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Why choose to sell on Amazon? What are the benefits? How can SEO help sell on this platform?
Amazon has become the leading marketplace in the Western market in the world of online sales: over 300 million active users have been estimated. The latter see Amazon’s e-commerce platform as an authoritative source to guide their purchasing decisions.
In this regard, we can think that about 77% of Canadians search Amazon to find out about a product, even before buying it. Just like Google, Amazon can therefore also be classified as a search engine: in this sense, SEO for Amazon becomes a fundamental tool for those who want to improve their positioning within the platform.
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First of all, we should ask ourselves what the advantages of selling on Amazon are. There are several reasons why a brand or seller should choose Amazon as a sales platform for their products. Among the main ones we can identify:
- millions of potential customers;
- services;
- reputation.
Let’s analyze in detail what these factors consist of and the elements that can affect the positioning of products within the marketplace.
Amazon’s success: millions of potential customers
As per BestSEOCompanyCanada.com, by selling a product on Amazon, you can reach a much larger share of potential customers than any other e-commerce platform. In terms of capitalization and earnings, the company created by Jeff Bezos is the number one e-commerce in the world: a vast online store with a catalogue that presents more than 90 million products and where more and more users go beyond. To buy and to search for information after seeing a product in the store or inquire before purchase.
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According to research published on Statista.com, in the ranking of retail sites positioned based on the average number of unique monthly visitors in the USA, Amazon stands out in the first position, detaching (and not a little) competitors such as Walmart and eBay (data referring to December 2017).
Amazon’s success: services
Another reason for Amazon’s success is the intuitive and straightforward shopping experience that is offered to customers. Through services such as the BuyBox or the Dash Button, you can buy a product with just one click or receive it in 24 hours with fast and free shipping if you have the Amazon Prime service.
Amazon’s success: reputation
Linked to the quality of the services offered, there is also an excellent reputation for customer service reliability. Since its creation 24 years ago, Amazon’s customer service is recognized worldwide for its superiority, which always puts the customer at the centre.
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It is Bezos himself who talks about customer-centric strategy: “I would define Amazon by our big ideas, which are customer centricity, putting the customer at the centre of everything we do, [and] invention. We like to pioneer, and we like to explore. We like to go down dark alleys and see what’s on the other side”.
SEO for Amazon: why it is essential to define a strategy
According to a report released in October 2018 by Jumpshot, from 2015 to 2018, Amazon overtook Google in the search for products by US users. In particular, the two giants have swapped roles, with Amazon growing from 46 to 54% and Google dropping from 54 to 46%. Additionally, more than two-thirds of product clicks occur on the first results page on Amazon.
A survey by Adeptmind (May 2018) reports that nearly half US users (46.7%) start their product search on Amazon, compared to 34.6% who type their product query first on Google. This means that users use more and more Bezos e-commerce as a fundamental resource for researching a product, which concerns the purchase and the search for information relating to a possible future. Purchase.
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As per Nova SEO Services an efficient SEO strategy for Amazon involves the optimization of product sheets, which involves two phases:
- an analysis of the current situation of the card;
- An improvement of the technical elements, such as the length of the title, the bullet points, and the product description’s length, in case they are not optimized.
The first phase of the strategy provides precisely the analysis of the current state of the technical parameters of the cards identified. If the values ​​are not optimized concerning the Amazon guidelines, keyword research is defined, helpful in modifying and improving the product sheet to make it as attractive as possible for the users’ search intent.
Amazon’s algorithm
The search algorithm for Amazon is called A9, from the name of the company (also belonging to Amazon) that manages the SEO side. The first point that is essential to understand when it comes to SEO for Amazon is that we are talking about a purchasing platform whose primary purpose is to sell millions of products as efficiently as possible.
So the algorithm works in a different world than Google’s and has far fewer ranking factors. However, this does not mean that positioning on the first Amazon search page is more accessible. Adopting an incorrect SEO strategy for Amazon, as for “classic” SEO, is equivalent to less visibility and fewer sales.
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There are two primary ranking factors, which can, in turn, be divided into several subcategories:
- relevance, how much a product manages to satisfy the customer’s search queries (through the use of keywords);
- performance, when a product with a strong sales history ranks better in the search results.
Optimizing a product sheet for these two factors will lead to improved positioning in the marketplace and increased conversions. Each Amazon SERP has the ultimate goal of showing the most likely to convert products, based on the contrast between relevance factors and performance factors.
The relevance factors can be modified more quickly than the performance ones, as we intervene on areas that concern the structure of the product sheets, that is:
- product title;
- bullet points;
- Product Description;
- Backend keywords.
Product title
The title of the product must contain the main keywords, so Amazon’s guidelines recommend creating a path that includes:
- brand;
- template;
- product type;
- specific functions;
- material;
- colour;
- size or quantity (if applicable).
Furthermore, commercial claims should never be present in the title, nor should they exceed 200 characters, to avoid blocking the ASIN.
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Bullet Points and Product Description
The bullet points allow you to identify the most critical elements at a glance and therefore must indicate the benefits of a product and add the most relevant information, the idea is to have 5 for each ASIN, and it is recommended to enter the keywords without forcing the text.
Backend Keywords
These are “hidden” kw that can be loaded on the product sheet through the Amazon Seller account. Their purpose is to help the algorithm better understand what to show when requesting specific information. With the update dated August 2018, the fields for entering search terms have gone from 5 to 1, with a maximum of 250 bytes.
Performance Factors
Concerning performance factors, as previously mentioned, they are more difficult to manage directly. The conversion rate, indicated by the English acronym CR, is an important ranking factor, on which it is not easy to act, due to the lack of access to Amazon data, as opposed to what could be done on the own e-commerce.
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The factors that affect the Conversion Rate are:
- image optimization;
- number and value of reviews;
- Sales Rank;
- Price, availability and logistics.
Image optimization
It is advisable to insert at least six images, at least 2 of which are high resolution; this is also due to the tests carried out with heat maps, which show how Amazon users first look at the image and title of the product. Amazon’s guidelines say that optimization must follow some parameters:
- preferred format JPG ;
- resolution at least 72 dpi ;
- the ideal size of 1000 pixels on the longest side ;
- Minimum height of 500 pixels per side.
Number and value of reviews
Products that have a good number of reviews, taking into account that a value greater than 100 is considered excellent, but several studies more significant than 15 is also regarded as good, and with a high rating, i.e. higher than 4.4 / 5 stars, they will have more likely to appear among Amazon’s top SERP results.
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Sales Rank
The sales rank is a metric that describes the performance of a product and indicates how a particular product is a performance compared to products of the same category and its subcategories. It is a value that changes several times in a day and cannot be checked.
Price, availability and logistics
The product price affects Amazon’s CR. However, a lower price does not automatically mean that your product will be your store sells. The factors listed above also have their weight on Amazon’s SERP results. Also choose the logistics of Amazon can positively influence the ranking, taking into account the number of products available and unavailable.
In conclusion
SEO for Amazon is a complex and ever-changing process, just like traditional SEO. Adopting a correct strategy leads to concrete results that translate into improved positioning in the SERP and, therefore, greater conversions, always keeping in mind that Amazon’s goal is to sell as efficiently as possible.
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