Having an optimal Amazon product listing is one of the most important factors in getting sales on the e-Commerce platform. When visiting your listing, customers need to learn and digest all the information required to make a purchase- that is, of course, why you created the listing to begin with!
Your Amazon product listing is the page where you display your products for sale to consumers. Without a good description, targeted SEO, and clear images, customers won’t be compelled to buy from you. This is where many sellers get tripped up — they don't optimize their listing properly and end up with poor sales as a result.
Why is your Amazon Product Listing so Important?
Amazon dominates the e-commerce retailer space with more than 41% of U.S. market share. To succeed, you must have great storytelling (branding, images, clarity) and discoverability (SEO/PPC) for it to resonate with Amazon buyers.
Anyone in the Amazon ecosystem can tell you how important it is to rank well in organic search. The higher you rank, the more likely a shopper is to click on your product. Your listing is the first thing customers see when they find your products on Amazon or a search engine. It's also what a customer sees when they click an ad for your product. First impressions matter!
When you have a strong listing, it’s easier for Amazon to match your product with shoppers who are searching for that item. That’s why using all of the features Amazon offers when setting up your product page is so critical. Optimizing your Amazon product listing is the key to seeing real sales growth. And if you're running PPC ad campaigns, you certainly cannot miss this step (don’t worry- we’ll talk more on this later). These tips on product listing optimization will not only increase your chances of making sales, but also give your products a boost in organic search rankings.
5 Simple Ways to Optimize your Amazon Product Listing
- Write a Compelling Title with Relevant Keywords
It's important to start with a good product title since it’s the first thing potential customers see. Adding highly searched keywords in the title related to what you’re selling will enhance your listing’s visibility. Keywords allow customers to find your products when they search for specific terms or phrases. To optimize your Amazon product listing, you can use tools like Google Keyword Planner to identify high-performing keywords related to your product category or niche.
Once you’ve found your high-performing keywords, include them in your title and be concise. There’s not enough room in your title character limit to include irrelevant words. Choose the most relevant ones that match what shoppers are searching for and include the most important targets at the front of your title. Remember, it isn't only humans that are reading the title; search engines like Google do too, so by including relevant keywords you increase your potential for external traffic.
Tip: Make sure that your top keyword appears at the beginning of the title. However, don’t “keyword stuff”: don’t add keywords that are not relevant to the product.
- Include Bullet Points in your Description That Sell
The most effective product descriptions are honest and informative, but also incorporate common keywords that customers are searching for. After researching relevant keywords, create compelling copy that presents your product in a way that is easy to understand and helps customers feel confident about purchasing from you. The bullet points are your chance to communicate your product’s features. Don’t just list them; tell consumers how they can benefit from those features. You want to keep this section readable for humans and relevant for search engines. - Make Sure Your Images Are Clear and High Quality
Your images are often the first part of your Amazon product listing that customers see. The main image should clearly show what the product is with a white background and invite the shopper to learn more. You can use additional images to highlight specific details or lifestyle uses, but make sure your main image gives customers a clear representation of what your product is and how it looks.
Tip: Make sure that your images are clear and high-quality to help you convert more customers to sales. The sweet spot for the number of images is 6 images total - 5 in addition to the main image (which is required).
- Focus on Collecting your Initial Reviews
Amazon is all about trust, so it’s important that you have a high number of reviews that are at least 4.5 out of 5 stars or better. If you have less than 20 reviews, you will be at a disadvantage against other products that have more. Having at least 35 reviews with an average of 4.5 stars will quickly optimize your Amazon product listing.
- Don’t Break Amazon’s Rules
Always make sure you are following Amazon’s guidelines. If Amazon catches you doing anything suspicious like offering free products for reviews or making false medical claims in your descriptions, they will remove your listing from their site. It's also important to look out for updates to the Amazon guidelines so that you don't accidentally break any rules and risk having your selling privileges revoked.
Optimizing your Amazon Product Listing for PPC
Product listing optimization is a crucial step for improving your organic rankings, and it's often underestimated or overlooked. This can be a mistake because optimizing your listings also builds the perfect foundation for boosting your performance with Amazon PPC campaigns.
Amazon's pay-per-click advertising platform is one of the most powerful tools for sellers that can drive traffic to their products by running ads. Amazon's PPC ads work on a cost-per-click basis: you only pay when your ad is clicked. This makes it appealing to small businesses with limited budgets who want to maximize their return on ad spend (RoAS) and make their products more visible.
If you're currently leveraging Amazon PPC (or plan to do so), a well-optimized Amazon product listing with relevant keywords will improve your ad performance, meaning you'll get more organic traffic and be able to spend less on advertising. No matter how good your ad targeting is, if it leads to a poorly optimized Amazon product listing, you're going to struggle to make sales.
PPC advertising is effective at getting in front of the right customers, but automated bidding and keyword research tools can help you optimize campaigns and maximize sales, all while saving valuable time. An easy way to make sure you're ahead of the curve on your keyword research is to use PPC automation tools like Simpliworks, the Amazon campaign builder that takes just 1 click to run agency-level campaigns with automatic up-to-date keyword tracking.
If you only do one thing prior to launching a PPC campaign, optimizing your Amazon product listing should be it!
Ensuring your Success in the Amazon landscape
Your goal as a seller is to rank on Amazon, and ultimately make money. If you focus on improving your product listings, you’re one step closer to your goal. With a little bit of preparation and research, you can easily create outstanding optimized Amazon product listings that bring your business substantial and lasting success.
