Amazon is an e-commerce platform. But it’s also a search engine, one that’s uniquely attuned to the needs of e-commerce sellers and buyers. It’s like the Google of buying stuff online. And unlike Google no-one Amazons things to answer a question or browse. Amazon search is for people who want to buy something.
So if you want to sell on Amazon, just like on Google or Bing (yeah, it still exists) you need to get found.
How do you get found on Amazon? Amazon SEO.
Like this.
1. Product Titles
Product titles are the first place anyone looks on Amazon. Look here and you can see some truly terrible, spammy descriptions that you’d never want to use. But you have a lot of room – 500 words – to make yourself more findable for Amazon search as well as more desirable for actual human beings. Don’t waste it.
Ace It
Give all the relevant information you can. Think about anything that a buyer might want to know
- Size
- Style
- Materials
- Color
- Brand
Everything. But don’t put a dozen terms that all mean the same thing.
Way to look cheap.
2. Keywords
Keywords /= SEO. But they are a vital ingredient, even more so on Amazon. Unlike Google there’s no sophisticated algorithm to deliver you answers to questions: on Amazon, you search ‘Kettle,’ you get kettles. But the mistakes of spammy Google SEOs are there for us to learn from. Keep it readable for people too.
Ace It
Use keywords that are more specific, not more frequent or different words that mean the same thing.
Don’t do:
‘Shoes womens ladies footwear boots trainers sneakers high heels stilettos platforms’
(You’ve seen a few of these, right? Yeah. How many did you buy?)
But do:
‘Womens shoes size 7 black kitten heel insole distressed leather’
One will get you found by a lot of people who don’t want your product. The other will get you found fast by people who do. Give Amazon’s search engine a lot of handles to pick you up by, but make sure they’re all meaningful, specific and useful to buyers. (Want to dive deeper? Check out this Moz post.)
3. Customer Reviews
Customer reviews are gold dust for any seller anywhere. They make people see you as more trustworthy even when they’re negative. When they’re positive they do a lot of your selling for you. They also get you found fast by the right people: the more positive reviews you accumulate the higher up Amazon search listings you’ll appear. Amazon trusts your customers too.
Ace It
Ask for reviews if you want them. Ask your customers to write reviews if they’re pleased with your product. Try contacting Amazon’s most prolific reviewers in your space and asking them if they’d review a freebie. Send them a sample in return for a review and you get the benefit of their reputation backing their judgment of your product.
The one thing you should never ever do is buy Amazon reviews. It was always against ToS and unethical. Now Amazon is deliberately suing people who hire or write fake reviews, and it’s busting reputations and businesses.
About The Author:
Richard Bayston is a freelance blogger and copywriter covering tech, digital marketing and content strategy for SMBs. I’ve also been known to write on health and fitness. Find out more: Richard@RBCopywriting.com or @RBCopywriting. The rest of my time is spent arguing amicably with my wife and Googling the answers.
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