Tag: amazon seo

Amazon FBA for Beginners: 6 Steps to Start Your FBA Journey

In this Amazon FBA for Beginners guide, we’ll walk you through how to sell on Amazon and give you six tips for success.

Wouldn’t it be nice to generate a little extra income? Selling online has afforded many hardworking and driven people more financial freedom and in some cases, completely changed their lives.

In a recent study, it was estimated that 40 percent of worldwide internet users bought products or goods online several times a month. And that number continues to grow daily.

This has led many people to ask themselves: How can I capitalize on this e-commerce explosion?

One of the largest players in the space is e-commerce giant Amazon — a multi-billion-dollar company that has established themselves as the leading online retailer. But Amazon is more than just a store. It’s also a marketplace where regular people – just like you and me – can become successful internet entrepreneurs and make passive income.

What is Amazon FBA ?

One of the most popular options for selling on Amazon is as a third-party seller through their Fulfillment by Amazon program, or FBA.

Whether you’re a college student, a retiree, or somewhere in between, you can become an internet entrepreneur through Amazon FBA. In fact, more than half of the total sales on Amazon come from third-party sellers.

Amazon FBA is a popular option because many of the logistics of operating a physical business are handled by Amazon. This allows sellers to minimize their effort and maximize their time and (most importantly) profits.

Benefits of Amazon FBA for Beginners

For the sake of this Amazon FBA for Beginners guide, we’re discussing how to sell on Amazon through the Fulfillment by Amazon program. There are other options (such as FBM) … but those are blogs for another time.

Like we covered briefly in the beginning of this blog, FBA means you send your products to Amazon and they store, pack, and ship your product to your customers. While there are, of course, additional fees with this strategy, there are also some serious benefits:

  • Prime perks: All FBA products are eligible for Prime, which is a huge advantage for FBA sellers. An astounding 63 percent of Amazon shoppers are Prime members! In fact in 2018, it’s estimated that Prime shoppers will drive more than $117 billion in spending. Selling through FBA means your products will be eligible for Prime free two-day shipping.
  • More trust: Amazon has done a great job instilling trust in their business model and practices, which helps you as an FBA seller. When people see a product is Fulfilled by Amazon, they know it will arrive in good condition and on time (and if not, Amazon takes care of it).
  • Hands-off: Scale your side-hustle into a full-time income. FBA gives you the ability to quickly scale without the difficult logistics of handling inventory and shipping out orders.

All these benefits, plus more, contribute to why FBA is a popular strategy for selling on Amazon that leads to incredible sales potential! Just keep in mind, as an FBA seller, you will have to get your products properly prepared for Amazon’s warehouse. That means printing barcodes on products, packaging items per Amazon’s requirements and shipping them into their warehouses.  

So now you’re ready to begin your FBA journey. But where do you start? Here are 6 steps for starting your online business and making your first sale.

 

  1. Find Product Ideas

Now that you know a little bit about Amazon’s FBA program, it’s time to sign up as an Amazon seller. You can choose an Individual or a Professional Selling Plan. If you’re hoping to sell more than 40 products per month, you’ll want a Professional Selling Plan. 

The next step is finding product ideas, and this is a really important step. One of the most popular ways to sell on Amazon is through Private Label. Private Label is when you choose a product, find a manufacturer, and then package and sell those products under your own brand.

Choosing the right product to private label and sell on Amazon is crucial for your success, and the process can be difficult and sometimes stressful. There are a whole host of factors to consider, like marketplace viability, popularity, price and profit margins. If you source a random product, you are essentially gambling on its success.

You want to ensure the highest probability of success by understanding the market’s potential. For this reason, getting as much information as you can during your Amazon product research phase is essential.

So, you might be asking: “Where do I start?” Your first move should be to use product finding software that can help you determine the right market to enter.  

This type of software will provide you with a personalized list of potential product ideas that align with your goals, so that you can quickly and easily understand which products will make you money and which ones will take your money.  

Our favorite product finder is Product Discovery, which allows you to find individual products that meet your criteria, find keyword markets full of potential, discover successful brands to emulate, or search subcategories to find that next up and coming product. There are even advanced filters for the adventurous. This allows you to customize your research process and feel confident that you’re seeing personalized results. But if you’re new to this, don’t feel overwhelmed. Pick a few filters that make sense to you, such as Category, Price, Sales, and Reviews, and filter through results to see what catches your eye.

Once you’ve performed your search, you’ll be presented with loads of useful data to help you find potential product ideas. Take a glance below at this example search.

By using a product finder, you’re given all the data and insights you need to find a list of potential products ideas and start your Amazon journey off right.

Want to learn more about Product Discovery? Check out this quick intro tutorial:

  1. Validate Your Product

As you might have realized by now, research plays a huge role in whether or not your journey is headed towards success. After gathering a list of potential product ideas, it’s time to dig deeper and validate your product.

One of the best ways to research each of your potential products and ensure yourself the highest probability of success is by using a market research tool. These types of tools help you to eliminate guesswork so you can avoid products that will lose you money.

Market Intelligence, a seller favorite, lets you verify demand for your product by looking at estimated sales numbers, keyword search volume, trends, and market conditions. You can also take a look at how top competitors have performed in the past and are performing now, as well as allowing you to look at potential barriers to entry like reviews, big brands, and high initial investment.

