Amazon SEO Basics: 5 Ways To Optimize Your Product Listing
Amazon is the world's largest store with over 400 million products. But, it can be hard for customers to find your product. That's where I come in!
In this article, I'll teach you how to optimize your product listings so that they show up higher on Amazon search results and convert more sales. By focusing on 5 key areas — Product Title, Images, Bullets, Product Description, and A+ Content — I’ll help you make your products more discoverable and more buyable.
Let’s dig in…
How to optimize your Amazon product title
Product title is BY FAR the most important attribute on the product detail page.
For one thing, there’s good data suggesting that keywords in your product title are weighed more heavily in the eyes of the all-important Amazon A9 algorithm (And yes, it’s the A9 algorithm. If an “expert” starts referring to it as A10, run the other way).
But also…customers see your product title in search results (generally about 50 characters of it) which influences their desire to click-though to your listing.
So, your product title gets you SEO and click-through (CTR), which feedback on one another in a virtuous cycle. If a customer searches for “bluetooth speaker” and scrolls down to the bottom of Page 1 and clicks on your listing AND checks out, well, that’s a signal to the A9 algorithm that your product should be placed higher on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP).
OK, product title is important. I get it. But how do I optimize my title?
Here’s a formula that we like: [Brand] + [Core Search Term] [Product] + [Value Prop] [Core Search Term] + [Value Prop] [Core Search Term] + [Value Prop] [Core Search Term]
For those Core Search Terms, you’ll have to do a bit of keyword research. Use the Helium 10 Cerebro tool for this. In a nutshell, you’ll want to identify your top 5-8 competitors for a product (or you can let Cerebro make suggestions), do a reverse keyword search in Cerebro, and then look for overlapping keywords that your competitors rank for organically on Page 1 (i.e., Positions 1-48).
Those are the search terms you’ll want to target.
How to optimize your product images
For the main image, first of all, follow the Amazon product image requirements to the letter. The best photography and post-production in the world doesn’t matter if your product listing gets suppressed…which will happen if you violate the guidelines.
Again, consult the product image requirements before you begin any creative work but, for your reference, here are the high points:
Images must accurately represent the product and show only the product that is for sale.
The product and all its features must be clearly visible.
MAIN images should have a pure white background (pure white blends in with the Amazon search and product detail pages—RGB color values of 255, 255, 255).
MAIN images must be professional photographs of the actual product (graphics, illustrations, mockups, or placeholders are not allowed). They must not show excluded accessories; props that might confuse the customer; text that is not part of the product; or logos, watermarks, or inset images.
Images must match the product title.
Images should be 1,600 pixels or larger on the longest side. This minimum size requirement enables the zoom function on the website. Zoom has been proven to enhance sales.
Images must not exceed 10,000 pixels on the longest side.
Amazon accepts JPEG (.jpg), TIFF (.tif) or GIF (.gif) file formats, but JPEG is preferred.
Our servers do not support animated .gifs.
Images must not contain nudity or be sexually suggestive.
Shoes MAIN images should be of a single shoe, facing left at a 45-degree angle.
Women’s and Men’s Clothing MAIN images should be photographed on a model.
All Kids & Baby Clothing images should be photographed flat (off-model).
Other than that, my top Pro Tips for the main images?
Make sure that your product takes up 90% or more of the thumbnail space
Zig when others zag (i.e., if competitors are all positioning their products a certain way, do the opposite; this helps to “stop the scroll”)
For the rest of your images?
The key is to tell a story through a combination of infographics and lifestyle images.
The content of your infographics should overlap with your bullet points. Don’t waste your Unique Selling Propositions (USPs) on the bullet points that most customers won’t read. Put those USPs right in your images. Images are for your customers, bullets are for the A9 algorithm.
For the lifestyle images, you want to “future pace” your customers. Put them in the mental/emotional/psychological future state of using and enjoying your product.
For more tips optimizing your product images and other best practices, I highly recommend this Jungle Scout article.
How to optimize your bullet points
I’ll repeat what I said a few seconds ago: Images are for your customers, bullets are for the A9 algorithm.
What does that mean?
You should have FIVE bullets (yes, always use all available SEO and detail page real estate) and they should be keyword RICH.
You don’t want to keyword stuff, per se, but all the best keyword raw material should be in your bullets (they’re above the fold, after all). Combine those raw materials into full sentences, but don’t worry too much about artful writing.
One very high leverage way that we like to create SEO rich bullet points that read well is to use AI copywriting tools like Headlime or Jasper.
How to optimize your product description
The playbook for your product description isn’t much different than the playbook for your bullet points: Find the best keywords and pack them all in there (you have 2000 characters of real estate — use it!).
The main difference in your product description is that you’re telling a story rather than hitting customers with crisp, punchy USPs.
Again, if you’re not creative, not a good writer, or just lazy, try out those AI copywriting tools. They’ll get you 90% of the way there, and then you can take it over the finish line.
IMPORTANT NOTE: If you’re Brand Registered, your A+ content will take the place of your product description on your product detail page. BUT YOU SHOULD STILL POPULATE THIS FIELD. The product description won’t be displayed, but the keywords in it will still index. So many sellers overlook this.
How to optimize your A+ content
A+ content gives you a sales boost of over 14% according to internal Amazon data. If you don’t have A+ content on your product listing, to quote Ice-T: “You played yourself.”
Most of what I’ve talked about up until this point is pretty do-it-yourself (minus imagery). But, if you’re going to make any investments in photography and/or graphic design, A+ content is where to deploy those dollars (if it’s not obvious, you can and should be multi-purposing any photography and design work that you commission for both your images and A+ content).
For your A+ content, the design should align to your brand’s style guidelines (if you have them). If you don’t, just aim for consistency between everything on your product detail page.
Two other Pro Tips:
Add a product comparison table as the last element (8% sales lift)
Pack the alt-text of the images in your A+ content with keywords (yes, these DO index)
You did it! Give yourself a pat on the back!
Well, not yet. On Amazon, the key is to monitor the data, make changes, monitor the data, and repeat.
BEFORE you do all of this, I recommend taking stock of how well (or poorly) optimized your product listing is. Helium 10 has a Listing Analyzer, but the better one, in my opinion, comes from Seller.Tools. Their Listing Quality Score is the most granular listing evaluation metric that I’ve seen and, in turn, lends itself to more fine-toothed refinements of your product listing along the way.
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