SEO Strategy: Learning Amazon Practices

The goal for all sellers on Amazon is to get your products displayed ahead of competitors and achieve the best possible positioning. Aside from advertising strategy, SEO optimising is essential to boosting natural search rankings. Learning the correct practices and SEO strategies can vastly improve product positioning.

Both on Amazon and Google, search result pages are dominated by advertising. However, long-term SEO strategy can help achieve a higher natural ranking to accompany any paid advertising.

The differences between Amazon and Google SEO

While there are similarities in content building, Amazon SEO is vastly different from the traditional format associated with Google recommended practices. With traditional SEO, your website must be well-built, using fast-loading pages, responsive formats, link building and feature keywords that match the user’s search intent. Each of these factors have an impact where the algorithm will rank your listing.

Amazon is different as the only aspect to focus on is the content. The content featured on the listing page, including title, description, bullet points, back-end keywords, product and merchant sales and other factors will affect the product’s position. It is always recommended to use advertising alongside SEO to maximise the chances of getting a positive result.

How does it work?

Listing optimisation is the initial step for implementing effective Amazon SEO. Performing a keyword search is essential. Only 22% of searches on Amazon are branded words, so it’s more effective to position products with search terms instead.

Once the right keywords are selected, insert them into the product title, bullet points, description and back-end keywords. Ensure that images are added following the Amazon guidelines, and always add A+ content wherever available.

Learning the elements

To be able to execute SEO strategy well, it is important to be aware of the factors that should be considered.

For instance, titles, description, images and bullet points can make a drastic difference. In the product title, use the allocated characters to add brand, quantity, key features, colour, size and any other relevant keywords. The description section should also be detailed, with the content aimed at addressing any potential concerns or questions that a user may have. This section is an excellent opportunity to tell users why they should purchase the product and what makes it stand out compared to others.

Using the bullet points is also effective not only for SEO but for providing concise, punchy sentences to sell the product. All of these need to be combined with images, which offer different angles contrasted against a white background, with minimal whitespace and a contrast ratio of 1000 x 1000 pixels. Ensure that images are also accurate compared to the description, such as using bundle images for multi-packs instead of a single product.

Improving rankings

Just like other search engines, Amazon’s algorithm has positive and negative factors which influence the ordering of search results. Sales history is the most influential factor, so it is essential for all sellers to aim to provide a positive experience for customers, from the initial discovery in listings to product purchase stages. Other factors that can make a difference include stock availability, listening labels, number of reviews, prices, fulfilment methods, click-through rates, page content, A+ content and product visits.

There’s also practices that sellers should avoid at all costs. Disappearing from search results or advertising campaigns automatically pausing are some of the bigger issues that may arise, as well as running out of stock.

Other smaller factors such as no Prime availability, poor descriptions and images, fake reviews or inaccurate information and violating Amazon content guidelines.

As shown in this article, Amazon’s A9 algorithm has many factors that influence the performance of SEO optimisation. The best way to achieve organic growth naturally is by adhering to good practices and frequently researching keywords and terms to stay competitive in the marketplace. For any more information or advice on maintaining good Amazon practices and campaigns, don’t hesitate to contact us directly.