It is no surprise that the best Amazon listings end up being Amazon’s best sellers. The listings with great titles, engaging descriptions, crisp photos, and optimal keywords get the most attention from both shoppers and Amazon’s algorithm. To increase your sales, you need to learn how to improve your product pages to get more shoppers looking at your product and more customers for your Amazon business.
If you read our previous blogs on 5 Ways to Improve Your Amazon Sales Rank, you’ll know some of these hacks! But, in this article, we’ll be going into deeper details on other ways to optimize your Amazon product lists to maximize your sales!
Optimize Your Pricing
The easiest hack and most convenient method of improving your product listing are to optimize the price of your products. This hack is extremely valuable for wholesalers who are competing for the Buy Box and private label sellers who are selling products with a lot of competition.
The reality is: shoppers are always shopping for value. And many times, value equals cost. Therefore the easiest way to improve your Amazon product listings is to simply have competitive pricing. We recommend that you price your products within 15-20% of the lowest price to be competitive.
For wholesalers competing in the Buy Box, this means pricing 15% from the lowest offer in the Buy Box. Why? Because in most cases, Amazon will give every seller within 15% of costs equal time in the Buy Box. As long as you fit within that 15% threshold, you should be able to rack up some sales. You may find that for some products, 15% may be too low that your products no longer become profitable. So make sure to calculate the entire costs (including FBA and shipping costs) before you lower the price of your products.
We also want to note that some products cannot be sold for too low depending on the Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) set by the manufacturer. In this case, you would also need to abide by your supplier’s instructions to ensure you don’t get in trouble.
For private label sellers competing with other white label products, you have a bit more flexibility. We recommend that you price your product within 20% of the competitive price For example if you were to sell a water bottle, identify the price of your competitors. If they sell their products for $20, I would price my water bottle between $16 to $24 to stay within the 20% threshold compared to your competition. Since private label sellers do not share the Buy Box, the pricing strategy for the Buy Box is irrelevant. But, you want to stay close to other sellers and their listings to remain competitive.
With competitive pricing, more customers will be attracted to your listing to get a great deal and buy your products.
Optimize for Search Terms
The next hack is to optimize for Search Terms. If you keep up with our articles, you might be familiar with “keywords,” but search terms are a bit different. Search terms are like keywords, except these words are not used on your product page, they are used in the backend of your products. Search terms cannot be seen by shoppers and are only visible to Amazon’s backend algorithm. Amazon defines search terms as
“generic words that enhance the discoverability of your product. For example, if you’re selling headphones, your search terms can contain synonyms such as “earphones” and “earbuds.”
In essence, Search terms are key phrases that Amazon used behind the scenes to showcase the most relevant products possible. Amazon limits the number of search terms to less than 250 bytes of words. Here are some of Amazon’s key tips when using search terms:
- do not use product identifiers such as brands, product names, ASINs, UPCs, etc.
- take out inaccurate or irrelevant search terms (trust us, it won’t leave to more conversions if you use random search terms)
- do not use excessively long search terms, keep it simple
- provide search terms from most relevant to least relevant
- do not use filler words (best, top, new), these words will filter out anyways
These search terms provide Amazon another method of finding our products when shoppers search for similar search terms and bring more attention to our product listings. To learn more about Amazon’s search terms and how to use them effectively, check out Amazon’s article on best search term practices.
Optimize Titles
With search terms in mind, let’s move on to optimize our product titles and content with keywords. Keywords are the common search terms used by users when shopping on Amazon. For example, if I wanted to buy a gaming mouse on Amazon, I will search a general term such as “wireless gaming mouse.” These are the keywords that people most often use when shopping online and are essential to maximizing your product listing’s visibility for Amazon’s algorithm. Note that keywords will be most relevant to our private label sellers, who have different listings and compete with other sellers.
To find the best keywords, we recommend conducting a competitive analysis and scouting the competition. In this example, pretend I am selling a set of cooking utensils and I want to find the best keywords to optimize my listing. The first thing I do is go on Amazon, and search “cooking utensil set” and come across these products. If you look at each product’s title, you can see a lot of repetitive keywords like “kitchen utensil,” “nonstick,” and “heat resistant.”
These are the keywords that your competitors are using! So when we are optimizing our listings, we want to highlight the same competitive keywords and we end up with:
“Kitchen Utensil Set, Nonstick and Heat Resistant Cooking Tool Set.”