With all this information at hand, you should be able to identify a market full of products that, on average, have healthy revenue numbers and low reviews so it’s easy for you to enter in and compete. It’s also a good idea to look for markets that seem to be relatively stable, rather than chasing trends. While trend categories can be hugely profitable for those that get in quickly, the safer play is to look for markets with long term stability.

For evidence of the risk of trends, look no further than the fidget spinner. As you can see, there was a huge surge in sales, more sellers hopped on, price wars started, and when the trend dried up, many were left with inventory that was impossible to get rid of.

During this research stage you’ll also want to begin thinking about developing a business plan, setting actionable goals and determining how much time, energy, and investment you really want to put into this business.

Keep in mind, during these early stages, you may need more capital than you anticipate. You’ll need to pay for your product, shipping, listing, marketing, and eventually scaling. To get an idea for how much money you could make (and how much you may spend), use an Amazon FBA calculator.

  1. Find a Manufacturer and Place Your Order

This next step is another big one. Once you’ve sifted through products and validated your market, it’s time to actually get your product produced and ordered. After in-depth research, we recommend developing a list of at least 3-5 products with margins that align with your goals.

Next, you’ll want to look into manufacturing channels. One of the most popular sourcing options for Private Label sellers is Alibaba.

Alibaba connects you with overseas manufacturers, allowing you to buy your selected products in bulk. Again, doing your research is imperative for picking a legitimate manufacturer to work with.

Alibaba has 3 quality assurance methods that can help you choose what manufacturers to work with:

  • Trade Assurance: This is a free service that helps to create trust between buyers and suppliers. This will protect your money in the case of a dispute with the supplier over issues like product quality or shipment.  
  • Gold Supplier: This allows you to determine which suppliers have received a verification through Alibaba that proves they are a registered legal business. However, this doesn’t mean every supplier with this verification will be 100% reliable, but it does help to lend more legitimacy.
  • Assessed Supplier: Suppliers with this status means they have passed a verification process with an independent inspection status.

Especially for new sellers, we recommend contacting suppliers who satisfy each of those quality assurance checks.

Once you’ve identified a group of suppliers you’re interested in working with, it’s time to make contact and start inquiring about product samples. When working with manufacturers, you’ll want to take note of their response times, clarity, communication, price, timeframe and reputation.

One of the biggest tips we can give you is to think about cultural differences when starting a dialogue with these suppliers. For instance, if you’re working with manufacturers in China, they place a huge emphasis on building relationships. So with that in mind, you’ll want to let them know you’re interested in building a long-lasting business relationship. You’ll also want to make sure to develop a personal relationship and be extremely courteous.

When talking with a manufacturer as a first-time seller, present yourself as a knowledgable business owner looking to quickly ramp up your production and sales. If you portray yourself as inexperienced, you might not get the best possible price from a manufacturer.

A good starting point for a first time seller would be to reach out to 10 or more suppliers, get samples from 3 and then buy a few of your top competitors’ products from Amazon to compare your sample and their product.

To save yourself time, you can create an email template for first contacts that hit on all your major questions. Some things you’ll want to ask are:

  1. Time it takes to receive initial product samples
  2. Time it takes to manufacture the product
  3. What payment methods they accept (like PayPal) for full orders
  4. Cost of shipping the product per unit to your location
  5. Type of packaging that is used

Once you’ve collected and reviewed the samples, it’s time to choose the supplier to move forward with and place your first full order. During this phase you’ll want to determine package options from the supplier and obtain a Universal Product Code through a GS1 Company Prefix.

The next big step is figuring out how much to order. We usually recommend a first-time seller orders enough product for at least a 2-month run of inventory. To get a rough estimate of how much inventory you need, you can use an Amazon sales estimator showing historical trends. 

In terms of shipping inventory from overseas, many newer Amazon sellers will use a freight forwarder. Flexport is a popular option among sellers as they handle all shipping logistics for you for one price, including pick up logistics, sea freight, customs, and more. Using a freight forwarder may be a bit pricier, but many sellers consider the cost worth it for peace of mind in the unfamiliar territory of shipping by sea and importing into the United States.

  1. Create an Optimized Listing

Ok … so you’ve got your first product. Now it’s time to list your product on Amazon and make your first sale. As an example, let’s say you’ve decided to sell a first aid kit. Do you snap a picture with your smartphone, throw up a title that says, “First aid kit” and magically start selling? Not exactly.

The goal of an effective product listing is two-fold. You want to accurately depict your product while simultaneously incorporating important keywords to increase the number of people that see and purchase your product.

Think of it this way. You could write a beautiful, eloquent and accurate title, bullets and description of your first aid kit that truly explains why someone should buy it. But, if you don’t include the keywords people are using when searching for that product, you’re not going to be found. So all that great copy would be wasted.

Conversely, you could do in-depth keyword research and find 50 great keywords, throw them haphazardly into a listing and create a nonsensical mess. While you might pull in searches, chances are if someone can’t understand what your product is or does, or it isn’t accurately described, no one is going to actually buy it.

That means you need to find the happy medium of correctly incorporating keywords and accurately describing your product.

Luckily, there are tools available to help you find the exact keywords you should be including in your listing. You want to ensure that your keyword tool is using accurate Amazon-only data.

One of the most important metrics when deciding what keywords to use is search volume, or how many people are actually looking for that product every month. It’s clearly important to find high volume keywords, but there a few other things to keep in mind. You also want to target high-opportunity keywords that competitors aren’t using. And, you want to make sure that the keywords you choose are relevant to your product. If you end up ranking for a keyword that isn’t relevant, you won’t get sales.

