Optimize Amazon Product Listings for Increased Sales

Recent data shows that Amazon has overtaken Google in product searches. About 54% of product searches began on Amazon in the second quarter of 2018, up from 46% in 2015. Shoppers have become so comfortable with their Amazon search experience that they now use Amazon as their default product search engine. Marketers who optimize Amazon product listings, therefore, benefit. The survey also shows that about 90% of all product views on Amazon result from a product search and not merchandising, ads or product aggregators. More than 2/3 of all product clicks come from the first page of Amazon results, and 1/3 from the first two rows alone. For marketers, this means that search placement on Amazon is the key to garnering Amazon search traffic and the economic rewards it can bring. This data suggests that there are sales and profits to be gained by those who have clear strategies for using Amazon in their marketing and intentionally optimizing their Amazon listings. Oh! By the way, it is not too late to develop a multi-marketplace strategy that includes Amazon. Most product marketers already have, so what is the delay? Shoppers Use Amazon for Sourcing Products According to a February 2018 survey of U.S. digital shoppers by Salsify, shoppers’ preferred method of sourcing products online is searching and buying on Amazon (41%), followed by searching on Google then buying on Amazon (28%). This has strong implications for companies that have relied on traditional SEO tactics and paid search for their traffic. Amazon must be thought of as a product search engine and listings optimized just as carefully as webpages for Google or Bing. It simply requires different tactics for success. What Drives Listings to the Top of Amazon Search Results? To achieve success in Amazon listings, it is important to play by the strict rules that Amazon lays out for product listings; however, even in this somewhat constrained environment, research has shown that content and keywords are still the keys to success. Consumers are looking for products; hence, the more information that is given on the product, the more easily the consumer can make a choice. Bullets, images and reviews are the key content elements that drive product rank and conversions. More content yields higher search rankings and more conversions. The same lesson learned from building content for traditional search applies to optimizing for Amazon. Better keyword-rich content drives sales. For Amazon, quality of content is more important than sheer volume of content. Content must be curated and adjusted in response to what buyers demand, so that it stays fresh and relevant. This is particularly important for seasonal products. Creating and curating product pages is a time-consuming task. When the focus is on building high-quality, regularly curated listings, it becomes very important to identify and optimize those pages that will bring the greatest reward for the effort. The tactics are like traditional SEO blocking and tackling, but the rules around content creation are slightly different. It is essential to master the differences and exploit the similarities, if you expect to be where the buyer is looking for products. Refocus efforts from Google Product search to Amazon and redouble optimization of Amazon listings

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Optimize Amazon Product Listings for Increased Sales

Amanda G. Watlington

Ph.D.

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Amanda G. Watlington

Ph.D.