We have a strong product title that is optimized for Amazon’s algorithm. If someone searches for cooking utensils and uses one of these keywords, our product is more likely to be shown to customers, thus increasing our sales.
Optimize the Content
Did you know you can add keywords that aren’t just applicable to your product titles but should be used throughout your product page content?
Every product page for every product sold on Amazon has a product title, product description, and product photos. Keywords need to be used for all of these elements, not just your title! We’ve talked about keywords within titles and descriptions in the past.
If you need help creating the right structure for your product description, I highly recommend you read our blog on Successful Writing Tips for Amazon Product Descriptions.
In the article, we emphasize the importance of having short, concise, and engaging product descriptions that utilize bullet points and simple writing structures. But, keywords can be applied to your product photos as well!
You might not know this, but you can optimize your photos for keywords! Before you upload your product’s photos into your product listings, make sure to properly name your photos with optimized keywords. You can change the file names of all your photos. Since Amazon’s algorithm reads the photo’s file name, they are also looking for relevant keywords within the file names! Like we mentioned, you want to maximize all the content on your product listing, not just the title and description! Make sure to optimize your photo files as well, Amazon’s algorithm will appreciate it!
Optimize the Details
The fifth hack to optimize your Amazon product listing is by flushing out the details. This step is not required but is highly recommended by Amazon because the product details give the customer more information about your product. By having more information, customers are more likely to make informed purchases and have more ideal and clear expectations for your product.
Whether it be your product descriptions or your title, you want to include all the essential information within your product listing. This includes:
- brand name
- product line (if applicable)
- material or make of the product
- color
- sizing and dimensions
- packaging and materials
It’s always better for your products to be too specific than too broad. Without all the essential information and additional details, your customers won’t know if your product fits their needs. Or worse, customers will buy your products and realize the product is nothing like their expectations. This often leads to more return requests, lower product ratings, or potentially an increase in negative reviews. Remember, the devil’s in the details. Do yourself a favor, include the details!
Optimize Your Engagement
Our last hack to optimize your Amazon product listing is by increasing your engagement. This is not a new tip, we always talk about the importance of interacting with your customers! But in case you forgot or didn’t know before, customer engagement is key to keeping customers satisfied and loyal to your brand or product.
These are the most common interactions:
- Product Questions
- Product Reviews and Ratings
- Customer Messages
For product questions, this occurs on your product pages where customers with inquiries can submit a question and have another customer (or the seller in your case) answer anything about the product. The most important benefit is providing more details to the customer. If a customer has a question about your product, it means they are considering purchasing your products but need more information to form a decision. This is a great way to close deals and get more sales for your products! If a customer has a question, answer it as soon as possible. And more often than not, their question is shared by dozens if not hundreds of potential customers who are wondering the same thing!
Next are product reviews and ratings. Reviews and ratings can make or break your products. A couple of bad reviews can potentially destroy your sales. But, you aren’t helpless! If you spot a negative review or rating, reach out to the customer and try to mitigate the issue! If there was a defect, offer the customer a refund or offer a new product that is not defective. For unhappy customers, inquire about their experience with your product and provide them with a solution. The way you resolve these issues can change the course of your products. You might even be able to change a negative review to a positive one and save your products from turmoil. Be proactive, not reactive!
Our last method of customer engagement is through customer messaging. After a customer purchases a product, you can send them a message asking about their experiences, troubleshooting any issues, or simply thank them for their purchase. This is a great method to provide excellent customer service and establish relationships with your customers. And as we know, happy customers lead to more sales and brand loyalty!
In the end, engagement is simply about communication. Whether it be questions about your products, resolving negative reviews, or sending your customer a message, the better you communicate, the more engagement you have with your customers.
Key Takeaways Moving Forward
These 6 hacks to optimize your Amazon listings are just the first step. Remember, optimizing your lists is an ongoing, long-term investment. What works today might not work tomorrow, so it is important to closely monitor your listings and see how to improve them over time. We recommend collecting data on sales performances and trying new product descriptions and search terms every so often. Keep testing your listings, see what your competitors are doing, make small adjustments, and iterate your strategy over time.
For more tips and tricks to increase your sales and grow your Amazon businesses, head over to Sellgo.com !.
