Tag: conversions

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!

Amazon Split Testing Software: Drive Sales on Amazon

Viral Launch offers FREE split testing software to increase your product’s profitability.

If you could make thousands of dollars more each month by changing your price, would you?

Consider these questions:

  1. How did you choose which price to set for your Amazon product?
  2. How did you choose which photo to use as your listing’s main image?

If you’re just guessing which price point and which image set is best, you could be missing out on (literally) thousands of dollars.

Up until this point, you’ve had to guess which listing elements are most profitable because third-party software is expensive, and you’re on a budget. You haven’t had a cost-effective way to determine how to best optimize your listing elements… Until now.

Listing Dojo by Viral Launch is free split testing software. Yes, you read that right.  Free, no strings attached. Our powerful set-and-forget platform allows you to determine which price point, images, title, and description make your listing the most money!

What is Split Testing?

Split testing compares multiple versions of a listing, through controlled experiments, with the goal of improving a metric, such as clicks or conversions.

Split testing is also known as A/B testing, but Listing Dojo provides more like A/B/C/D/E/F/G testing. In other words, you’re able to test unlimited variations of each listing element! This way, you can be sure you have the most optimized listing possible for your specific market.

Amazon split testing is one of the most underrated ways you can increase your listing’s profitability. Decreasing your price by a dollar or two could increase your sales by 10-40%!

What price point will drive the most clicks and sales? What main image will more people click on, and what image set will convert the best? Listing Dojo confidently answers these questions with hard data, taking the guess work out of it.

How to Split Test Your Amazon Listing (for Free)

1. Sign up for a free Listing Dojo account

Signing up for Listing Dojo is quick, easy, and free. You’ll provide some basic information and authorize your Amazon Marketplace Web Service (MWS) account. This access will allow Listing Dojo to pull your product catalog, make updates to your listing, and pull sales reports. If you’d like to see clicks, sessions, units ordered, and total orders data, Listing Dojo can provide it all through gaining access to business reports in Seller Central.

From there, you can access your accounts, and you’ll see your products right there, ready to go.

2. Select your test element

Choose which listing element you’d like to test: price, images, title, or description. If you’re not sure where to start, we suggest testing your price first, as it is the simplest to test and can have one of the largest impacts. After price, we recommend split testing images.

Testing content (title and description) can be tricky, as this involves re-indexing and can have a negative impact on sales. This is a viable option if you’re just getting started, but once you find what works for your content, we suggest sticking to it and running a launch to boost relevance for that keyword structure.

3. Create your campaign

Select the number of days each variable will run. You can choose from 1-31 days. We typically recommend running each variable for 7 days, as this covers every day of the week to eliminate as many outside variables as possible. Then, input your independent variables. We test a single element at one time, meaning we won’t test price and images simultaneously. This allows for cleaner metrics about which item caused the gain or loss.

4. View campaign metrics

Each time one variable finishes testing, you’ll get a metrics report. This will detail exactly how that variable performed, including the baseline, which is what your listing is set at before running the campaign. Listing Dojo will show the data in two different ways: a side-by-side comparison, and a detailed performance of each tested price.

Comparison Chart

On the Comparison chart, you’ll see the following Sales metrics for each variable:

  • Gross Total: the grand total of all transactions
  • Gross Organic: the grand total of all full-price transactions (excludes promotional sales)
  • Net Total: gross sales minus fees and promotions
  • Net Organic: gross full-price sales minus fees and promotions (excludes promotional sales)

The Activity tab shows the average daily activity of different listing prices, including:

  • Page Views: total visits to your listing.
  • Sessions: visits to your Amazon listing by a customer within a 24-hour period. *A user may view your offer pages multiple times within a single time period, resulting in a higher number of page views than sessions.
  • Units Ordered: number of units ordered.
  • Total Order Items: the total number of orders for the given product.

Finally, in the Conversions tab, you’ll see the average daily conversion rate of the different variables. Conversion rate is the Total Order Items/Sessions.

Note: to view the metrics in the activity and conversion tabs, you’ll need to give us Seller Central access.

Performance Charts

Listing Dojo will show a performance chart for each tested element, including the baseline. You will see the order of the tests, the tested variable, the days tested, and comprehensive metrics. The metrics will be the same as those in the comparison charts, but they will be categorized by test element.

An additional metric included in the performance charts is the Change column, which shows the dollar or percent change in each metric from the baseline. These changes will be positive or negative and will give you insight into which test variable performed the best for each metric.

These charts are incredibly valuable for sellers looking to increase clicks and conversions! You’ll know exactly how each test element performed, which will allow you to determine what variable makes your listing the most profitable.

4. Make more money

Implement your most profitable listing variations from your split testing, and watch the money roll in.

Why You Must Split Test Your Listing

Its insane value for absolutely free. Viral Launch offers Listing Dojo at no cost. You could be making hundreds to thousands more profit each month… Why not test it out and see – for free?

Train your listing to be more profitable with Listing Dojo. It’s easy setup and easy money. So get to it!

Split Test your Amazon listing

Have you done your own split testing? What are your findings? We’d love to hear from you in the comments below!

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