A well-optimized product listing is fundamental to your success on Amazon. There are millions of products listed on Amazon. It’s easy for your product to get lost in the sea of products on Amazon. Your product’s discoverability depends on how well you optimize your Amazon listing. In this blog post, I’ll walk you through the A-Z of product listing optimization and how to optimize Amazon listings for maximum profits. Speaking of profits, My Real Profit Profit Calculator lets you estimate profits per unit based on changes in other metrics like pricing and ad cost.
What is Amazon Listing Optimization, And Why is it Important?
Amazon product listing optimization primarily helps your product rank higher on Amazon to increase visibility and conversions. Amazon aims to provide shoppers with the best product options based on their search. When a shopper searches for a product on Amazon, the A9 algorithm displays the best products based on the product’s keyword optimization, reviews, and price. Amazon listing optimization involves adding relevant keywords, which I’ll discuss later in this post. This way, your product appears when shoppers search using any of these keywords.
Understanding Amazon’s A9 Algorithm And How It Relates To Listing Optimization
Amazon’s A9 algorithm was developed to reinforce Amazon’s core objective — customer centricity. Amazon aims to be the most customer-centric marketplace in the world, which is why it uses the “customer first” business model. That’s why it’s part search engine and part marketplace. The goal is to give shoppers an excellent shopping experience by showing them the best and most relevant products.
So, how does this relate to listing optimization?
Amazon SERP optimization helps improve Amazon search results by “convincing” the A9 algorithm that your product is the best option for your target shoppers. Amazon won’t show your product in search results if your listing lacks relevant keywords. So, optimizing your product listing on Amazon is the key to your product ranking high in Amazon search results.
But it’s not the only SEO factor at play on Amazon.
Here are the other metrics that the A9 algorithm considers when ranking products:
- Sales history and velocity
- Customer feedback
- Click-through rate
- Conversion rates
- Amazon PPC advertising
You can accurately calculate and predict these metrics with My Real Profit analytics tools.
The Anatomy Of A Healthy Amazon Listing
A healthy product listing has ten parts that combine to convert shoppers into customers. These are:
- Product Title
- Product Images
- Product Features
- Product Description
- A+ Content
- Search Terms Field
- Subject Matter Field
- Product Rating
- Questions & Answers Section
- Product Reviews
Let’s dive deeper into each part of an Amazon product listing.
Product Listing Title
Your product listing title is one of the first things shoppers see, making it a critical element. When writing your listing title, you want to fit relevant information without exceeding Amazon’s 200-character limit.
Product Images
Product images serve two purposes in a listing. The primary image captures shoppers’ attention in search results. The other photos help shoppers visualize your product. Detailed images improve Amazon listing by conveying your product’s dimensions, material, size, and quality to the shoppers.
Product Features
The Amazon list product feature, or bullet points section, communicates a product’s features and benefits to the customer. This section introduces a product feature and a brief follow-up explanation of how that feature benefits the buyer. Amazon allows you to list five product features, each not exceeding 250 characters.
Product Description
The product description is crucial to improving conversions. This section falls lower on the product listing, but most customers refer to it before making their final purchase decision. Product descriptions are content-heavy, allowing you to utilize 1,700 characters. It’s enough to explain all the essential product and brand information while incorporating relevant keywords for SEO purposes.
A+ Content
A+ content, formerly Enhanced Brand Content, allows you to tell your unique brand story with enhanced images, branded banners, unique designs, and descriptive text. A+ content is essential in Amazon content optimization, with brands that utilize it seeing a 3% to 10% improvement in conversions.
Search Terms Field
The search terms field allows you to add backend keywords to help rank your listing on Amazon. This section isn’t visible to the shopper, but it’s a crucial aspect of Amazon optimization since Amazon indexes the keywords in this section. Your search terms field should include keywords that are not anywhere on your listing text to save space and index as many keywords as possible. Amazon allows a maximum of 250 characters in the search terms section.
Subject Matter Field
The subject matter field is another backend keywords section, but you add keyphrases instead of individual keywords here. Still, it’s crucial to Amazon listing keyword optimization. Amazon allows you to add keyphrases in five fields, each not exceeding 50 characters.
Product Rating
Product rating is the total rating a product gets after customer reviews. It ranges from the lowest, 1-star, to the highest possible rating of 5-star. The product rating section shows the percentage distribution of customer reviews for each rating from 1-star to 5-star. Additionally, it breaks down how customers are rating the product per feature.
Customer Reviews
We can’t talk about listing optimization on Amazon without discussing customer reviews. Customer reviews act as social proof that you’re selling a high-quality product. It’s also one of the critical factors affecting your product’s ranking and conversions on Amazon. When optimizing Amazon listings, you should get positive customer reviews by selling a high-quality product and providing excellent customer service.
