amazon is fundamentally parametric or field/rule-based search, which a technique focused on returning highly precise results to user requests. In the context of Amazon, it provides a solid foundation for their search engine, as well as the basic framework and data needed for search filtering options, which allow users to sort results by specific elements related to that particular product type.
Within Amazon, each field in the backend has a certain amount of weight with some fields affecting how your products would rank overall more than others. So, while the keywords in your title and bullets matter, it’s only one piece of the puzzle that makes your product easier to find. Fields such as your product model number, charging time or even stain resistance can have a cumulative effect on how easily buyers discover your products.
By being thorough and completing the fields relevant to your product, you're providing A9 with all of the information that it considers important for that category. This gives your product the best chance possible to rank in Amazon's search results at the start.
With Amazon, there's a known-unknown relationship between sales activity and your sales rank. Going a bit further though, the sales rank for your particular product is linked to your product's rank in the results page for a search query.
The sales rank is a relative figure, as the product is competing against other products in a particular category. The calculation is based on the product’s all-time sales, but recent sales performance is weighted in more than older sales performance. For example, the thirty (30) sales that you had yesterday are taken into consideration more than three hundred (300) sales that you had twenty days ago.
In essence, the more you sell, the higher you rank. The higher you rank, the more you sell. In order to have the best chance to continue converting customers and generating sales in the future through your rank in search results, you need to monitor your sales rank, and ensure that it's rising consistently (not dropping).
It goes without saying that this works in reverse as well: the less you sell, the lower your rank, until you can say goodbye to your sales completely. This is A9 at work. Your product may still be viable, but it appears to be no longer "relevant" to customers. The reasons for this are numerous, such as new competitors, seasonal products, and more.
You need to develop a robust strategy to boost your sales and order activity if they begin to decrease. And yes, even the best-performing, most optimized Amazon listing will begin to reduce in performance as entropy sets in.
Monitor and push for higher on-page conversions:
Related: Optimizing the images for your product listings is one of the most important factors when it comes to increasing your brand’s sales on Amazon. Read our article on How to Optimize your Product Images for Amazon.
Better pricing, discounts and promotional activity:
Leaving listings static.
Static Prices
From the performance metrics that they track, Amazon cares if you care about your customers. Even then, they're equally concerned about the product reviews that customers leave on your page.
In addition to pricing, your ranking in search results is also determined by the quality, quantity, and overall review rating left by your customers. And remember: it’s all about verified reviews now.
For example, take a look at the search results for "electric guitar" on Amazon:
This shows an interesting relationship between pricing as well as the quantity and rating of reviews for the top results returned for this query.
The first result (A) has a sales price at $89.95 and 4.0 rating with 778 reviews.
o A has a lower price than B, as well as a lower review rating and 284 less reviews than B.
o A has a higher price and a lower rating that C, but has 138 reviews more than C.
The second result (B) has a fixed price at $209.00 and a 4.3 rating with 1062 reviews.
o B has a higher price than A, as well as a higher review rating and 284 more reviews than A.
o B has a higher price than C, as well as a higher review rating and 422 reviews more than C.
The third result has a sales price at $87.08 (C) and a 4.2 rating with 640 reviews.
o C has a lower price than A and s a higher review rating than A, but 138 less reviews than A.
o C has a lower price than B, but also has a lower rating and 422 less reviews than B.
A similar trend can be seen in everything from televisions to electric toothbrushes. While price is a major factor amongst competing products, the overall rating and quantity of reviews between competing products appear to be a differentiator and push pricier products above much cheaper competitors.
Follow up with your customers to increase your reviews.
Address your negative feedback:
Use your product reviews to optimize your pages.
Incentivized reviews.
Not addressing complaints.
Consider that optimizing for Amazon is an ongoing test. It goes without saying that Amazon's not going to share its formulas for what's required for perfect product rankings with the public any time soon.
Treat the A9 engine as a black-box—that is, you have an idea of what it's supposed to do. Now use the full scope of the inputs available from the platform and begin changing the variables that you can. More importantly, track the results of your tests over time to see what worked best for your product and category. Remember, though, the Amazon platform and its rules are always changing as the company refines and develops its system to maximize customer sales on the platform.
Getting your products noticed amongst Amazon's 400 million other product listings is a huge challenge. If you need help with your Amazon channel, request an appointment with us here.