Amazon Listing Optimization – The Complete Guide for 2021

Bottom Line: an Amazon listing optimization audit will do wonders for your conversion rate, profit, and overall sales figures. A poorly optimized listing will leak sales to your competitors, and won’t rank as high as it could.

To optimize your Amazon listing, focus on three areas: keyword optimization, sales copy and images, using the audit method we outline in this post.

Your bad product listing is costing you money.

Many Amazon sellers have low-quality, poorly optimized product listings. the result of a bad listing is:

• Fewer conversions from people who click through to your listing
• Wasted ad spend from external traffic
• More sales for your competitors
• Low keyword rankings
• Missed keyword opportunities
• Negative reviews

Amazon listing optimization is particularly important if you’re advertising outside of Amazon, such as with Facebook Ads.

Traffic sent to a poorly optimized listing will convert at a low rate, meaning a lot of wasted ad spend.

Worse yet, the traffic you send will often end up clicking on sponsored or related products and buying.

Congratulations – you just spend money to drive traffic for your competitors.

The good news is, a poorly optimized listing is often quite easy to fix. This should be one of the first initiatives you try to increase sales, and something you look at before you start driving external traffic to your listing.

This post will help you conduct a listing audit yourself, by showing you the most common mistakes and how to fix them.

Amazon Product Listing Optimization: What Does It Mean?

When we say Amazon product listing optimization, we’re talking about making sure your Amazon product page is set up to attract new visitors, and convert shoppers into sales.

Done right, you’ll maximize your organic visibility in search results, as well as your conversion rate.

The second point is especially important for external traffic, as most of the time you’re paying money to get someone to your listing.

If the customer doesn’t buy from you, it’s a huge waste of money. The customer may even go on to buy from a competitor, which is doubly bad.

For a deeper insight, this post has more actionable content on listing optimization for Amazon sellers.

The first step to perfecting your listing is doing a listing audit, which we’ll run you through now.

Amazon Listing Audit Overview

There are three broad categories to cover in a listing audit.

• Keyword Optimization
• Sales copy
• Images

Amazon listing optimization means ensuring you’re covering all relevant keywords, your listing is set up to sell shoppers on your product, and your images show your product off in the best light.

Before spending anything on paid ads, analyze these three areas and make sure they are fully optimized.

Let’s look a little deeper into how to analyze and improve each area:

LIsting Audit Step One: Optimize Your Keyword Strategy

Keyword research and optimization is a core part of selling on Amazon. The most effective and valuable way to get traffic to your products is through Amazon search, by ranking for keywords that customers are actively searching for.

To rank for keywords, you need to display these keywords somewhere in your product listing. That way, Amazon’s search algorithm knows that your product is related to these keywords, and will consider ranking you for them.

The two elements to consider when choosing keywords to go after are search volume (customers are searching for this keyword) and relevance (your product fits what someone is looking for when they type in this keyword).

Keywords that have both – high search volume and highly relevant to your product – are the “golden goose” keywords that you want to prioritize. Put these keywords in your title, or high up in the “About this item” section.

Common mistakes with keyword optimization

When you audit your listing, look for these common mistakes.

Keywords with high volume but low relevance: it’s easy to look at a high-volume keyword and start drooling over the sales you might get. But you need to ensure it’s actually a relevant buying keyword for your product.

Ranking for a keyword doesn’t matter if you don’t get any sales out of it. Only target keywords that could realistically lead to a sale for your product.

Over-competitive keywords: the problem with high-volume keywords is that everyone is trying to rank for them. Sometimes, the keywords you want to go after are dominated by entrenched competitors (big brands, products with a ton of reviews).

In this case, look for keyword variations (“blender” vs “food processor”, for example) that may have less search volume, but lower competition, and consider prioritizing this keyword.

Missing long-tail keywords: long-tail keywords are search terms containing several words – something like “waterproof jacket for men”. These keywords often have low search volume, but are hyper-relevant and high-intent. Meaning, someone searching for this is ready to make a purchase today.

Many sellers don’t consider long-tail keywords, because of the low search volume. But these are often the best keywords for driving sales. Even better, because your competitors may be ignoring them, this is where the most opportunities are for your audit.

Not utilizing backend keywords: backend keywords are a hidden field, invisible to customers, but visible to the Amazon search algorithm. You should make sure you fill out this area with as many terms as possible.

Common types of backend keywords include similar products, colloquialisms, and misspellings of your main keywords.

