Boosting Your Amazon SEO with Amazon Posts
This article will address how Amazon SEO applies to the new Amazon Posts feature. We will dig into how you can use it in your brand strategy, ensuring you understand how to take advantage of it.
Amazon SEO is a relatively complicated project for most people. Thankfully, Amazon has made this topic somewhat more approachable through making a post on Amazon. Content creation is a staple of SEO elsewhere, but how does it work on Amazon?
- What is “Amazon Posts?”
- How Does “Amazon Posts” Work?
- The Posts Dashboard
- Where Do “Amazon Posts” Appear?
- What are the Benefits for Brands that Start Utilizing “Amazon Posts?”
- The Drawbacks of “Amazon Posts”
- New Features for Posts
- How To Sign Up for “Amazon Posts“
- Making the Most of Amazon Posts
- Conclusion
What is “Amazon Posts?”
Amazon extends this program to anyone in the Amazon Brand Registry, which provides you with an additional suite of tools for brand development. One of those tools, which is the focus of this article, is Posts.
Amazon Posts has a character limit of 2,200, but the mobile version could be as few as 70. That means you can choose between long-form and short-form content. Depending on what you want to post, you can choose either option.
Essential Sections of Amazon Posts
- Profile Banner: The top of your posts indicates the brand’s name and logo.
- Custom Image: Images that you upload that support your brand story or demonstrate your product’s features. Images cannot be animated.
- A “Show Product” Button: This button displays more details about your product (i.e., star ratings, price, Amazon Prime eligibility)
- Caption Text: A caption that you write that provides branding information or displays product features
- Category Tags: Tags that you choose to put your products (or the brand) into specific categories. Product-focused tags are more limited.
As you can see, the feed provides your brand a place to produce lifestyle and product-centric content to encourage shoppers to make a purchase. You can focus on both brands and products. Still, what is the point of providing content for it?
Why Should You Participate?
Anytime you can use another content channel to attract buyers, you should take advantage of it. Content creation is an activity meant to educate and inspire the reader. The Posts platform, which is in beta at the time fo writing this, is also free to use.
With it being free, there’s no reason for you not to take advantage of it. Here are some examples of what you can do:
- Inspire how buyers can use your product
- Tell a story about how your product solves personal problems
- Display ways your products work well together
If you want to participate, you need to fulfill two additional requirements beyond being in the Amazon Brand Registry:
- You need to sell products on Amazon
- You need to have access to the Amazon Advertising console
- You need to be in the United States
Amazon DSP customers may also participate, but they need to have access to the console.
Adding your posts to the feed is a free platform you can use to attract new potential customers. To start, you can make it a relatively small area of your content platform. You can even tweak the content that you have on your website.
How Does “Amazon Posts” Work?
A big part of Amazon posts leads back to that Amazon SEO topic that keeps coming up. SEO, which stands for Search Engine Optimization, allows you to target specific keywords.
When you make a post on Amazon, that post gives you another opportunity to place relevant keywords. If a shoe company sells shoes for athletes, your target audience may search for “running shoes.” In combination with DataHawk SEO, you have a robust variety of tools for Amazon sellers to boost your position.
Before you start making posts, familiarize yourself with the Posts Creative Acceptance Policies. Here are some critical areas to pay attention to:
- Do not contradict the landing page
- Use the primary language of the posting site
- Only promote objects that you are are authorized to sell
- Create clear and accurate information
- Write for a standard audience
There’s also a “Posts Dashboard” that you can access to have actionable metrics.
The Posts Dashboard
The dashboard focuses on the following metrics:
- Views: The number of people who spot your target posts
- Clicks / Click-through rate (CTR): The number of people who decide to click on your posts
From this data, you will be able to determine what posts are working. You will also be able to decide on your posts that need to be tweaked.
At this time, Amazon does not provide you a way to track how many people make a sale from this. There is no way to make an attribution to a deal that comes from posts.
Where Do “Amazon Posts” Appear?
If you make a post on Amazon, their automated system will place them where they deem appropriate. Typically, you can find these posts when searching for specific keywords. Otherwise, shoppers can find them on your product’s brand page.
All businesses in the US have the opportunity to target the same keyword for posts. When making a post on Amazon, it will be up to you to make it engaging enough to draw attention.
That means that this system allows competitors to create posts that target your keywords. Because of this, you need to consider doing the same thing. Otherwise, you might miss out on potential sales that go to your competition.