Product Listing Optimization Best Practices
Now that we know the anatomy of a listing, let’s look at the best listing optimization practices that will have you creating kickass Amazon product listings in no time:
Conduct Comprehensive Keyword Research
If Amazon SEO is an engine, then keywords are the engine block. Keywords are the backbone of good listing optimization, which is why you need to take time doing keyword research to find high-converting keywords.
Amazon is an excellent source of keywords for optimizing your Amazon product listing. When you enter a keyword in Amazon’s search box, it autocompletes the keyword with the most popular search terms related to that keyword.
For example, if you sell watches, you can enter the keyword “watch” in the search box. Amazon will list several related search terms customers use when searching for watches. You want to include these search terms as long-tail keywords in your listing text.
Using Amazon for keyword research is only the first step. You need to dive deeper using keyword research tools like Helium 10. These tools allow you to identify high-converting keywords by analyzing past Amazon data and even “spying” on your competitor’s best-performing listings. You can then compile the best-performing keywords for your Amazon product page optimization.
Optimize Your Product Listing Title To Captivate Shoppers
Amazon checks your product listing title to determine your product’s relevance to a shopper’s search. It’s also one of the first things a shopper sees when your product appears in their search results. You must optimize your Amazon product listing title to rank for Amazon SEO and capture shoppers’ attention.
A good listing title contains relevant product information without exceeding the 200-character limit set by Amazon. Your listing title should include your product name, primary keyword, two or three features, and the product color/quality/size/material/dimensions.
The ideal Amazon product listing title format looks like this:
Brand Name – Main Keyword – 2-3 Features – Quality/Material/Color/Size/Dimensions
The title format isn’t the only thing you should consider in Amazon listing optimisation. Here are additional Amazon listing title best practices and guidelines:
- Don’t write in all CAPS
- Use title case (Capitalize the first letter of every word)
- Don’t exceed 200 characters
- Always lead with your brand name
- Use numerals instead of words (“3” instead of “three”)
- Only include minimal highly relevant product information
- You can use necessary punctuation
- Spaces and punctuations are counted as characters
- You can abbreviate measurements such as “ml” and “cm”
- Don’t use subjective terms like “Best-selling” or “hot item”
Craft Benefit-Driven Amazon Listing Bullet Points
Most sellers make the Amazon listing management mistake of trying to sell the product features instead of the product’s benefits. Your product might have superior features, but you must explain how these features benefit the customer.
A well-crafted bullet points section will naturally contain keywords, but keyword optimization should be your secondary concern. Your primary focus here is showing shoppers why your product is the best choice and helping them make the right buying decision.
The best approach to bullet-point Amazon optimization is to state a product feature and then explain that feature’s benefit to the shopper. Since you have 200-250 characters to describe each feature and its benefit, you want each bullet point to be short, descriptive, and packed with keywords and relevant product information.
Here are additional product features guidelines that’ll help you create high-conversion bullet points:
- Always capitalize the first letter of the feature, or use all CAPS for the feature
- Stay consistent with your preferred bullet points format (if you use all caps for the product feature, do so in all bullet points)
- The total character limit for all bullet points is 1,000 characters
- You can list a maximum of five bullet points per listing
- Always start with the most prominent product feature
- Don’t make exaggerated or false claims about your product
- Address your target customer’s pain points
- List a guarantee as your last bullet point
- Don’t include offers, promotions, or pricing information in your bullet points
- Don’t include sentence-ending punctuation after the bullet point
Optimize The Product Description For Maximum Conversion
Besides being a perfect place to add your high-converting keywords for SEO, the product description also allows you to explain further why your product is the best choice for shoppers. Here, you can sell your product by describing its features in greater detail and adding the product information you couldn’t include in the title and bullet points, like promotions and offers.
You can optimize your Amazon listing by including your brand’s mission and vision in the product description section. For example, if your brand does charity work, a percentage of your sales goes to a worthy cause. Or maybe you sell environment-friendly products. The product description is the place to emphasize your brand’s positive impact on the world and urge shoppers to buy from you so they can be part of a worthy cause. Amazon has a 1,700-character limit for product descriptions, so don’t be afraid to go all in on selling your product here.