Listing Audit Step Two: Optimize Your Listing Copy

While optimizing for keywords is important, it shouldn’t be at the expense of readability and convincing sales copy.

Thus an important part of Amazon listing optimization is combining keyword coverage with copy optimized to convert.

Ideally, your product listing should be readable, scannable (no big walls of text), and convincing.

Someone who lands on your product page hasn’t yet made up their mind on whether to buy your product or not. Your job is to convince them.

You do this by highlighting the value your product can bring to the customer, and overcoming any objections they may have.

This post from our Facebook community does a good job of correcting some common copywriting mistakes from Amazon sellers:

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Join the community and check out the full post here.

Additional items to consider with listing copy

Here’s some advice to help you ace the copywriting section of your Amazon listing optimization.

Title: the title is an incredibly important part of the Amazon experience. The goal of your title is to convince people to click through to your listing, over the others competing with you in the Amazon search results.

Look at your title, and ask yourself if it accomplishes this.

You should have your main keyword (as well as 1-2 other high-priority keywords) in your title. This not only helps you rank for these keywords, it helps encourage clicks for people who search for these keywords.

Make sure your title is clear, though, and not just an unreadable jumble of keywords.

Bullets: once someone clicks through to your listing, your bullet points (the “About this item” section) is the next top priority. This area gives shoppers an opportunity to learn more about your product, and how it can help them.

Many customers won’t read any further than this, so it’s vital you capture the reader’s attention with your bullets.

Highlight the unique value proposition and benefits of your product here, while also including a number of important keywords.

Keep in mind, people won’t read through your bullet points if they’re like a novel. Stick to short sentences. Make it easy to read and skim. And again, don’t just throw keywords in here without considering if it makes sense.

Description: if people get down to this section, make it worthwhile for them. The description should go into more detail, which is especially important for technical products. Like the bullet points, people will most likely skim. So make sure to break up your description into sections that make sense, and use HTML for formatting.

EBC/A+ Content: if you have Brand Registry, make sure you take the opportunity to add Enhanced Brand Content (now known as A+ Content) to your listing.

This is a great way to display your product (and your brand) in more detail. High-quality A+ Content increases conversions, and can also lead to sales for your other products.

Focus on benefits over features

One of the most common mistakes in copywriting is writing about the features of your product, and not the benefits.

A feature is a part of your product, while a benefit is the impact it has on the customer.

To put it even simpler, a feature is what – a benefit is why.

For example, instead of saying “350 GSM pearl weave fabric”, you could say “lightweight and durable”. You’re describing why the feature is important, not the feature itself.

Focusing on the benefits and the unique value your product offers is a great way to get more conversions.

Listing Audit Step Three: Optimize Your Images

Lastly, the product photos on a lot of listings do not to justice to the product.

A good product image should help the shopper imagine themselves using the product, and replace the feeling of actually holding and examining the product.

You want to ensure you have professional, high-quality photos that show the product in its best light.

Be sure to include a variety of photos showing off different benefits, use cases and angles.

Of course, make sure your images follow Amazon’s guidelines too.

Images are particularly important on mobile, because they take up the bulk of the screen.

Mobile customers see just the title and image when they click to your product listing. Most mobile shoppers will swipe through the images before scrolling down. So if your images are no good, most people will hit the back button.

Finally, make sure your images give as much detail on your product as possible. Make it so there are no surprises when the customer gets the product.

A common cause of negative reviews is confusion from the customer, when a product shows up that is a different size, or just feels or appears different to what they expected.

Many times, this could be fixed with a simple lifestyle photo showing the product being used by a real person. You could also include photos that show the actual dimensions of your product.

The Benefits of Amazon LIsting Optimization: Higher Conversion Rate & Rankings, More Traffic & Sales

I can almost guarantee you’re going to find some mistakes, or some sub-optimized areas of your listing when you conduct an audit.

The good thing is, you don’t need any high-level skills to fix these mistakes (just as you don’t need any special skills to audit your listing).

The only area that may take some effort to fix is your product images. It’s absolutely worth it to get an agency to take high-quality photos for your product, however. Don’t skimp on cost here.

The benefits of a fully-optimized Amazon listing are large and vast. You’ll convert more people who land on your listing, resulting in both higher rankings and more sales.

The ranking boost you get from improving your Amazon listing optimization is going to lead to even more traffic and sales.

