As an Amazon seller, one of your main objectives is to increase sales while spending less, and here’s where applying Amazon SEO strategies become a must.
Amazon SEO can help you boost your organic traffic and sales, and the best part is that it is free.
In this post, you will learn what is Amazon SEO, how it works, and 3 effective strategies that you can apply to get the most out of it.
What is Amazon SEO?
Amazon search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of improving product listings to rank higher in search results without paid promotions. This leads to appearing more often, resulting in more clicks, and more sales.
The main goal is to make your product’s listing match the criteria used by Amazon’s ranking algorithm (also called the A9 algorithm) so the listing can rank higher on relevant searches
How does Amazon’s Ranking Algorithm Work?
When a person enters a specific term on Amazon’s search bar, Amazon’s ranking algorithm tries to match the client’s desires with relevant products. The algorithm analyzes product listings based on two main factors: relevancy and performance.
- Relevancy: Considers how related product listings are to the shopper’s search intent. To determine this, it examines keywords on the title, bullet points, backend, and product description (or A+ content).
- Performance: Based on customer experience. It mainly analyzes price, reviews, returns rate, inventory, sales velocity, and every metric related to how satisfied customers are with the whole shopping experience.
The listings that are closely connected to the shopper’s search intent and that have proven to give buyers good products at a great price will rank higher on the search result page.
So now, let’s see how you can make your listing relevant and trusty in the eyes of Amazon’s ranking algorithm
3 Amazon SEO Strategies to Rank Higher on the SERP
Increase CTR with Optimized Hero Images
When there are so many product listings targeting the same keywords, it becomes hard to determine which one is the most relevant. This is when Amazon uses click-through rate (CTR) to break the tie.
CTR is the ratio between the number of users who click on a listing and the number of times it has been shown.
Suppose a listing gets significantly more clicks than the others on the same result page. In that case, Amazon’s ranking algorithm understands that those clicks are driven by relevancy matching, increasing its ranking.
The number one best way to increase CTR is by having an awesome (and effective) main or hero image.
Your main image is the first thing shoppers see from your listing. That’s why it’s also called the “hero image” because it’s the hero of your listing. Its main purpose is to sway shoppers to click on the listing.
There are some key points your hero image needs to have to beat your competition:
- High-quality image
- Space optimization
- Differentiating factors
Here’s an example of a Hero Image that we, Share It Studio, created for one of our clients (My blue bullet)
As you can see, we covered the whole space of the image with different elements such as graphic assets that represent two important differentiating features of the product against the competitors: dimmable light and wide color range. As well, we put a female hand model to represent the majority of the buyers who are women.
How did we discover the buyer persona? By using Share It Studio’s data-driven method we apply it to make sure that shoppers relate to the image while catching their attention.
After uploading the content, the results were astonishing! Organic sales increased by 85%, and organic traffic by 82%.
Add A+ Content with Alt-Text in Images
According to Amazon, “adding A+ content to your detail page can result in higher conversion rates, increased traffic, and increased sales when used effectively”
One of the best ways to enhance the shopping experience of your listing is by making it more visually appealing, and this is where Amazon A+ content plays a huge role.
Amazon A+ Content is a premium content feature that allows you to change your plain product description with rich text and images.
It is a game-changer in terms of Amazon SEO because it improves your listing performance by enriching your customer experience.
Also, since you can insert Alt-text to your images, you can add relevant keywords to them, providing Amazon’s algorithm with more clues about your listing’s relevancy.
There are seven basic things you have to consider when creating high-quality A+ content:
- Do in-depth research: Identify who your buyer persona is. You may be targeting the wrong customer. Use the ‘Demographics’ feature on Brand Analytics to gain relevant insights about your clients.
- Pictures over text: Use as many images as possible. Don’t use blocks and blocks of text to explain your product.
- Keywords in text and alt-text: Fill up the alt-text feature to enhance your content’s accessibility. Try to put in relevant keywords, but don’t overload it. It has to be as natural as possible.
- Create emotional connection: Pay attention to the details, especially in terms of design, colors, font, and models… everything plays a huge role.
- High-quality images: Use only images that represent your brand quality. Your content is the listing, which means that if customers see a poor listing, they will correlate that to your product’s quality.
- Mobile-friendly: Adapt your A+ content so that it works both on mobile and desktop.
- A/b test your A+ Content: Start a test on Manage Your Experiments as soon as you upload your listing.
Let us show you A+ Content we created for ROSSM, a brand that sells wallets for men
Before creating its A+ Content, we thought that most of its customers would be men.
However when we researched its statistics and customer demographics, like their gender, age, and marital status, we found very significant information: 48% of its customers were women, and 87% were married. We concluded that a high percentage of female customers bought this product to give it to their husbands.
We decided to target this buyer persona, showcasing the premium qualities of the package that made it the perfect gift box, which was the triggering factor of 60% of the customer’s shopping decisions.
So how did the content we created for ROSSM impact its performance?
Organic traffic increased by 55.66% and organic sales increased by 45.46% (in comparison to the same period the year before).
This proves that if you have effective and well-taught visuals on your listing, and most importantly, that speak directly to your customer, it will certainly increase your traffic and conversions.
Use Fulfillment by Amazon
As said before, Amazon’s ranking algorithm wants to guarantee shoppers that the product listings it’s going to show can ensure a great experience. Delegating the delivery logistics to Amazon is a huge relief both for you and for Amazon because it knows that no one can give a better service than Amazon itself
That’s why FBA businesses tend to outrank FBM businesses.
And although you might think that FBA is quite expensive, there are some tricks to get the most out of it while spending the less possible. For example, you can thoroughly audit your account to maximize all potential reimbursements that Amazon might owe you.
You can do it manually, but there’s a huge margin of error. Instead, you can hire a third-party software to keep track of it, such as GETIDA, which is going to save you time and a lot of money.
Amazon FBA will make your business operations easier and give a boost to your rankings, so why not try it?
Conclusions
Applying Amazon SEO strategies doesn’t have to be that hard. The most important thing to understand is its essentials: relevancy and performance. Once you get this, you can optimize your content to rank higher.
With these 3 basic Amazon SEO strategies, you will notice a massive difference in your organic ranking. If you want to learn how to fully optimize your listing, book free marketing consultation with our team.
Share It Studio is an Amazon Marketing Agency that specializes in creating effective content. With 15+ years of experience, we create photos, videos, and A+ content that sell, as well as Stores, Posts, and general graphic designs like branding and packaging. We use data to make sure our content will stand out from the competition.
The Content Is the Listing and our content Is simply the best.
