Amazon Listing Optimization – Audit Process

Facebook Ads, and other sources of traffic outside Amazon, can be a powerful growth lever for an Amazon business, if done right. But many sellers doom themselves before the Facebook campaign goes live. 

We’ve seen a lot of ways Amazon sellers mess up with Facebook Ads. But the first and most common mistake has nothing to do with Facebook Ads proper–and that is having a poorly optimized Amazon listing.

Time and time again, customers reach out to our support saying they didn’t get good results from their Facebook Ads. And time and time again, we find glaring mistakes in their Amazon listing. 

If you are spending money to drive traffic to a listing that is not optimized, your money isn’t being well spent. 

Amazon listing optimization is an essential aspect of success on the platform. We’re going to help you do an audit yourself, by showing you the most common mistakes and how to fix them.

Amazon Product Listing Optimization: What Does It Mean?

Optimization? What are we talking about here?

When we say Amazon product listing optimization, we’re talking about making sure your Amazon product page is set up perfectly to attract new shoppers, 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’ve paid money to get someone to your listing.

If the customer doesn’t go on to buy from you, it’s a huge waste of money.

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

Listing Audit Overview

There are three general categories to cover in a listing audit. It takes into account Amazon SEO, readability & persuasion of your copy, and quality of your images.

Before spending anything on paid ads, it’s a good idea to take a second look at all three.

Optimize Your Keyword Strategy

Oftentimes, customers are targeting keywords that are hyper-competitive & have comparatively low sales potential. Meanwhile, there are hyper-relevant keywords that have higher search volume & lower competition.

Finding these keywords and making them a priority means your product will show up in search results more often. More searches and better Amazon SEO will almost always result in increased sales.

Additionally, if you rank higher for more relevant or targeted keywords (say, “blender” versus “kitchen appliance”), you’ll convert that into more sales.

Optimize Your Listing Copy

Having listing copy that is optimized to convert is essential to maximize sales. That means copy that is not just a bloodbath of keywords. But rather copy that is readable, scannable and convinces shoppers of the unique value of your product. 

• Title: The title serves an incredibly important role in the Amazon experience. The goal of your title is to get people to click on your listing, rather than others which show up in the search results. Does your title accomplish this? Also, the keywords in your title play the number one role in ranking. How many of those high-relevance, high search-volume, low-competition keywords are included in your title? 
• Bullets: Bullet points also play a big role in the Amazon ranking system, and they provide shoppers an opportunity to learn more about your product. But, keep in mind, people are unlikely to read through the bullet points like a novel. More likely they will skim through. So you need to make it easy for people to get a snap-understanding of why your product is awesome, just by skimming. 
• 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. 

Optimize Your Images

Lastly, we see product photos that do not do justice to the awesome products our customers have to offer.

A good product image should be beautiful, professional and show off the product, product features, benefits & use-cases in the best light and follow Amazon’s guidelines. 

Images are even more important on mobile, because they take up the bulk of the screen. Imagine your target customer swiping through your photos.

Do they understand what your product can do for them? Does it evoke emotions – Solving their pain? Improving their life? It should. 

Higher Conversion Rate & Rankings, More Traffic & Sales

By performing a listing audit, you will likely find some glaring mistakes. Fixing those mistakes will not only increase conversions from your external traffic campaigns, but it will also help you rank higher and increase organic traffic & sales for your product.

At the very least, you’ll have double-checked that your listing is easily digestible by the Amazon search algorithm and consumers. 

In the past, we’ve charged hundreds of dollars to audit listings. We’re happy to provide that service for you [contact us to learn more]. 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.

And here is a PDF checklist to make sure you cover all your 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: Listing Optimization Audit For More Traffic & Sales

Our mission at LandingCube is to provide tools & support so Amazon sellers can grow their business with external traffic.

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!