Clearly, there is a lot of data here to keep track of. How do you make sure you’ve included all the keywords in the most vital areas your listing? One of our favorite tools that simplifies the listing creation process is called Listing Builder. This feature is included in Viral Launch’s Keyword Research, a tool that allows you to easily gather a comprehensive list of keywords and write your copy on the fly. This feature helps you keep track of what keywords you’ve used and what you still need to incorporate. Once you’re finished writing, you can then take your copy right into your listing for maximum indexation and conversions.  

If you’re not comfortable choosing where to put which keywords and writing sales-inducing copy, we recommend paying for a listing optimization service. Listing optimization services connect you with a team of professionally-trained Amazon copywriters who will write optimized content created for maximum visibility and conversions.

Now that you’ve got the written side of an effective listing down, it’s time to talk about photos. Product photos are an extremely important element of your Amazon listing. Browsing on Amazon, you’ll see some product photos that are of questionable quality at best. You want to refrain from using stock images, relying heavily on photoshop and using largely text-based images. And while you might think your iPhone photo of your product will suffice, you’ll be surprised what a professional Amazon photographer can do for your brand perception, clicks, and sales.

Garnering reviews are also another massively important piece of an effective listing. Recently, there’s been a lot of turmoil surrounding the topic of Amazon reviews. This is just one example of why it’s always important to stay up-to-date on changes to Amazon’s practices.

In short, think of reviews on Amazon as a sort of currency. It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that, in general, products with better reviews are set up for better sales. However, getting reviews can be difficult, and you want to make sure you follow Amazon’s guidelines or you could face penalties.

One of the best (and Amazon-friendly) ways to generate reviews is through an email follow up campaign, which is used to ask for feedback and encourage reviews on customer purchases. Check out this video full of tips to generate more reviews:

Just remember, Amazon has taken a hard stance against review manipulation, so at this point, it’s better to take a conservative approach to gathering reviews to avoid the risk of suspension or being banned from selling completely.

  1. Increase Visibility

So your product is in Amazon’s warehouses ready to ship, and you’ve got an optimized listing for a great product. Have you done all that you can do to drive traffic and increase sales? Not even close! You still have plenty of options for driving traffic to your listing.

One of the most popular – and effective – ways is through what’s called a PPC or Pay-Per-Click campaign. In short, PPC marketing is essentially “sponsored content” that you’ve likely seen when browsing Google, Amazon or any other search engine. What you do is pay a small amount of money to the search engine you want to advertise on for each click that your product gets. PPC can be a great way to get initial traction and place your product in front of even more people.

Another great way to get your product visibility on Amazon is through promotional giveaways, or what we call Launches.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise; ranking on Amazon is extremely important. The higher up a product ranks on Amazon, the more eyes there are on the listing, which equates to more sales opportunities. Most shoppers don’t make it past the first couple of pages  – if that – when shopping for a product on Amazon. That’s why page one positions for major keywords are so coveted.

Many sellers use promotions as a way to boost sales and drive more traffic to their listing by providing deep discounts on their product for a period of time. If you’re interested in launching your product this way, check out our 9 common mistakes to avoid.

Another popular way sellers use to increase a product’s visibility is by bringing in traffic from outside sources, such as running ads on Facebook, Google or other platforms that direct buyers to their Amazon listing page.

  1. Manage Inventory

Managing inventory is a crucial step to maintaining a successful Amazon product. If you don’t properly manage and track your inventory, you will find yourself out of stock and low on cash. Not to mention, being out of stock for too long can significantly hurt your rank, which can have devastating effects on sales in the long run. 

When managing inventory as a seller, there are two important factors to consider – how long it takes for you to get a shipment from a manufacturer and how many units you sell per month, on average.

For instance, if you get your inventory 60 days (or two months) after placing an order from your overseas manufacturer and you’re selling 1,000 units per month, you’ll need to make sure you order at least 2,000 units. That would give you two months (or your lead time) worth of inventory. And if you have the cash, ordering a bit more will give you some cushion in the case of delays or an increase in sales.

Like with any business model dealing with physical products, selling on Amazon FBA Private Label means a lot of cash will be tied up in inventory. That’s why managing inventory correctly is so important. If you don’t, you run the risk of going out of stock without enough cash on-hand for a reorder when you need to.

I’ve Conquered Amazon FBA for Beginners – What’s Next?

So now you’ve got your Amazon business up and running. Maybe you’ve just made your first sale or things are going great and you’ve already had to restock.

But as profits rise, so does that entrepreneurial spirit. This might lead to asking … what’s next? You have a few options. One is to add another product to sell in the same or a completely different category.

Or, you might just want to stay with your first product and build profits for some supplementary income. Whatever you choose, make sure it’s what’s best for you and your goals. That’s the best part of being your own boss, isn’t it?

At its core, Amazon is an ecosystem that’s constantly changing. That means you have to stay up to date on Amazon’s Terms of Service and best practices. But luckily, there’s no shortage of information about how to sell on Amazon for beginners or for experienced veterans.

Here at Viral Launch we want to be your go-to source for the most accurate and recent Amazon information. That’s why we recommend you subscribe to our blog! Are you more of a visual person? Not to worry, check out our Youtube channel. If you’re looking for a great podcast to listen to during your commute or while traveling, we suggest listening to our podcast Follow the Data.

You’ve got all of the tools to be successful at your fingertips. Now it’s up to you! We’ll leave you with one final thought about what you need to be successful in the form of a quote from Madam C.J. Walker:

“I had to make my own living and my own opportunity! But I made it! Don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them!”

