Amazon SEO Guide: Rank on the World’s #1 e-Commerce Platform 

Amazon continues to dominate the e-commerce market. It accounted for 37.8% of the entire market share in 2022, and those numbers have only risen since. 

Their largest competitor is Walmart, which only holds a measly 6.3% of the total market. 

That’s why it’s so common for third-party sellers to go through Amazon to sell their products online. 

 

After all, 51% of consumers begin their product searches on Amazon, which trumps search engines (39%), YouTube (23%), and Facebook (22%). 

If you plan on selling your products and services online, Amazon SEO is a must. 

Why’s that?

Due to the massive amount of competition on the platform, getting your products to appear in user search results is easier said than done. 

Like Google, Amazon uses a search algorithm to rank results based on user queries. 

Also, like Google, you can tweak certain factors to improve your chances of ranking higher for search keywords related to your products and services. 

That’s why you need to incorporate Amazon SEO, which is the art of optimizing your Amazon listings to rank as high as possible on their search results pages. 

By improving your visibility on Amazon, more consumers will view your products, and you’ll start raking in sales (assuming that you sell high-quality products). 

There’s a lot to know about Amazon SEO, as it’s an entirely different beast from Google SEO, so stay tuned to learn more. 

What Is Amazon SEO?

Contrary to what you may think, Amazon is indeed a search engine, and it’s one of the largest in existence. 

As stated previously, more consumers use Amazon to search for products than all the major search engines. 

If you sell through the platform, then it goes without saying you’ll need to incorporate an Amazon SEO strategy to boost your visibility. 

If your products don’t appear in user searches, you’ll have a tough time generating consistent revenue. 

Just like on search engines, users flock to the top-ranked results and rarely venture past the first page. 

As such, everyone fights over the top two positions, as they’re by far the most profitable. 

Unlike Google SEO, Amazon doesn’t deal with informational or navigational queries – as it does not need to. 

Instead, Amazon’s search algorithm only focuses on transactional intent, which are searches made with the intent of buying something. 

This makes sense, as Amazon isn’t there to inform or educate audiences, only to sell products and services. 

The company also employs its very own search algorithm, A10. 

A10: Amazon’s PageRank equivalent 

Amazon’s A10 works similarly to Google’s PageRank, but it only focuses on transactional searches. In other words, A10 is only concerned with ranking high-quality shopping results that drive sales. 

A10 comes from the former Amazon subsidiary A9, which developed its algorithm and search engine advertising technology. 

How do you appeal to A10 to rank higher?

Some SEO staples still apply to Amazon, such as using relevant keywords in your listings to improve search rankings. 

That means keyword research is part of the process, as are placing your keywords in the right areas to ensure A10 sees them. 

Instead of link-building, Amazon SEOs focus on accruing positive reviews, improving seller authority, and increasing sales volume to improve SERP (search engine results pages) rankings. 

Popular Amazon SEO Tools 

As with any SEO strategy, you need ways to monitor your progress and measure your success. You’ll need some popular tools of the trade. 

In particular, it really pays off to have tools that assist you with:

• Keyword research 
• Product tracking 
• Rank tracking
• Campaign metrics 
• Negative review alerts 
• Finding and removing duplicate keywords 

These features will make managing your Amazon SEO campaign far more manageable, and you’ll be able to keep track of everything in one place. 

Here are some effective Amazon SEO tools that you can start using today. 

Ahrefs’ Amazon keyword tool 

Ahrefs is a leading SEO SaaS company with excellent tools, and the Amazon keyword tool is one of them. 

The best part?

There’s no need to sign up for an Ahrefs account to use it.  

Simply enter a keyword related to your products/niche, and the tool will spit out a long list of real keywords Amazon users search for every day. 

You’ll get to see the search volume for each keyword, which will let you know how much interest there is surrounding it. 

If you want to see the rest of the SEO metrics, you’ll need to sign up for Ahrefs – but the platform provides many perks and performance benefits for SEO campaigns, so it can be worth the expense. 

