All Amazon sellers are aware of the importance of keyword research. A product will appear within the search results as long as its listing has all the necessary keywords that a customer may use to find the product. Therefore, finding relevant keywords and putting them in listings is crucial for Amazon SEO. That is for page optimization and increased discoverability.
We are going to discuss different ways you can gather keywords for your products on Amazon. And how you can use them to make sure that your Amazon SEO is on point.
Type of Keywords
There are two types of keywords – generic keywords and long-tail keywords. To become successful on Amazon, sellers need to target both of these types in their listings. This will ensure maximum visibility and higher chances of landing conversions.
Generic Keywords
Generic keywords are your high-competition, high-search volume queries. A lot of shoppers look for products by typing in a generic query and then filtering through the results to make their pick. They are not sure of what they want to buy, or even if they are going to buy. Since you want them to look at your listing as well, you add these generic queries in your description and titles.
For instance, Chris wants to buy running shoes, but he isn’t sure which brand or quality to buy. Therefore, he will go to Amazon type in ‘running shoes’ and then make his selection from the search results.
Long-tail Keywords
Long-tail keywords, on the other hand, have low competition and low search volume. These queries usually have three or more words and typically imply a high intent of making a purchase. Therefore, the odds of getting conversions with long-tail queries are much more than its generic counterpart.
Considering our previous example of running shoes, assume that Chris’ friend, John, knows exactly the kind of running shoes he needs. So, he will go to Amazon, search for ‘Nike blue running shoes for men’ and voila! John is closer to making a purchase than Chris since he knows precisely what he wants. The minute he finds a listing that matches his query, he will be on his way to run in his fancy blue shoes!
As an Amazon seller, you should be on the lookout for these long-tail queries. If you can meet the requirements that these type of queries generate, then you can be rest assured of landing a sale.
How to do Amazon Keyword Research?
Now that you know the type of keywords you need to target, let us take a look at how you can go about finding these queries.
Make a list of Basic Keywords
Let’s face it – you have to start somewhere. What better way to find keywords than to sit and brainstorm the top, potential keywords for your products. Granted that you may not find a comprehensive set of queries but they will come in handy for the next step.
The Amazon Auto-Suggestion Feature
You must have observed that when you type something on Amazon, it automatically gives you a list of suggestions to consider. This is, in fact, an excellent way to generate additional keywords for your products. Take those search queries you picked up in the previous step and paste it in the Amazon search box, one by one. You will get a list of suggested keywords for your main query.
Take those suggested keywords and repeat this step once again, like this:
As you can see, you are likely to find a new set of suggestions for each variation. While this step may be time-consuming, it is certainly worth the effort. The trick here is to approach it neatly and systematically to ensure that you don’t miss out on anything.
Look at Your Competitors’ Keywords
It is quite likely that the product you plan to sell on Amazon already has a few competitors and well-established players. While this may appear to be a bane, it is also a boon as it will help you gather the top keywords without a lot of effort. Just visit the product listing page of your top competitors and see the keywords that they are using. You will usually find these in their product titles, bullet points, and descriptions.
You can follow the same approach for those products that are related and similar to your items.
Use Google Keyword Planner Tool
Google Keyword Planner is among the most popular keyword tool out there in the market. While this doesn’t necessarily target Amazon, it is still an excellent place to gather the potential keywords for your products. For every query, you will get search volume and cost per click to help you understand its popularity and how its search trends have varied in the past.
Try SellerApp’s Amazon Keyword Research Tool
SellerApp is a leading platform that provides smart, data-driven solutions to help sellers sell better on Amazon. Its Amazon keyword research tool has been designed to help you find all possible keywords and variations for your products.
To make things easier, the results are split individually into your regular keywords and long-tail keywords, as seen here. With this, you will also get search volume, relevancy, and CPC.
You can also use the same tool to find the top keywords your competitors are using. This is what you commonly call as reverse ASIN look up – just type in the ASIN of your competing products in the tool and hit Enter. You will be able to see how the long-tail keywords and product keywords your competitors are targeting in their listings.
Keyword Research and its Importance in Amazon SEO
Amazon SEO is lead by its in-house algorithm, commonly known as Amazon’s A9. Just like all leading search engines, Amazon too has kept it a secret as to how it ranks a particular product on its marketplace. However, through the years, many analysts, marketers, and sellers have narrowed it all down to a few deciding factors like price, reviews, stock availability, text match relevancy, sales velocity, listing quality, FBA fulfillment, advertisements, et cetera.
