Having your product show up at the very top of search results is the best way to find success on Amazon, but with everyone fighting for that top spot, how do you make your product stand out? By understanding Amazon’s search algorithm and what factors Amazon looks at when determining search rankings, you can increase your own rankings and gain more organic sales.
Understanding Amazon’s Algorithm
A9 is the search algorithm that Amazon uses to determine product rankings. Understanding the A9 algorithm and knowing what Amazon looks at when determining search rankings is the key to getting your products to show up on the first page. Below are the most important factors that influence rankings on Amazon; focusing on these factors will increase your search rankings.
Keyword Matching
Amazon’s search results are based on keyword matching. If a user searches for a specific keyword and that keyword is in your product listing, your product is very likely to show up somewhere in the search results.
Price
Product pricing makes a difference. Amazon knows that competitively priced products are more likely to sell, therefore they end up ranking higher. If your price is significantly higher than your competitors’, your search rankings may take a hit.
Conversion Rates
Amazon wants to promote their best-selling products, therefore products with higher conversion rates typically rank higher. If buyers are viewing your product but never making a purchase, you may have a tough time moving up to page one.
How to Increase Your Search Rankings
Optimize Your Listings
The best and easiest way to increase your search rankings on Amazon is to optimize your listings by using relevant keywords in as many places as you can, including your title, bullet points, and description.
Your Product Title
Your title should contain your most important keywords. Avoid keyword stuffing in your titles, though, as this can hurt your rankings. Amazon has four main criteria for product titles:
1. Titles must not exceed 200 characters, including spaces.
2. Titles must not contain promotional phrases, such as “free shipping”, “100% quality guaranteed”.
3. Titles must not contain characters for decoration, such as ~ ! * $ ? _ ~ { } # < > | * ; ^ ¬ ¦
4. Titles must contain product-identifying information, such as “hiking boots” or “umbrella”.
Titles with 150 characters or more and that include your brand name, product name, keywords, and sizing and color information would be considered fully optimized.
Your Bullet Points & Description
The keywords in your bullet points and descriptions can also help your rankings. You should prepare a list of relevant keywords before writing your product descriptions. You can use keyword tools like Helium 10 to find relevant keywords, or you can do your own research by going through your top competitors’ listings and finding the keywords that they are targeting in their titles, bullets, & descriptions. Try to implement as many keywords as you can in your bullet points and descriptions while still maintaining readability.
Your Backend Keywords
Amazon allows you to enter 250 bytes of search terms in the back end of your listing, where customers cannot see them. The backend search terms are a great place to include spelling variations, synonyms and foreign language keywords. There’s no need to repeat any word, as it doesn’t help your rankings any more than including a word once. It’s important to remain under the character limit, or none of your search terms will be indexed.
Increase Sales Velocity
Amazon sales have a snowball effect; the more conversions and sales you have, the higher your search rankings become, which in turn leads to more sales.
You can increase your Amazon sales velocity by using PPC advertising or directing external traffic to your Amazon products through social media. Most sellers find the greatest success through Sponsored Products advertising, where they can bid on specific keywords and ASINs. When Amazon’s algorithm notices that shoppers are buying your product, your product will in turn rank higher for relevant keywords.
Ranking on the first page for any keyword doesn’t happen overnight, but if you make sure that your products are optimized and focus on gaining more conversions, your rankings will continue to increase.
The Amazon consultants at My Amazon Guy are experts at Amazon SEO, advertising setup, and increasing conversions. Contact us for expert guidance in getting your products to rank higher on Amazon.