Breaking Down Amazon Listing Optimization

Every Amazon seller wants to know how to optimize their product listing. Product copy is extremely important. To hit sales targets, you need to get Amazon listing optimization right. Content helps buyers understand the details of your product. And more importantly, it determines how visible your product is to those searching on Amazon.

When it comes to search visibility, here’s what you need to know. Say you’re selling a trash can, and you use the keyword trash can. But you never incorporate the term garbage can. When a buyer searches for garbage can—the word you didn’t include—your product doesn’t appear in their search results. Not because your product isn’t relevant but because you didn’t put that term in your listing. Without a wide enough variety of keywords, you lose out on potential buyers and potential sales.

Including a variety of relevant keywords is vital to your visibility. Basically, your product won’t appear on page one for a keyword that isn’t included in its listing. So, what’s the key to Amazon listing optimization?

Finding the Right Keywords

It’s all about finding the right keywords and being strategic with keyword placement. Strategic placement of a wide variety of keywords improves your chances of indexing and ranking for multiple keywords, not just the obvious ones. This makes your product much easier to find in a crowded marketplace and can also improve your conversion rate.

Using Keyword Research, you can find the most comprehensive set of keywords that are relevant to your product. You’ll see a lot of different metrics for each keyword, including exact and broad search volume, search volume trend lines, and three different scores. You can read more about what each score means here.

We recommend sorting by Priority Score first to get a good list going for your product. Priority Score will show you the most relevant keywords with the highest volume first. Use the checkboxes along the left-hand side of the results table to select the keyword phrases that apply to your product. Then copy the keywords to your clipboard.

Paste your list of keywords into your document of choice, and then go back to Keyword Research. This time sort the keywords by Opportunity Score. Look for high volume words that have a score above 700. Copy the terms that you find to your clipboard, and paste them into your document too.

Expand Your Visibility

Before you begin writing, you should know that Amazon’s search algorithm values unique keywords. This is different than Google SEO, which prefers pages that repeat on one or two main keywords. But on Amazon, having a wide variety and less repetition is the most beneficial approach.

When you construct your Amazon copy, you will naturally repeat some keywords. But if you focus on using a wide variety, you will expand your visibility. Not every shopper will use the same search term, so including a variety helps put your product in front of more buyers.

Once you use a keyword, don’t worry about using it again. For example, if I’m writing a title for a first aid kit, I might start out like this:

Travel First Aid Kit

Now that I’ve used first aid kit in the title, I’m not going to use it again. But if I want to capture the keyword phrase first aid kit for car, I can simply add for car to my title and include the whole phrase.

Travel First Aid Kit for Car

But what if I want to include the phrase first aid kit for kids? Ideally I would use for kids somewhere after the term first aid kit to maintain the phrase order. So for example, with the title I’m building, I might do something like this.

Travel First Aid Kit for Car: Emergency Kit for Kids

Notice how first aid kit and for kids are still in the correct order. You can get the most ranking power when you keep a phrase completely in tact, but you’ll have to make choices about which phrases to maintain and which to split up.

Focus on Amazon Listing Optimization

These difficult choices are why creating an optimized listing that’s still easy for your customers to read is so difficult. And it’s why we offer our copywriting services. Depending on what stage your Amazon business is at, you will want to outsource the actual writing of your listings to a professional copywriter.

There are a lot of moving parts when it comes to writing product copy for Amazon listing optimization. Enlisting the help of someone who has written hundreds of listings ensures these moving parts get put together in a strategic way that maximizes ranking potential.

At the same time, if you’re just starting out and trying to save money, DIYing your listing can help keep costs down. Just make sure that you’re being strategic with your keywords, especially in your title.

The title is the most important part of any listing. Amazon gives weight to the keywords in the title more heavily than anywhere else, and with each sale, the words in your title are fair game for a ranking boost.

You want to have a good combination of high and low volume keywords here while keeping them extremely relevant to your product. You want to be clear on what your product is and what its major features are without making your title a long jumble of keywords. So make sure it’s readable and accurate for your customers.

If you’re looking for all the benefits of Keyword Research but don’t have the time or skillset to write your own listing, let our team of professional copywriters do it for you. You’ll save yourself time and increase the profitability of your FBA business.  Whatever you decide, just remember to focus on getting your Amazon listing optimization right.  

 

Optimize My Listing

 

4 Huge Differences Between Google & Amazon SEO

Google vs. Amazon. The competition is fierce between the two search engines, but should companies be using the same SEO strategy for both? The short answer: No. And here’s why:

Don’t believe Amazon is a search engine? Consumers do. According to a study conducted by BloomReach, 55% of consumers begin their product search on Amazon. And, 9 out of 10 users said they will check Amazon even if they find the product they want on another retailer’s site.

Amazon may only be a product search engine, but a search engine nonetheless. Consumers will still go to Google to look up the menu of that new taco joint or to figure out what the word “lit” means, but Amazon holds the market share when it comes to product searches.

SEO Strategy Differences

So if Amazon is a search engine like Google, you should be able to market your product the same way on both and achieve the same results, right? Wrong.

Amazon SEO and Google SEO aren’t even in the same ballpark when it comes to ranking. Sure, they both operate under the same general premise of using keywords to achieve ranking, but how they go about that is drastically different. Let’s take a look at what the 4 main differences between Google and Amazon SEP are.