Here are additional product description best practices and guidelines to consider:
- Include your brand name in the description
- Include your primary keyword and other long-tail and short-tail keywords throughout the description text
- Don’t stuff your description with keywords. It should read naturally
- Include your product’s size for apparel and dimensions for electronics, furniture, jewelry, and other products where it applies
- Include your product material, e.g., wool or cotton for apparel
- Include crucial product information such as packaging, color, quantity, ingredients, unique composition, and unique features
- Make sure you can back up all your claims about the product
- Mention the condition of your product, e.g., new or used
- Write in an infomercial style
- Use short descriptive paragraphs with a line break separating the paragraphs
- Include a guarantee in your product description
- Add a call-to-action at the end of your product description
Use High-Quality Product Images
You want shoppers to thoroughly understand your product so they can make an informed buying decision. And you can’t do this with text alone. You need high-quality images so shoppers can visualize your product like they’re holding it and be inspired to buy from you. Amazon allows sellers to add up to 9 images in a product listing.
Ideally, your product images should capture your product from different angles that accentuate the product’s features. These images should be high-quality (1000×1000 pixels) to activate Amazon’s autozoom feature so shoppers can look closely at your product. You should also include lifestyle pictures showing your product in use so shoppers can visualize themselves using it and be convinced to buy it. Additionally, lifestyle videos help support lifestyle images in improving your product listing’s conversion rates.
For example, if you sell vacuum cleaners, you should add an image or a video showing someone using that vacuum cleaner, ideally someone who resembles your target audience, for maximum conversions.
Let’s look at the guidelines and best practices you should follow when optimizing your Amazon listing product images:
- Ensure the image covers the entire product
- Use a simple, clean background to avoid distracting shoppers from the product, ideally a white background
- Use photographs, not drawings or sketches
- Ensure the pictures are well-lit
- Take the product’s picture from different flattering angles
- Add as many different pictures as allowed (maximum of 9 images)
- Ensure the product images match your product’s description in color, size, and material
Utilize A+ Content
Amazon A+ content is a crucial aspect of Amazon marketplace optimization. It helps you turbo-boost your conversions using high-quality imagery and descriptive text that lets you sell your product and brand story to shoppers. Using media content in A+ content helps Amazon sellers enhance shoppers’ experience, improving engagements and conversions. It’s important to note that Amazon doesn’t index A+ content, but A+ content is proven to improve conversions, which could help your listing’s SEO rank on Amazon.
A good Amazon A+ Content typically consists of the following:
- Multiple high-quality product images
- Banners with product information or brand messaging text on them
- Unique content layout
- Product comparison charts
- Sizing charts
- Dimension product images
- Short, concise brand mission statements and descriptive bullet points
Let’s look at additional Amazon A+ content optimization guidelines and best practices:
- Keep it more visual than textual, with aesthetics in mind
- Emphasize your product’s unique selling propositions (USPs)
- Emphasize your brand identity
- Use comparison charts to cross-sell products
- Use infographics to emphasize your product’s USPs
- Use alt-keywords in every image to rank your A+ content on Google
Utilize Backend Keywords
Search terms and subject matter fields allow you to incorporate backend keywords in your listing. Keyword optimization on Amazon backend lets you add more keywords without stuffing your listing copy or ruining its readability. Shoppers don’t see your backend keywords, making these the ideal sections for those “weird-reading” but valuable keywords. Such keywords include generic keywords with misspelled words, keywords in a different language, and long-tail keyphrases that wouldn’t make sense in the listing.
Additional guidelines and best practices for backend keywords include:
- Don’t exceed 250 characters for search terms and 50 characters for subject matter
- Include your product’s synonyms, abbreviations, and alternate names
- Don’t include any punctuation marks when listing your backend keywords
- Don’t repeat keywords
- Include alternative spellings, e.g., spellings in American and British English
- Use all lowercase
- Separate words with a single space
Provide High-Quality Products And Customer Service
Product rating and customer reviews significantly impact your Amazon product listing’s conversion rates and SEO ranking. 95% of shoppers look at a product’s reviews before buying. Without positive product ratings and customer reviews, all other attempts at product listing optimization would be futile.
Getting positive reviews boils down to consistently selling high-quality products and providing excellent customer service. That means your product has to look exactly as described and do what you say it does. Additionally, you should ensure you don’t ship your customers faulty products or products in damaged packaging. If you do this and use the proper channels to ask for reviews, you should have positive reviews that’ll contribute to a well-optimized and highly-converting Amazon product listing.
Start Optimizing Your Amazon Product Listing For Maximum Conversions
Amazon listing optimization shouldn’t be rocket science — not when you know what to do and the guidelines to follow. This blog post will be your roadmap to creating well-optimized and highly converting Amazon product listings that blow your competition out of the water! As you optimize your listing, you also need to stay on top of your Amazon seller metrics. My Real Profit helps you get accurate Amazon data on all levels by catching leaks in your bottom line — at a very affordable price.
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