Amazon SEO: A 2023 Comprehensive Guide

Everything there is to know about optimizing product content to rank higher organically and increase overall visibility on Amazon’s search engine.

What Is Amazon SEO?

In short, Amazon Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of enhancing the overall quality of a product’s page on Amazon to increase its organic visibility, traffic, and conversion rates. The nature of the platform is inherently designed to favor products that perform well, and products that perform well materialize at the top of Amazon’s search results page. Amazon’s algorithm determines whether a product is a strong performing one based on two key factors, keyword relevance and product listing performance, both of which are intrinsically linked and dependent on the efficacy of SEO. Essentially, the better your Amazon SEO strategy, the more likely your product is to rank higher.

Keyword relevance refers to how pertinent a keyword is in relation to your product and the keywords customers use to find that type of product. Relevant keywords should be used frequently, though not excessively, and should appear in product listing titles, bullet points, descriptions, and backend search terms. On the other hand, product listing performance is contingent on sales performance history, click-through-rate (CTR), and conversion rate metrics. Of course, other factors affect product listing performance, such as stock inventory, product images, video quality, price, ratings, and reviews.

Amazon’s Algorithm 

Amazon’s algorithm is an integral part of Amazon SEO. The two are interrelated in that they exist in perfect harmony. Given that Amazon SEO involves increasing product visibility, traffic, and conversion rates, Amazon’s algorithm is what nourishes SEO as it decides which products are most worthy of ranking high and selling more. In short, Amazon’s search box is powered by Amazon’s algorithm.

In the beginning, there was Amazon’s A9 algorithm. Its primary function was to help sellers obtain better search results ranking with keywords, pay-per-click (PPC), an Amazon’s advent in which advertisers bid on keywords. Then an evolution transpired. While Amazon does not explicitly mention the term A10 in any official capacity, the key difference between the A9 and A10 is that the former was seller-focused, whereas the latter is product-focused. Amazon’s A10 algorithm is designed, through the clicking process, to help products rank higher in the search results. Its aim is to increase product visibility and use authentic reviews and sales to determine which products rise to the top. 

Now, how does one enhance their Amazon SEO to satisfy and reap the benefits of the A10 algorithm? There are several practices that sellers can adopt to reach this objective. They can leverage Amazon Posts, Amazon’s Share of Voice, or implement various SEO strategies. The following section will identify alternative keyword research, tracking, and listing optimization techniques. 

Amazon Posts

Amazon Posts is a free social commerce feature that allows brand-registered sellers to promote their brand and products through lifestyle images, videos, or product-related content via a feed to increase visibility across relevant audiences. Ultimately, Amazon Posts are used to improve SEO as they offer another opportunity for brands and sellers to insert relevant keywords, which in turn, increases their product’s odds of ranking for that particular keyword. 

Amazon Share of Voice 

Amazon’s Share of Voice (SOV) is the calculated percentage of your brand’s visibility again your competitors that allows you to measure the market share your brand owns for a given set of search terms. SOV is an excellent way to monitor and benchmark your SEO performance on the platform and offers valuable insights into how to optimize your product’s visibility on Amazon. It can inform you on SEO decisions and help you identify areas you can optimize, such as pricing, ratings, and customer engagement. That being said, sellers should regularly track their SOV percentage to help them gauge their market share and discover new opportunities to drive growth and attract new customers. One way to track your brand’s visibility is to generate an Amazon Share of Voice Report, which exports key performance indicators (KPIs) reflecting your brand’s visibility for a specific search term on Amazon. SOV reports help you optimize your Amazon SEO by allowing you to analyze historical and up-to-date metrics like SOC by brand and product, both in terms of organic and sponsored presence.

The Ultimate Amazon Keyword Research Guide 

In a digital world dominated by search engine algorithms, it is essential to conduct keyword research. Amazon keyword research is necessary to enhance SEO as it helps sellers understand the search intent of their customers or prospects through terms and phrases. Keyword research is a technique SEO practitioners use to find and evaluate search terms that users choose to enter in search engines when looking for a product to rank higher in the search results. Follow the subsequent five steps to develop a solid Amazon keyword research strategy.

1. Identify Keyword Suggestions

Amazon’s search bar can help you determine which keywords to use for a product. Enter several search queries in the search bar to see autosuggestion and obtain a list of keywords you can build on. Leveraging Amazon’s search bar suggestions can give you an idea of which products customers search for.

2. Target Complementing Products

Investigate which products customers buy in tandem with the product you are selling to identify which complementing products you should target. In doing so, your product becomes visible to consumers who may not be looking for that product in particular but whose search behavior indicates that they would be interested in purchasing it anyway.