At this time, you have no control over where these posts appear.
What are the Benefits for Brands that Start Utilizing “Amazon Posts?”
When posting content, there are no limits to what you can use. That means you can feasibly load the system with a wide variety of content. This target may allow you to hit a unique market segment that finds these posts attractive.
All of the posts made here are “Evergreen,” meaning that they are timeless and appropriate regardless of when you post them. Provided that you write with this in mind, this unique social media communication platform can give you an edge.
The Drawbacks of “Amazon Posts”
Not all that glitters is gold in this case. While Amazon Posts is an excellent platform for reaching an audience, its reach is somewhat limited.
The biggest drawback comes from the unclear metrics. While you can track CTR vs. views, that is a small part of a useful data set. At the time of this writing, you aren’t able to track any revenue stream.
That means you can’t determine whether or not Posts are providing useful sales.
Given that content creation and social media posts are a time-consuming process, that doesn’t bode well in the short term. At this point, Amazon Posts are not much more than a gamble until they add these additional features.
Also, not being able to choose where they appear makes them less strategic. Meaning you cannot change the style of a post if it appears on a competitor’s page.
New Features for Posts
Since Amazon Posts was initially released (last year), they have gone through a couple of other updates. Below are the most prominent examples:
Downloadable Reports
Amazon Posts has released a method on which to download reports as of last year. That means if you want to see your Amazon SEO projects’ effectiveness, you can see the views and CTR of your projects.
Multi-Product Posting
Amazon Posts allow for including of multiple products in a single post. If you have various products that work together, you can create an information post that shows how they operate.
For example, a camping supplies company could show off tents, clothes, and a new fire pit, all in a single image and post.
Scheduled Posting
In this case, you can choose one day a week where you plan out the posts for that period. By scheduling this time, you can have clarity for your posts and a focused intent.
How To Sign Up for “Amazon Posts“
- On the Amazon Posts webpage, sign in using your Seller Central information
- Follow the on-screen prompts for creating an account if you have not already
- On posts.amazon.com, you can start uploading captions, tagging products, and uploading images
- Be sure to verify your brand’s name and logo before beginning
To go through this process, you need to be an authorized seller on Amazon. Provided you follow through on those requirements, accessing posts is relatively simple.
Making the Most of Amazon Posts
It’s not enough to understand what keywords to target; you also need to follow best practices. While this is still relatively new, making a post on Amazon follows the same guidelines as creating a social media post. With this in mind, here are some tips for engaging people through posts:
Have a Good Headline
Bot the title and the first two lines of your post will be the first thing prospective buyers see. Make sure that the header and two lines are something that will stop them from scrolling. Create a post that engages them.
Choose High-Quality Pictures
Amazon requires you to have a post image with a maximum file size of 100MB with a resolution of 640 x 640 pixels (or larger). With this in mind, focus on creating a high-quality PNG or JPG format that is just below their file-size requirements. The same conditions are for the profile logo, so utilize your resources.
Post Often
To remain engaging on social media, you must post content more than once a day. The same logic applies to Amazon Posts, so try to brainstorm some ideas early on.
If you find yourself struggling, don’t be afraid to re-use old social media posts. Tweak them a bit if you are looking for originality.
Keep Trying New Things
Much like social media, trying a large number of things is paramount to understanding what works. When making a post on Amazon, keep tweaking the formula until you find something that works.
Apply working formulas to other products and keep tweaking those formulas. Until you find something that works, keep on trying.
Provide Product and Brand Value
Companies always make the mistake of focusing on their product’s features. Instead, your idea should be to focus on how it benefits the user.
Imagine you are selling cast-iron cooking equipment. To the untrained eye, cast-iron doesn’t mean anything. However, if you state that cast iron is the most durable equipment available, you focus on a benefits-driven proposition.
Conclusion
If you want to make a post on Amazon, you can now do that with Amazon Posts. This platform allows you to engage with your customers uniquely. While it is similar to a social media platform, Posts are a unique way to engage your customers and focus on Amazon SEO.
This SEO comes in the form of providing content creation services to amazon sellers. Previously, sellers had to rely on product description pages and brand pages. Now, Amazon’s own internal development process allows for an expansion of SEO.
As Amazon continues to innovate, we will continue to dig into it. If you want more information on how Amazon is changing the game, keep your eyes on the DataHawk blog. If you need help with your Amazon SEO, feel free to contact us about your needs.