Perpetua (formerly Sellics)  

This tool is excellent for keeping track of your Amazon metrics, including your rankings, sales, and effectiveness of PPC campaigns. 

You can also keep track of customer behavior via the advanced analytics it draws from the Amazon Marketing Cloud. 

Perpetua also offers custom reporting and plenty of data integrations – making it the ideal analytics tool for Amazon SEO strategies. 

Seller App 

While there is a paid version, the free version of the Seller App provides plenty of attractive features for Amazon SEO. 

These include a duplicate keyword remover, product description editor, sales estimator, and more. 

The duplicate keyword remover is especially handy because if you’re targeting two identical keywords, you’re splitting the traffic and disrupting your campaign data. There’s also the possibility that you may confuse the algorithm, causing none of your products to rank. 

Data Hawk 

Finally, Data Hawk provides SEO analytics for Walmart and Amazon, which is a plus if you sell through both platforms. 

With it, you can easily track your keyword rankings and sales – and it comes with a review alert, which is invaluable for Amazon SEO. 

Why is that?

Reviews play a HUGE role in how well you rank on Amazon. More positive reviews mean better rankings, so negative reviews can break you. 

With Data Hawk, you’ll receive a notification whenever someone leaves a negative review, enabling you to switch to damage control mode as soon as possible. 

Amazon SEO Ranking Factors 

For the most part, Amazon’s A10 algorithm looks for two things when determining search result rankings, which are:

• Relevance 
• Performance 

Relevance relates to how well you use your target keywords on your Amazon pages. 

Performance involves your sales volume, user reviews, prices, and the quality of your product images. 

Therefore, if you want your products to rank higher on Amazon, you need to optimize both factors. 

Optimizing Your Amazon Pages for Relevance 

First, let’s focus on the strategic use of relevant keywords. 

We’ll dive into the specifics of Amazon keyword research in a bit, but for now, let’s focus on which areas you need to place your target keywords. 

These are the places that A10 will look to determine how relevant your Amazon page is to a user query, so it’s crucial to know them all. 

Product Title 

Your product’s title is the most important element relating to relevance, so you need to include your primary keywords within it. 

If you’ve spent any time browsing Amazon, you probably noticed that their product titles are on the lengthier side, especially for certain categories. 

The product title is prime real estate for keyword usage, brand names, colors, sizes, and more. 

Yet, you need to ensure you don’t get carried away with your product titles. 

For most categories, Amazon has a set limit of either 150 or 200 characters. 

Your best bet is to stick to roughly 80 characters for your product titles, which is the perfect sweet spot (not too long, not too short). 

Here’s what you should try to include in your product title if you have room:

• Primary keyword  
• Any unique or stand-out materials
• Colors and sizes 
• Your brand name 
• A brief description of what the product does

Let’s consider a quick example using all these elements: 

H.R. Air Smart Oscillating Fan, High-Grade Polypropylene, 18-inch, Black 

This title checks all the boxes, and it’s only 73 characters. Here’s a breakdown of each element:

H.R. Air (brand name) Smart Oscillating Fan (primary keyword/description), High-Grade Polypropylene (materials) 18-inch (size), Black (color) 

Seller Name 

Your Amazon seller name also plays a role in your SERP rankings, which may or may not be intentional. 

Either way, some SEOs have noticed that they rank higher whenever they include a product’s primary keywords in their seller name. 

While it may not always be possible to include crucial keywords in your seller name, including at least a few can help you make a bigger splash on the SERPs. 

Try picking a seller name that mirrors the types of products that you sell, like the example we included above – where H.R. Air sells fans – get it?

Product descriptions 

Including your target keywords in your product title isn’t enough, as you’ll want to include them in your product descriptions, too (without sacrificing the quality of the copy). 

It’s crucial to remember that your product descriptions aren’t only for the A10 algorithm; they’re also for your core audience. 

As such, you should write as if you’re speaking directly to a member of your audience, including using any relevant terminology. If you’re marketing your products to Gen Z’ers, for example, then you should speak like one of them. 

Also, make your product descriptions concise and as readable as possible. 

Avoid large paragraphs, and stick to shorter sentences. 