1. Long tail vs. Short Tail

When you’re writing a blog or reworking a webpage, most Google SEO experts know you should target one or two long tail keyword phrases throughout your copy. But Amazon SEO focuses less on long tail phrases and more on individual short tail keywords. Although keyword phrases may come naturally when writing the copy, breaking up the phrase does not limit your ability to index and rank for that phrase.

If you’re writing about a letter board and the phrase “black felt letter board” comes up as a high volume phrase in your search, you could use “letter board” in the title and “made of black felt” in the bullets and still rank for the full phrase. While maintaining full phrases is vital for Google SEO, individual keywords are the name of the game when it comes to Amazon SEO.

2. Repetition

Although keyword stuffing is no longer valuable for Google like in the early SEO days, carefully crafted repetition of your targeted phrase throughout your copy is vital. When it comes to Amazon, a single usage of a keyword is enough to get you ranking for that word. Of course, keywords used in the title will be weighted more heavily in terms of ranking, but you still have the potential to rank for a keyword used only once in the bullet points of a listing. On Google, a one time use of your targeted phrase isn’t enough if you’re looking to be on page one.

3. External Linking

When you’re trying to drive traffic and improve your Google SEO, external sites that link back to your page are incredibly important. Google has a wealth of websites at its disposal, so whether you’re sharing on social sites, have a blog that links to pages on your website or are collaborating with others in your space to share and promote content, Google places value and trust on how many external links are connected to your site or page.

Amazon, on the other hand, functions within itself. Their algorithm focuses on the keywords users are searching within their own site and whether or not your product page includes those keywords. Of course, increased brand recognition and traffic from outside of Amazon may result in increased searches, sales and ranking inside Amazon, but your external digital presence is not considered when ranking your product. Nor does Amazon allow sellers to link to external sites or product pages from their listing.

4. Clicks vs. Conversions

The final difference between Google SEO and Amazon SEO might be the biggest. Google’s algorithm was designed for selling ads, whereas Amazon’s algorithm was designed for selling products. Yes, you can purchase products through direct links on Google, and ads do exist on Amazon, but the main driving metric is different.

Google SEO places significant weight on the number of clicks your page receives, where those clicks are coming from and what your bounce rate is – i.e. how many users click into your page, then quickly click out. The longer they stay, the more relevant Google deems your page is to that search phrase.

Since Amazon SEO is focused on selling products, they want to know your conversion rate. If you’ve got the sales volume (volume, not velocity, check out our podcast about this for more info), that helps drive the desired ranking. Although other factors are considered, a phone case with 1,000 sales will inevitably rank higher than one with 10.

The Takeaway

While you may have a general understanding of Google SEO practices, applying the same SEO principles on Amazon won’t help you. In fact, it might hurt your ranking.

Treating each search engine as a distinct platform with different driving engagement metrics is the best way to achieve success on both.

If you’re still unsure how to properly integrate keywords to index and rank on Amazon, check out our listing optimization page!

3 Crucial Amazon Keyword Metrics

If reviews are the currency of Amazon, then Amazon keywords are the lifeblood.

Without the right keywords in your listing, you miss out on thousands of potential sales each month. But by including your most relevant keywords, you can capture every possible impression driving thousands more in revenue each month.

Viral Launch Keyword Research, the most accurate Amazon keyword research tool on the market, provides you with a list of your product’s most relevant search terms. With one simple search, you can quickly find your most important keywords alongside search volume taken straight from Amazon.

Still not sure how to do keyword research for Amazon? Keyword Research provides all the keyword metrics you need to determine how to best use each term. You’ll see exact and broad search volume, search volume historical trends, CPC suggested bids, dominant categories, and three important scores.

These scores include Relevancy Score, Priority Score, and Opportunity Score. Each of these metrics rates the keyword on a scale of 1 to 1,000 and will indicate, in different ways, how to best utilize the keyword for your product.

Amazon Keyword Metrics

Relevancy Score

Relevancy Score is what allows Keyword Research to provide the most relevant Amazon keywords for your product of any keyword tool on the market.

Relevancy Score is a scale between 0-1000 that rates how relevant each keyword is to your seed keyword. To determine relevancy, Keyword Research runs a massive Reverse Market Lookup. This is similar to a Reverse ASIN Lookup, but bigger and better.

Essentially, we’re looking at the top-selling listings across your entire product market to ensure we’re capturing all your most important Amazon keywords and running multiple reverse-ASIN lookups. This ensures you don’t miss any crucial keywords for your market. And as a result, we gather a large pool of hyper-relevant keywords for your product.

The downside to a Reverse ASIN Lookup, as opposed to a Reverse Market Lookup, is that it only finds indexed words for one single competitor. That means you could miss some really crucial words for your product. In contrast, a Reverse Market Lookup finds the most comprehensive list of indexed words from all of your top competitors.

Next, we take that comprehensive pool of keywords and run it through our sophisticated Market Relevance Calculation. This proprietary process weeds out irrelevant terms and gives you a list of hyper-relevant Amazon keywords. From that Market Relevance Calculation, we rate each term based on its importance.

For example, garbage cans has a fairly high Relevancy Score, meaning it is very closely related to the seed term according to our Market Relevance Calculation.

Using the Relevancy Score

  • Place highly relevant keywords in your title and/or bullet points
  • See which keywords most directly relate to your product
  • Determine which keywords your top competitors are using most frequently

Priority Score

Priority Score is a scale between 0-1000 that rates a keyword’s importance based on relevancy and search volume. To arrive at this score, we look at the term’s Relevancy Score and factor in the search volume. A highly relevant, highly searched term will have a high Priority Score. But a less relevant, less searched term will have a low Priority Score. The higher the Priority Score, the more important the keyword, when it comes to optimizing a listing.