3. Use a Keyword Research Tool

Incorporating an Amazon keyword research tool into your SEO strategy can give you the competitive edge you need to rank above your competitors. Effective Amazon keyword research tools are powered by up-to-date search data and allow you to track and benchmark search volume metrics associated with keywords, generate new keyword ideas, and measure the efficacy of a given keyword.

4. Assess Search Frequency Rank

Search frequency rank is a numeric grade attributed to a keyword’s popularity in relation to similar search terms. Registered brands on Amazon can access search frequency ranks using Amazon’s Brand Analytics tool. Assessing search frequency rank allows you to identify how customers find your product and competitors’ products, discover the most popular search terms, and obtain insights about the search frequency rank for search terms.

5. Optimize Backend Search Terms

Backend keywords are those search terms that appear in the back end of an Amazon product listing. Although they are not visible to shoppers on product detail pages, Amazon considers them when calculating your ranking. Choosing the right backend keywords can significantly improve your chances of generating more sales if chosen correctly. However, since Amazon SEO is not a one-and-done process, it is vital to improve rankings constantly by regularly enhancing backend search terms. Optimizing backend search terms allow you to boost product ratings, visibility, and traffic without drowning listings in excessive keywords. 

Amazon Keyword Tracking: Boost Your Organic Performance 

Tracking keywords on Amazon is paramount to boosting organic performance. The most effective way to monitor keywords is to track their ranking. Amazon keyword rank tracking typically involves assessing historical and contemporary ranking data to monitor daily changes in the organic search performance of products and improve visibility. Monitoring keyword ranks can help explain why on a particular day sales spike. Typically, sales drops are correlated to a rank drop. As a result, successful Amazon sellers track keyword ranks to gain concrete insights on which actions lead to increased product visibility. 

How Do Products’ Keywords Rank on Amazon?

The logic behind keyword ranking on Amazon is as follows; the more consumers search for specific keywords you use and buy the product you sell using that targeted keyword, the higher Amazon will rank it. There are five main ways sellers can leverage organic keyword ranking data:

1. To understand how product listing optimization efforts affect organic rankings
2. To distinguish which keywords drive the most organic sales 
3. To identify correlations between sales velocity, BSR, and organic rankings
4. To better assess and consequently optimize keyword bidding strategies
5. To determine how advertising efforts affect organic rankings

Why Should You Track Amazon Keyword Rankings? 

Anyone who’s shopped on Amazon knows that a vast majority of clicks are received by brands on the first page of the search results, which reveals the importance of keyword rankings. A strong SEO strategy involves tracking keyword rankings. Regularly tracking keyword ranks has the utmost potential to boost sales, increase conversions, and drive organic traffic. However, given that keyword search ranks change frequently, it is important to track keyword performance. Amazon keyword rank tracking data allows you to track not only your keyword ranks over time but also your competitors. Sellers track Amazon product keyword ranking data to discern which keywords have the most influence on their listings, identify trends, and discover how many sellers are competing for a given keyword so that they can develop actionable solutions to enhance their SEO and PPC strategies. 

Understanding Amazon Search Term Impression Share

Amazon Search Term Impression Share is the percentage of likely impressions a search term earns; it is the number of impressions on targeted keywords. Tracking and examining search term impression shares can considerably improve product visibility and keyword ranking. Amazon generates search term reports to assess impression share to provide an account-wide advertising impression calculation for designated Amazon search terms. In addition, the report can add value to keyword ranking by giving sellers the search term data they need to understand sponsored advertising efficacy through PPC campaigns.

Amazon Product Listing Optimization: A Comprehensive Guide

Optimizing product listings or PDPs (product detail pages) is probably one of the most effective ways of optimizing a product’s search visibility. It is the process of improving a product listing with the goal of increasing its rank on Amazon’s search results page and conversion rates. Product listing optimization is the core of Amazon SEO since it encompasses keyword research and keyword rank tracking. Amazon product listings comprise two distinct elements: keywords and creative content. Together, they are the bread and butter of SEO and are what allows customers to effortlessly discover your product. 

There are several things you can do to optimize keywords and creative content for product listings, such as basic PDP information, variations, images, videos, A+ content, and keywords.

Optimizing PDP Information

Ensuring that product detail pages comply with Amazon’s requirements is part of the listing optimization process. Product titles, descriptions, and bullet points, among other fields discussed in this section, are used by Amazon’s search engine algorithm to measure the relevancy of a detail page in relation to a customer’s search. Below is a list of requirements the eCommerce giant suggests sellers abide by to enhance the user experience and the quality of their product listing. 