Bullet points are a must for Amazon product descriptions. You should always include bullet points covering your product’s primary benefits, features, and specifications. 

The key word is benefits, as it’s all too common for sellers to focus on features and specs over benefits, which is a mistake. 

Sure, your customers want to know the color and size of your product, but they also want to know how it will change their lives for the better. 

The ideal Amazon product description should contain equal parts relevant keywords and enticing copy for your customers. 

Amazon ‘backend’ keywords 

Amazon also uses special ‘hidden’ keywords that only appear in the backend of your Amazon seller account. Their purpose is to tell Amazon’s algorithm that your product listings are targeting specific keywords. 

Put simply, your backend keywords serve as a ‘keyword index’ for A10. Without them, the algorithm may not understand which keywords you’re trying to target – making this a crucial step for Amazon SEO. 

In your Amazon seller account, you’ll have five fields to fill out your backend keywords, each with a 50-character limit. 

If you exceed the limit, Amazon won’t be able to index the keyword. 

When filling in your backend keywords, remember not to repeat any words and avoid using too many variations of the same word. Beyond that, try to include all the keywords that relate to your products and services. 

Optimizing Your Amazon Pages for Performance

The other major ranking factor to A10 is a seller’s performance, which entails several factors. 

These include things like your review profile, your Amazon conversion rate, your pricing structure, and the quality of your product images. Here’s a look at how you can optimize key performance factors for better Amazon search rankings. 

Pricing 

Your prices have a significant impact on your conversion rate and your Amazon rankings. In particular, your prices need to be competitive with other sellers on the platform. 

If you charge way too much for your products, your conversion rate will go down, and the A10 algorithm will rank you lower compared to other, more reasonably-priced products. That’s not to say that you can’t charge more than the competition, just that you need a reason to back it up. 

For example, if you have flawless reviews boasting about the premium quality of your products, it’ll be easier to justify your higher prices to customers and Amazon’s search algorithm. 

If you want to play it safe, then you should carefully analyze what the competition charges for similar products and stay within that range. 

Conversion rate

A10 also pays close attention to sellers’ conversion rates, and it favors the listings most likely to convert. This is the toughest metric to measure/influence, as Amazon’s analytics aren’t public, so you’ll never truly know how they view your conversion rate. 

The best you can do is ensure that all your listings are optimized for conversions and that your prices remain competitive. 

However, there is a metric that you can view through Amazon that’s comparable to your conversion rate. It’s your Unit Session Percentage, which represents the average number of units bought per visit. 

Keeping a close eye on this metric will help you gauge whether or not your conversion optimizations are working. 

How do you find your Unit Session Percentage?

You can find it in your Amazon Seller Account by going to Reports > Business Reports > Detailed Page Sales and Traffic Reports by Parent. 

Here, you’ll find not only your Unit Session Percentage but also other valuable metrics like your total number of sessions, page views, units sold, and more. 

Product images 

Since A10 favors listings with high conversion rates, it prefers high-quality product images by default. 

Why is that?

It’s because listings with stellar images have higher conversion rates. Therefore, to boost your chances of ranking higher on Amazon, you should do your best to include high-resolution images that make your products look amazing. 

Developing an Amazon SEO Strategy Step-by-Step 

Now that you know what Amazon’s A10 algorithm is looking for, it’s time to learn how to kickstart a winning Amazon SEO strategy. 

That means conducting keyword research, optimizing your content, analyzing your competitors, and generating as many positive reviews as possible. Here’s an in-depth look at how to start improving your Amazon rankings. 

Step #1: Conduct Amazon keyword research 

As with any SEO strategy, the first step is to uncover relevant keywords related to your products. There are a multitude of tools you can use for Amazon keyword research, including the offering from Ahrefs that we mentioned earlier. 

However, there’s one secret weapon that every seller should know about – Amazon’s auto-suggest feature. That’s right, all you have to do is go to Amazon’s search bar and start typing in terms related to your products, and the tool will provide all sorts of suggestions. 