Among these, price and reviews are highly influential. According to Statista, more than 80% of buyers on Amazon consider the price of a product as a deciding factor while for 57%, positive product reviews matter a lot when it comes to shopping on the site.
Now, let us look at another interesting fact: according to Jumpshot, more than 75% of the product clicks happen on the first page of search results. What does this mean? Even if you have a product that is priced well and has a couple of positive reviews, it will not matter much unless you bring it to the first couple of pages in the Amazon search results.
This is where keyword research comes in.
Remember the part where we spoke about text relevancy? It essentially means that content of your product listing – your product title, description, bullet points, features, and images – need to match the search terms or keywords entered by the customers on Amazon.
Balance of Keyword Relevance & Engaging Copy
The listing needs to be such that it is optimized correctly with the right keywords, and at the same time, it is visually appealing and mesmerizing enough to make the customer hit the ‘Buy’ button. It needs to be a harmonious blend of keywords and creativity.
Otherwise, you will either have a listing stuffed with keywords, that doesn’t look engaging or appealing at all, or a listing that looks good, but lacks the keywords to be picked up by Amazon’s algorithm.
Let us take a look at the individual components of product listing and see how you can improve them.
Product Title
A good product title is the one that has a minimum of 80 characters. It needs to cover all the right keywords and should also give a clear picture of what the product is. This includes brand name, color, quantity, and other features that help the user understand the product better. Also, it shouldn’t be stuffed with keywords to make it look unnatural.
This is exactly what this listing has achieved.
And for this, it got a good score:
A good product title will also play an important role in the listing’s click-through rate (CTR) so make sure that you take your time to come up with an engaging, creative title.
Product Description
A product description is your sales copy. If a person is reading your description, then it means that he has almost made up his mind to buy your product and needs that final push. It is your job to bring him to the other side.
Making a great product description is an art form. It needs to be rich with keywords and must be visually appealing to portray the necessary features and benefits. It should tell an engaging story of how this product can help the buyers. Just remember the following:
– It needs to be crisp, clear, and precise
– Should include only relevant information
– No quotes, testimonials, links to external websites
– The description should match the images
Bullet Points
Bullet points are where you elucidate the product features. This is the first thing that a customer will read on your listing page after the title. Amazon provides you with the option to write five bullet points and as a rule of thumb, use that space to the fullest, just like this listing:
Once again, it gets 10 points for well-written bullet points.
Product Images
A picture is worth a thousand words – this saying particularly holds good for Amazon. Many customers prefer to buy products that have high-quality images from various angles. There are a few technical requirements laid down by Amazon that your images need to fulfill. You should also take pictures that demonstrate the product in action, like this:
This image clearly shows the product in ‘action,’ thus giving customers a clearer idea of how they can use it.
Backend Search Terms
Backend search terms are often overlooked simply because not many sellers are aware of it. In all essence, they are quite important from Amazon SEO perspective and should be considered. Simply put, these are those search terms that you add to the backend for Amazon’s algorithms to pick up. These are queries that relate to your product but don’t necessarily demand a place in the main listing. Therefore, they are not visible to customers.
Often, many shoppers use odd queries to find the same product. For example, instead of typing ‘running shoes,’ they may type in ‘shoes for exercise’ or ‘shoes to get fit’ and so on. (Again, this is just an arbitrary example.) By adding these type of queries to the backend, you are telling Amazon that you want your product to be associated with these keywords.
Amazon Pay-Per-Click
Amazon PPC, also known as Sponsored Products, is Amazon’s advertising platform that sellers use to create ad campaigns. It works similar to your Google PPC with slight differences here and there. Once again, the idea here is the same – create ads by targeting the right keywords for your products to drive traffic and conversions. Once this happens, the sales history for your products improve and they move up in the search results.
In practice, of course, it is a bit more difficult. While the success of Amazon PPC campaigns depends on many factors, keyword research and campaign strategies form two crucial components. Without targeting the right keywords, it will be difficult to drive the right type of traffic to your listing (hence, the importance of keyword research).
In other words, your ads may get the clicks but no conversions, thus resulting in wasted ad spend. This usually happens when the listing isn’t optimized with the right keyword or the ads show for irrelevant keywords. Therefore, before starting PPC on Amazon, it’s best to read up on the matter thoroughly.
Final Thoughts
When you start your business on Amazon, keyword research should be right there on the top of your list with product research and validation. Without finding the relevant search queries for your product, driving traffic (let alone sales) to your listings will be difficult. Once you do find the keywords, you need to include them in your listings, backend queries, and your advertising campaigns. For inspiration, you can always look at your competitors to see the type of keywords they are using for their listings.