When it comes to ranking high in Amazon search results, there’s no quick fix, and you can’t cheat the system – you have to apply all the strategies you can and then be patient. Also, you should be picky about which tactics you use and which you don’t bother with while keeping your brand and selling goals in mind. When your Amazon product listings appear higher in search results, shoppers have an easier time of finding them and a better shot of choosing them – instead of going with one of your competitors.
Correctly Categorize Your Products
There are so many categories on Amazon that it can be a job in and of itself to figure out which ones are best for each product you list. Don’t get lazy about this, though – by choosing the wrong categories, your products can suffer from low visibility and rank. Your customers browse categories to determine what to buy. If your item isn’t listed in the right category, they’ll never come across it.
Amazon has directions for properly classifying products, including using Browse Tree Guides (BTG), which are spreadsheets that help you browse and choose the correct product category.
You can also do it in a homegrown way by going to the Amazon Best Sellers page and clicking on the correct department under Any Department on the left. From there, you’ll see more categories listed under the department name. Click again for even more sub-categories.
Know How to Optimize Your Product Listings
Optimizing your product listings is beneficial for your customers, you and Amazon – everybody wins. Keep these must-dos in mind when creating your product listings:
- Aside from the product name, the listing title should include keywords, benefits and variations.
- Bullet points should have a hierarchy – most important information should be listed first, and less important information can come after.
- Don’t keyword-stuff – adding the same keyword over and over throughout a listing isn’t necessary on Amazon (like it may be for Google search results), and it can annoy your potential customers.
- Use high-quality images for better conversion rates. These best practices are a good starting point.
- If your product is difficult to use, add an infographic to clearly cover the product’s features and/or how it’s used.
- Price competitively – otherwise, customers are going to choose a competitor’s very-similar-and-lower-priced item instead of yours.
Once you’ve optimized your product listings, your job is not done. First, you should create two listings for the same product to A/B test certain factors, like title or how the description is worded. Second, even if you’ve done a great job of optimizing your listings now, that doesn’t mean they’re going to continue to perform well down the line. You should regularly check and update your listings to stay on top of the best SEO and most competitive prices.
Send Referral Traffic to a Landing Page
Getting traffic from outside Amazon is one of the best ways to optimize your listings, improve your search rank, and get inside traffic from Amazon. But users who are not yet searching on Amazon have a different goal than those who are already looking for an item on the platform. Instead of having purchase intent (which means there’s a high probability they’ll make a purchase), off-platform customers are still in the discovery page. They want to learn more about an item or type of item, but they’re not super close to buying.
First, figure out where your target customers are when they’re not on Amazon. Are they looking up information on Google or scrolling through their Facebook feed? Next, create ads that target those users where they are and direct them to an Amazon landing page – that’s right, not a product page.
Remember the customer intent we mentioned? If you bring them to a product page before they’re ready to go through with a purchase, they’ll click right off – they have no reason to be there. Instead, lead them to a landing page where they can explore a bit more before making a more-final decision. From there, you can also collect information about what they clicked on and where they came from (an Instagram ad versus a Facebook ad, for example) to improve your campaigns and listings and better-target those users in the future.
Consider Fulfillment by Amazon
Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) means that instead of you fulfilling your own orders (called FBM, which stands for fulfillment by merchant), Amazon handles the storage, packaging and shipping for you. Oh, and they take care of returns, too – plus, you can request that Amazon send you returned items instead of keeping them in its fulfillment center.
Just about anyone shopping on Amazon is used to fast two-day (or even one-day) shipping, so if you can’t promise expedited shipping too, potential customers will go with another seller. Your shop’s shipping system has to be reliable and lightning-fast, and if you can’t handle that on your own (or don’t want to bother), FBA can take it over on your behalf.
Bonus: Fast deliveries can mean more positive reviews (or at least fewer negative ones), and getting high marks from customers is an excellent way to raise your search rank.
Wrapping Up
Ranking higher on Amazon and selling your products is cyclical. The higher you rank, the more products you’ll sell; the more you sell, the higher you’ll rank.
That also makes it fairly easy to track whether or not your optimization efforts are working. Are your products showing up higher in the ranking? Are you getting more sales? If the answer to either one is “yes,” that’s a good sign that you’re on the right track.
As you increase traffic and sales, Amazon will rank you higher because it’s clear you’re successfully selling your products and making customers happy. And that’s Amazon’s obvious goal: To keep its customers satisfied so they continually turn to the platform to shop.
Brian Meert is the CEO of AdvertiseMint, a Hollywood based digital advertising agency that specializes in helping successful companies advertise on Facebook, Google, Amazon and Tiktok. AdvertiseMint has managed millions of dollars in digital ad spends in entertainment, fashion, finance, and software industries. Brian is the author of the best selling, The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising, a member of the Forbes Agency Council, and a thought leader and speaker.