Product Titles

• Product titles must not exceed 200 characters (including spaces)
• Product titles are recommended to be less than 80 characters 
• Product titles should not be written in ALL CAPS
• Product titles should use proper capitalization
• Product titles must not contain promotional phrases or subjective commentary 
• Product titles must no include characters for decorations ~ ! * $ ? _ ~ {} # <> | * ; ^ ¬ 
• Product titles must incorporate product-identifying information  
• Product titles should use numerals when referring to numbers 
• Product titles should not include merchants’ name 
• Product titles for child ASINs should include size and color variations 

Product Description and Bullet Points

• Product descriptions should be as detailed as possible 
• Product descriptions should include keywords 
• Product descriptions should highlight specific product information 
• Product bullet points should highlight benefits and usage
• Product bullet points should include keywords 
• Product bullet points should be clear and concise 
• Product bullet points should highlight five key features
• Product bullet points should not surpass 1,000 characters in total
• Product bullet points should begin with a capital letter 
• Product bullet points should not include ending punctuation 

Optimizing Product Listing Variations

There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all approach to product listings, which is why it is imperative to create variation listings to satisfy the needs of various customers using a single listing. Amazon variation listings also referred to as a parent-child relationship, are different product options available within a product listing. Product variations can include color, size, scent, flavor, weight, etc.

Three components to listing variations

1. Parent ASINs – non-purchasable commodities that serve as a placeholder for child ASINs or variations. 
2. Child ASINs – variants of parent products that can be purchased. 
3. Variation Theme – defines how related products differ from one another depending on the category. 

Given that Amazon’s algorithm favors products with high-quality reviews, the chief benefit of optimizing variations is that of combined product reviews. Adding variations to a listing helps boost product ranking and visibility since it cumulates star ratings and reviews under the same parent listing. Optimizing product listings via variations can also simplify the search process and customer shopping experience. 

To optimize product listing variations, Amazon sellers can do the following:

1. Make the most successful product variation the focus of the listing 
2. List products in a category that authorizes listing variations 
3. Ensure listing variations are descriptive and clear
4. Utilize high-quality images and/or videos to distinguish between variations
5. Carefully monitor inventory to ensure guarantee variation stock 

Optimizing Product Listing Images

For some, a picture is worth a thousand words. On Amazon, an optimized product picture is worth a thousand clicks. Optimizing product listing images is the process of selecting images for your product listing page that will maximize conversions. Given that online shopping removes the tangible in-shopping experiences accompanied by traditional brick and mortar stores, images are all consumers have to rely on to get an accurate representation of the product they are interested in buying.

Not only are shoppers more inclined to click on a listing on the search results page if the image is of good quality, but they are also more likely to buy for that reason. Use multiple images to show consumers all angles of the product, and if possible, add a 360-degree spin image to optimize your product listing further.

Moreover, Amazon sellers can follow several tips and tricks to optimize product listing images. The most simple one is to abide by Amazon’s rules and requirements, which include:

• The product being sold should fill 85 percent of the image space
• Images should have a pixel dimension of at least 1000 or larger in height and width 
• Images should be uploaded as a JPEG 
• Refrain from using images that have effects or filters 
• Images should accurately represent the product 
• Only show the product that is for sale 
• Images should have a white background 
• Closeup shots are not obscure other elements of the product 
• The product is focused and well lit 
• If possible, include a 360-degree image

Optimizing Product Listings With A+ Content

Implementing A+ content into your PDPs and leveraging Amazon’s A+ content builder tool is an effective way to optimize your product listings. A+ content is intended to showcase distinct product elements, supplementing marketing material on branded ASINs to help customers engage with the brand. It can contain information such as high-definition videos and images, comparison charts, and informative FAQs. Amazon states that incorporating A+ content in a product listing can result in higher conversion rates, increase sales, and reduce negative reviews and product returns. 

A+ content, which is displayed in a separate section on the detail page, includes two content types. The first is “Basic A+ Content,” this type of content provides additional details on product features to complement product descriptions and bullet points and is used to answer product questions proactively. The second type of “Premium A+ Content” is used to increase brand engagement and uses more real estate on the PDP with richer media than its counterpart. Note that A+ content can only be used by brand owners who are registered as the brand owner of an ASIN through the Amazon Brand Registry process. 

Additional Amazon Product Listing Optimization Tips 

In addition to the various Amazon listing optimization techniques outlined above and explained in further detail in respective hyperlinks, there are two other effective listing optimization tactics Amazon sellers could implement. For instance, they can fix suppressed listings and use an Amazon-centric product listing optimization tool. 