For example, trash can has a high Priority Score, meaning it is highly relevant to the seed term coupled with relatively high search volume.

High priority words should be placed in a product’s title, whereas mid-priority keywords can be placed in the bullet points, description, or backend. When using Keyword Research to optimize your listing, we suggest sorting your resulting terms by Priority Score to ensure you’re seeing your product’s most important keywords first.

Using the Priority Score

  • Place high priority keywords in your title
  • See which keywords have the most sales potential with a good combination of relevancy and volume

Opportunity Score

Opportunity Score ranks Amazon keywords on a scale of 0-1000 to show you terms with low competition and high opportunity to rank. A high Opportunity Score means the term has not been integrated into the front end of the top performing listings that are ranking for that keyword. A low Opportunity Score means the term has been integrated into many of the top ranking listings.

For example, garbage cans and trash cans (both plural) have very high Opportunity Scores, meaning the top products are ranking for these two terms without even having the phrases in their title, bullet points or description. In other words, the top-ranking products for these keywords are neglecting this term, which will make it easier for you to rank with the keyword in your title or bullet points. And combined, there are over 15,000 searches per month up for grabs!

Trash can (singular) has a low Opportunity Score, meaning most of the top products are prioritizing this phrase by using it in their front end.

For high opportunity Amazon keywords, there is a lot of potential to rank by simply adding the word to your listing’s title or bullet points. For example, in a search for bluetooth headphones, you’ll find the term “audifonos headphones” with over 33,000 searches per month and an opportunity score of 1,000.

This means none of the top ranking listings for audifonos headphones actually have that term in their title, bullet points, or description. Your opportunity to rank here is high because the top ranking listings are not prioritizing this keyword at all. No other keyword tool offers this kind of strategic insight. 

And as an added bonus, high opportunity Amazon keywords are less competitive, so these markets also tend to have lower quality listings. So if you’ve got great reviews and good photos, the addition of a single keyword could mean increased impressions and high conversion rates, bringing in thousands more dollars in sales every month.

You can also use Opportunity Score in conjunction with Suggested CPC Bids in order to find high opportunity, low-bid terms to target.

Using the Opportunity Score

  • Place high priority keywords in your title or bullet points for easy ranking
  • Find hidden-gem keywords that your competitors are neglecting to use
  • Bid on high opportunity, low-bid keywords with Sponsored ads for low competition

Prioritizing Your Amazon Keywords

Because keywords are the foundation for how your product is discovered by Amazon shoppers, it is crucial to include the right terms. On top of that, it’s important to know how to best prioritize them.

Your title is the most important element of your listing’s copy, so include highly-relevant, high-priority and high-opportunity keywords. With each sale, the words in your title are fair game for a ranking boost.

Your bullet points are secondary and should be used for your remaining important keywords, along with additional mid-level terms.

Your description and backend keywords are great places to include long-tail keywords so that you can be found for anything a shopper searches relating to your product.

Whether you’re researching a market in conjunction with the Viral Launch product research tools or you’re seeking relevant Amazon keywords for your current product, Keyword Research shows you all of your related terms with just one simple search. And with the keyword metrics, Relevancy, Priority, and Opportunity Scores, you can ensure you’ve got the most comprehensive understanding of your product’s Amazon keywords.

TRY KEYWORD RESEARCH

The Google vs. Amazon Search Engine

Ranking. Keywords. Indexation. Integration. Optimization. 

Whether you’re creating a company website or developing your listing for Amazon, everyone’s aiming for the top, the coveted first page of results. And everyone is always looking for new tips, tricks or insider info to help land their business, blog or listing there.

When it comes to search engine optimization (SEO), unfortunately there’s no silver bullet. We can’t offer any magic tricks or 100% guaranteed methods. What we can say is that you should not treat Google and Amazon SEO the same.

Google vs. Amazon SEO

While Amazon and Google are both search engines, their algorithms are different, their intended purpose is different, and users look to them with different goals in mind.

User Intent

Think about it. When you visit Google, are you always searching for a product? Likely not. You might be shopping for a new phone case, but you may also be looking up the menu to that sushi place you’ve been wanting to try, or the location of a nearby tire shop, or reviews for that movie you’ve been dying to see. Simply put, Google can be a product search engine, but it’s largely a research engine.

Amazon, on the other hand, is largely a product search engine. Users who end up on Amazon are further from the research phase and closer to the ready-to-buy phase. Consumers may not have a specific brand in mind when they go to Amazon, but they likely have a product in mind that they are hoping to purchase (if it meets their expectations and is reasonably priced).

So what does that mean for Google and Amazon SEO?

It means that consumers aren’t always using the same search terms across all platforms. Someone looking for a phone case might type “iPhone case reviews” or “iPhone case comparison” into the Google search bar but type “rubber iPhone case” or “durable iPhone case” into Amazon.

That’s not to say a user would never type the latter terms into Google. However, there may be keywords relevant for Google SEO that would have little to no value on Amazon. And with 55% of consumers beginning their product search on Amazon, you don’t want to waste time on invaluable keywords that won’t help you rank.

So if you’re using Google’s Keyword Planner exclusively to generate your keyword list, you might not be getting the whole scope of keywords needed for your product on Amazon.