These aren’t just random words, though; they’re real Amazon keywords that receive a lot of search volume, meaning that they’re both valuable and viable. 

It’s also a good idea to target long-tail keywords for your Amazon listings. These tend to be longer keywords that contain three or more words (although that’s not always the case) and are highly specific in nature. 

An example of a long-tail keyword would be something like ‘affordable 18-inch oscillating fans.’

The great thing about these types of keywords is they tend to have very low competition, making it easier to rank for them. Also, they make up for what they lack in search volume with relevancy. 

If you sell 18-inch oscillating fans that are reasonably priced, you’re clearly scratching the itch of anyone who searched for that long-tail keyword. 

Pro tip: Less is more with Amazon keywords, so you should only target one primary and one secondary keyword for each product listing. Instead of stuffing a ton of keywords into your listings, don’t forget to fill out your backend keywords, which will better A10’s understanding of the keywords you want to rank for in the search. 

Step #2: Optimize your content 

Once you’ve got your keywords selected for each product listing, it’s time to add them to your product titles and descriptions. 

Remember to follow the best practices we mentioned before, where you include your target keyword in the product title. The same applies to your product descriptions, as both your primary and secondary keywords should appear there, too. 

Here are a few more best practices to follow when writing your titles and product descriptions:

• Always use numerals instead of spelling out numbers 
• Don’t use promotional phrases in titles (i.e., free shipping, limited-time offer, etc.)
• Use title case instead of all caps 

Follow these guidelines, and you’ll have visually appealing, well-optimized product titles and descriptions, which is what you want for your SEO. 

Step #3: Analyze and learn from your competitors 

Analyzing what the competition is doing is classic SEO, and it applies to Amazon sellers as well. 

Take a peek at the product listings currently occupying the #1 and #2 positions for your most important keywords. 

What are their titles and product descriptions like? Do they have tons of positive reviews? Are there any common words that keep appearing?

These are all vital questions to ask when sizing up your competitors. In particular, if you notice the same phrases appearing throughout, they’re likely valuable keywords that you should also target. 

Step #4: Upload high-quality product images 

Every listing needs as many high-resolution images as possible showing off the product. Amazon provides nine slots, but only seven are visible to customers. Don’t skimp here; do your best to fill every image slot for your products. 

At the same time, you’ll need to abide by Amazon’s image requirements. Here are some pointers:

• Always use white backgrounds
• Use real photos, no illustrations 
• No jagged edges
• JPEG, TIFF, PNG, and non-animated GIFs are all accepted 
• Images should be 5,000 px to 10,000 px on their lengthiest side 
• No pixelation 
• The product must take up at least 85% of the image 

Step #5: Accrue positive reviews for your listings 

The last step is to generate social proof through positive customer reviews. 

A10 ranks listings with the most positive reviews the highest, so you’ll want your review profile to shine. Amazon’s request a review feature is very handy here, as it enables you to reach out to your recent customers to encourage them to leave a review. 

If you sell high-quality products, you’ll attract positive reviews automatically. 

The real challenge here lies in how you deal with your negative reviews. It’s inevitable that you’ll receive some negative reviews here and there (it happens to the best brands on Earth). What matters is how you respond to the negative feedback. 

If you’re swift and do everything you can to win back the customer’s loyalty, you’ll likely recover quickly. In fact, great responses to negative reviews can actually help your reputation, as new customers will see how much you care. 

Take Your Amazon SEO to the Next Level 

That’s all it takes to launch an effective Amazon SEO campaign. 

If you’re in the e-commerce space, selling your products through Amazon is worth it – and SEO is your secret weapon. With it, you’ll be able to rank high on Amazon’s search results, boosting your sales and customer base. 

Do you not have the time to handle Amazon SEO for your e-commerce business?

Then, you need to check out our Amazon SEO Solutions at FreeUp. Our freelance platform is filled with top-tier Amazon SEO consultants who will help you reach the top of the SERPs. Adding a job request is effortless on our intuitive, easy-to-use interface. 

If you’re curious about what our Amazon SEO experts can do for you, feel free to schedule a consultation with us today.