Addressing Amazon Suppressed Listings

Amazon suppressed listings are a result of product listings’ failed attempt to satisfy Amazon guidelines. Given that Amazon, by design, works to create enhanced shopping experiences for customers, the platform will hide or “suppress” product listings from the browser and search results if the listing fails to abide by certain criteria. For the most part, if product listings are properly optimized, they will not be suppressed. However, if by chance they are, below are a few reasons why they might be so that you can take the necessary steps to fix them. 

• The listing does not contain a primary (display) image 
• The listing provides an inaccurate product description 
• The listing omits a defined category type 
• The listing violates one or more of Amazon’s selling policies
• The listing has received a substantial complaint 
• The listing attempts to sell a used product
• The listing attempts to sell an expired product

Amazon-Centric Listing Optimization Tool

Amazon product listing optimization tools can save sellers a lot of time when it comes to determining which aspects of their listings need to be optimized. Such tools rely on millions of Amazon data points to assess the quality of a listing. Leveraging a listing optimization tool can increase organic traffic, product discoverability, and sales considerably. Some tools even allow you to analyze customized listing analysis dashboards, monitor the rankings of your listings to measure optimization efforts, identify weaker areas of your listings, suggest which keywords can optimize your listing, and generate personalized listing quality scores. 

A listing quality score is a metric computed by artificial intelligence that examines various aspects of a product’s listing to assess how a product’s listing page complies with Amazon’s content guidelines. There are three types of Amazon product listing quality scores. 

1. The Listing Quality Score allows you to see how your product listing performs over time and receive personalized recommendations based on the listing on how to optimize it. 
2. The Products by Listing Quality Score allows you to analyze products by the status of their listing quality score and receive suggestions on enhancing the content on those products with “bad” and “improvable” status in priority. 
3. The Products Listing Subscore allows you to search for any product by ASIN or title to obtain an analysis of several product listings’ overall scores and five separate subscores to optimize each one accordingly.

How to Increase Amazon Seller Conversion Rates 

There is no doubt that product listing efficacy impacts conversion rates on Amazon; increased conversion rates automatically translate to optimized product listings. For instance, if conversion rates are high, it is safe to assume that a listing is of good quality. Amazon sellers can simultaneously increase conversion rates and enhance their product listings by A/B testing optimization efforts, decreasing shopping cart abandonment rates, and optimizing product listings for mobile. 

A/B Testing Optimization Efforts 

Amazon A/B testing or split testing is the process of testing what elements in their product listing drives customers to purchase. The preferred method of conducting A/B tests is via “Experiments,” an Amazon tool that allows you to compare two versions of product content against each other to see which one performs best. It is an extremely effective data-driven way to pinpoint precisely which optimization efforts will yield the most profitable results. 

Decreasing Shopping Cart Abandonment Rates 

One reason to optimize product listings is to deter the increasing odds of shopping cart abandonment. With increased competition comes increased abandoned shopping carts. Below is a list of eight reasons shoppers abandon their digital carts:

1. The cost of delivery was higher than expected 
2. The shopper employed a price comparison tactic 
3. The shopper simply changed their mind
4. The item in the cart was out of stock 
5. The item was not going to be delivered on time 
6. The shoppers preferred payment method was not available 
7. The product was purchased on another site 

Optimizing Product Listings for Mobile

According to Statista, as of 2021, 98.07 million monthly consumers are shopping on Amazon using a smartphone. This statistic highlights the importance of optimizing product listings for mobile devices. Amazon product listings differ in appearance for users depending on how they access the platform. Optimizing for mobile is all about clarity and precision. When it comes to mobile listing optimization, sellers should focus on enhancing their listings’ titles, description, bullet points, and images. 

1, 2, 3 Amazon SEO Go

Amazon SEO has a sort of ripple effect. For example, optimizing product listings increase product discoverability. Product discoverability boosts organic traffic. Organic traffic grows conversion rates. Increased conversion rates lead to better sales. More sales result in products ranking higher on search results. And the list goes on; if you optimize one thing, the outcome will likely improve another thing, and so on. 

To maintain a competitive edge on the increasingly competitive digital marketplace that is Amazon.com, brands and sellers must continuously adapt their SEO strategy to accommodate new trends, regulations, and shopping habits. The road to successful Amazon SEO is paved with digital shelf analytics, which is the ongoing process of analyzing data that focuses on performance metrics that pertain to product pages. Moreover, the direction that leads to that road is the one that has mastered the art of monitoring Amazon SEO analytics.