Google SEO Algorithm

What factors does Google consider when ranking your page or product? While your content must have some relevance and keyword compatibility with a user’s search terms, Google pulls from several other factors to determine where you rank.

Links

Since Google can take advantage of the millions of external websites at it’s disposal, links are a huge element of their algorithm. So the more external sites that link back to yours, or to a page on your site, the better.

Page Speed

Google also considers the speed and mobile compatibility of your page, the click through rate (the number of times your page is actually clicked into when viewed in search results), and the amount of unique content.

Keyword Ratio

Keyword stuffing no longer works for Google SEO. However, carefully placed repetition is still beneficial. And, you should focus on one major keyword or phrase while integrating a few other relevant words or long tail phrases.

Amazon SEO Algorithm

Amazon SEO does not abide by the same practices or consider the same factors for ranking. Because Amazon’s algorithm searches internally in their own site, external linking plays no factor in where you are ranked.

Of course, increased brand recognition and traffic from outside of Amazon may result in increased searches, sales and ranking inside Amazon. However, your external digital presence is not considered when ranking your product nor does Amazon allow sellers to link to external sites or product pages from their listing.

So what does Amazon factor in when ranking, you might ask?

Sales

While your impressions, or the number of clicks into your listing, is a valuable consideration in their algorithm, how many people actually end up purchasing your product is the major ranking metric. If you’ve got the sales volume (volume, not velocity, check out our podcast about this for more info), that helps drive the desired ranking. Although many other factors are also considered, a phone case with 1,000 sales will inevitably rank higher than one with 10.

Keyword Diversity

In terms of keyword integration, Amazon focuses more on quality and diversity than repetition. So a wider range of keywords is more beneficial than reusing or rewording the same long tail keywords.

In fact, long tail keywords are not yet necessary on Amazon at all. If “thick durable rubber iPhone case” is relevant to your product, you could use rubber iPhone case in the title, and thick or durable in separate bullet points and still rank when that term is searched.

Keep in mind that keywords used in the title carry the most weight, with keywords in the bullet points and then backend search terms following with less and less ranking power. At this point, our research has led us to believe that keywords used in the product description carry little to no ranking weight.

The Takeaway

While you may have a general understanding of Google SEO, using the same principles on Amazon won’t help you. In fact, they might hurt your ranking.

Treating each search engine, and the consumers who use them, as distinct platforms with different engagement metrics is the best way to achieve success on both.

If you’re still unsure how to use SEO to index and rank on Amazon, check out our listing optimization page and sign up to have one of our listing specialists optimize your listing for you! And, if you’re interested in selling outside of the US, Viral Launch is now offering International Listing Optimizations in select Amazon marketplaces to boost your global sales presence!

Listing Optimization: Crafting an Outstanding Listing for Amazon SEO

Amazon’s market share was a whopping 68% among leading mass merchant e-retailers in the United States during 2015. Walmart took second place, with a mere 10%, according to Statista. To put Amazon’s enormity into perspective, the retail giant’s warehouses have more square footage than 700 Madison Square Gardens and could hold more water than 10,000 Olympic Pools!

We all know that Amazon is the online marketplace. Yet, most people ignore a simple yet critical fact: similar to Google, Amazon is a search engine.

Even Google recognizes Amazon as a force to be reckoned with. Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman at Google, commented, “Our biggest search competitor is Amazon. People don’t think of Amazon as a search, but if you are looking for something to buy, you are more often than not looking for it on Amazon…” Amazon gets three times more product searches than Google. Think about it: when you’re searching for a product, whether it be a phone charger or an HDTV, where do you typically end up? Amazon.

Once we interpret Amazon as a massive search engine, we can start to understand the importance of Amazon SEO. Learning how to rank on Amazon can put you in front of the millions of ready-to-buy shoppers on Amazon…far more than you’d ever find on Google!

An Introduction to Amazon’s Search Algorithm

Amazon’s product search algorithm is produced by an Amazon subsidiary known as A9. According to the A9 website, calculating search results starts well before a customer even touches the keyboard. A9 analyzes data, observes past traffic patterns, and indexes the text describing every product before a shopper ever runs a search. “As soon as we see the first keystroke, we’re ready with instant suggestions and a comprehensive set of search results.”

A9’s goal is to make it seem like the search is reading the shopper’s mind. Broken down, the process is quite simple:

  1. Determine relevant search results for a customer’s query.
  2. Score those results to present the most relevant results to the user.

In the past, A9 drove keyword ranking for a product largely through the keyword which that sale was driven through. Back then, there would be little attribution for any other keyword associated with the product. For example, if a customer searched “travel pillow,” clicked, and then bought the product, Amazon would attribute the sale to that keyword and give a boost for “travel pillow,” but not necessarily for “neck pillow” or “u-shaped pillow.”

A9 is continually making changes based upon human judgments, programmatic analysis, key business metrics, and performance metrics. This past spring, Amazon implemented a pretty major update to A9, making it so that EVERY keyword in your product’s title at the time of sale is fair game to receive a boost in keyword ranking! See data proving this hypothesis in our previous blog post on the topic.

If all words in your listing, especially those in your title, are taken into consideration during a sale, it’s more important than ever to have an optimized listing!

Optimizing Your Listing to Rank in Amazon’s Search Engine

When it comes down to it, every aspect of your listing should be impeccable. Over the past two and a half years, we’ve launched over 13,000 products and have crafted hundreds of listings, whose combined sales surpass $100 million in sales annually. With each listing we promote, we track multiple keywords, which provides us with a huge amount of data and insight! So, what makes a listing stand out in the eyes of both shoppers and Amazon’s algorithm? A listing that includes a title, bullet points, and a product description that are all keyword-optimized, informative, and concise.