So, before trying any advanced strategies to generate traffic, make sure your foundation – your product listing – is well-optimized.

Amazon Listing Audit Process

There are a number of services that charge hundreds of dollars for a simple listing audit. But if you would rather do it yourself or have someone on your team do it, we’re giving you the blueprint to do it. 

Here is a video breakdown of a listing audit we performed for a LandingCube customer’s product on Amazon.

To do an audit for your own listing, follow this PDF checklist, to ensure you check all the bases.

Keyword Audit Process

We use Helium10’s Cerebro & Magnet to perform a keyword audit. 

Reverse ASIN Search: 

1. Enter your ASIN into Cerebro to get a list of keywords Amazon is currently ranking you for, or keywords you should rank for but don’t
2. Order the keywords by Search Volume (highest to lowest)
3. Filter the keywords by a minimum Cerebro IQ Score (suggested filter = >1,000)
4. Compare these keywords to the keywords in your listing (title being most important, followed by backend fields, then bullets, lastly description)
5. Build a list of the best keywords to include in your listing, move up in your listing and/or add to the backend. 
   1. If a keyword is highly relevant, has higher search volume & lower competition, it should gain higher priority (ie put into your listing or moved up in your listing)

Standard Keyword Search:

1. Enter your most relevant keyword as the seed keyword into Magnet. 
2. Order the keywords by Search Volume (highest to lowest)
3. Filter the keywords by a minimum Cerebro IQ Score (suggested filter = >1,000)
4. Compare these keywords to the keywords in your listing (Title being most important, followed by backend fields, then bullets, lastly description)
5. Add the best keywords to your keyword list (to include in your listing, move up in your listing and/or add to the backend). 
   1. If a keyword is highly relevant, has higher search volume & lower competition, it should gain higher priority (ie put into your listing or moved up in your listing)

Listing Copy Audit Process

Take the findings from your keyword research to improve the keyword strength of your title, bullets & description.

You should find a balance between keyword optimization and persuasive, readable copy. The goal is not just to rank higher, but to convert clicks into sales.

The title should persuade people to click on your listing, and the bullets and description should make it easy for people to understand the unique value of your product and persuade them to purchase. 

1. If you find a keyword that is hyper-relevant and has higher search volume & lower competition than any of the keywords currently in your title, add it. 
2. Analyze the title word-by-word. Can you replace some search terms with other terms that have the potential for more sales? If so, do it. 
3. Try to add more high opportunity keywords to your listing copy, without sacrificing readability. 
4. Make sure your bullet points all use the same format.
5. Make sure your bullet points all focus on the main benefits of your product, followed by unique features.
6. The description should be easily scannable – break it down into sections and use HTML for formatting. 
7. Do your bullets & description help consumers imagine themselves using the product, solving their pain with the product and benefiting from the product?

• BONUS SPY TACTIC #1: Look through your reviews for terms that your customers are actually using to describe your product. Are you using this terminology in your listing? 
• BONUS SPY TACTIC #2: Look at your best competitors’ copy. Can you take it, improve upon it and tailor it to your own unique brand & product? 

Product Image Audit Process

Images are incredibly important. The first product image, like the title, should get people to click through to your listing from the search results page. The other images should together tell a story about why your product is awesome for your target customer, and help them imagine themselves using it. 

1. Count your images. If you have less than 7, think about making more.
2. Look at your images for quality & usefulness. 
3. Check that the first image prominently displays the product on a white background. 
4. Do you have secondary images that highlight the main product features and benefits? Use-cases? 
5. Do you have at least one image showing an attractive customer using your product? 
6. Consider an image comparing the product features/benefits to a competitor’s product. 
7. Check that the text overlayed on your images is easy to read?
8. Check that your images together convey a cohesive brand identity? 

• BONUS SPY TACTIC: Look at your competitors’ images. Can you take them, improve upon them and tailor them to your unique brand & product? 

In Summary: How to Conduct an Amazon Listing Optimization Audit

You wouldn’t build a nice house on a poor foundation. So don’t do the same with your business.

The foundation of your Amazon store is your product listing. Every sale you get is going to come through your listing eventually, so it’s vital you get your listing optimized and in good shape.

That’s why we’ve laid out this process for an Amazon listing optimization audit, so you can stop sending good traffic to a bad product listing.

Follow this process and you could dramatically improve your keyword rankings and conversion rate, resulting in more organic traffic & sales.