Keyword Optimized

When achieving keyword ranking, sales are king. But, you must properly integrate important keywords to achieve sales, especially in your title. Ranking for keywords is largely dependent on a product’s title. It’s crucial to place as many high-volume, relevant keywords in your title as possible. You’ll see far greater ranking attribution with keywords in the title versus anywhere else in the listing, as Amazon’s algorithm allows you to rank much easier for these keywords. Under normal conditions, it is even likely to outrank top sellers for an important keyword if you’ve included that word in your title and they are missing it!

You also must make sure that you’re indexed for as many keywords as possible, even more obscure ones, if you have the room. We’ve seen where a seller will run a launch for a specific target keyword that they are not indexed for, and then they don’t even show up as a search result.

A simple way to check if you’re indexed for a specific keyword is to search “ASIN keyword,” for example, “B006416DVC travel mug.” If the listing shows up, then it’s indexed. If not, then you need to add that keyword somewhere within your listing. You don’t want to miss out on sales simply due to a lack of keyword research! For example, if the word “women” was not present in your listing, your listing may not show as a result when a shopper searches for “sunglasses for women.”

Unlike Google, Amazon does not provide a keyword tool to help sellers determine valuable keywords for a specific product. Amazon also does not share keyword data with its merchants, making optimization difficult. In order to find relevant keywords for your listing, use a combination of keyword research tools and check out similar products on Amazon and Jet.com. Take a look at the top sellers, and use what is working well as a guide. Spend time doing research and take this step seriously! Without a keyword-optimized listing, your product will be buried in the algorithm. And sadly in that case, you might as well kiss your investment goodbye.

Informative and Concise

An informative, concise listing drives conversions. And once your product is ranking, it’s all about conversions. Your content should be written in a way that convinces potential customers that your product is exactly what they are looking for.

Informative copy paints a picture with words, accurately describing the product’s features and uses. You want to use this space to showcase the benefits of your product. What special features does your product have? What are the benefits to owning your product? What sets your product apart from similar ones? You should have a good understanding of your target customer, so use this as an opportunity to address any initial concerns they may have.

Concise copy helps a shopper quickly understand why your product is a perfect fit. Many shoppers don’t want to spend too much time reading, so it’s important that you get right to the point. While you want to make sure to thoroughly explain your product, you want to make the reading of the content as effortless as possible. And, although you want to use as many keywords as possible, you don’t want to come off as incredibly redundant. It can be a turnoff to buyers.

As our CEO, Casey, puts it, “Truly great listings are able to synergistically marry keywords with sales-inducing language.” And that’s the key, folks: an incredible blend that is sure to take your listing to the next level.

[ctt template=”3″ link=”3T47G” via=”no” ]”Truly great listings are able to synergistically marry keywords with sales-inducing language.” -Casey Gauss[/ctt]

Leave it to the Experts.

“Quality is the best business plan.” John Lasseter

You can read all of the blog posts, listen to all of the podcasts, travel to all of the conferences, and follow all of the gurus, and you might come out with an okay listing. But, you won’t have hundreds and hundreds of listings, backed up by millions and millions of data points under your belt.

After running thousands and thousands of product launches and building listings that drive over a combined $100 million in annual sales, Viral Launch is able to build the best Amazon product listings in the market. Our copywriters craft each aspect of a listing to optimize rankings in organic search, and these listing-experts use beautiful sales-inducing language to showcase your product, help it stand out from the competition, and convert on-page visitors into buyers. Our optimized listings contain the perfect balance: an unbeatable combination of keywords in a concise and compelling way that makes your product shine!

A Viral Launch Listing Optimization includes a brand analysis, thorough keyword research, ~2,000 characters of backend search terms, and a beautiful, fully-optimized title, about the product, and product details.

Take it from a happy customer: “It’s an excellent value. We could spend weeks doing that and not do it as well. It allows us to delegate and narrow our focus. Excellent service, and we look forward to future business.”

Let our experts optimize your listing, helping you skyrocket your sales to unseen levels! Get started with our Amazon Product Listing Optimization Service.

SIGN ME UP

Dominate Amazon Holiday Sales & Search Results

It’s Cyber Monday! We wanted to give you an awesome Cyber Monday discount as well as put together a quick explanation as to how you can maximize your Amazon holiday sales by dominating the search results with our Viral Subscription launch package.

If your holiday sales aren’t as high as you were hoping, or you’d like to see more revenue (why wouldn’t you), you owe it to yourself to watch this quick guide!

We’ve helped sellers grow from 5 figure per month businesses to 7 using this strategy to dominate the search results. Hopefully, you can be the next! If your sales are great, maybe you know some friends that need help hitting their sales goals this Q4. Why not share the video with them to help them out. 🙂

You can find the Cyber Monday deal and discount code in the video posted down below! I know we were late to getting the deal out, so we are going to extend our Cyber Monday deal to end at 4pm EST on Tuesday!

Dominating the Amazon Search Results

As always, if you have any questions, shoot us an email at service@viral-launch.com, or leave a comment down below.

For more on how to excel during the holiday season on Amazon, Viral Launch spoke with Danny Carlson of Kenji ROI to explain advanced Amazon seller strategies that will make this your best Black Friday and Cyber Monday yet!

Exit mobile version