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On Amazon, keywords are king.  If you want to be the listing that comes up when a buyer does a search, you need to rank high for the keywords that are relevant for your products.  Ranking over your competition gives you the best opportunity to be the product the buyer sees.

Knowing where you rank … that’s the first step to dominance.

The Beauty Of Amazon

Amazon is the destination for shoppers.  Half of all online retail searches begin on Amazon.  That means when anyone is going online to buy something, half of them start their search on Amazon.  We all know Amazon is the juggernaut in this arena, and that status, honestly, means you’ve already won a huge part of the battle when it comes to marketing.  When you’re selling on Amazon, the audience is already in the stands, so to speak, and they’re there to buy.

But you’re not the only one on stage.  You still need to get as close to front-and-center as possible.  Not only that, once the buyers see you, your goal is to entice them to click, convince them to follow through and, if the stars are aligned, buy your product.  The good news, though, is they’ve already come looking.

As an example, let’s say you’re selling Q-36 Explosive Space Modulators (courtesy of Marvin Martian).  Buyers out there in the world decide they want a Space Modulator. They come to Amazon to find one, they search for Space Modulator, or some combination of those terms, and …

Amazon shows them listings for Space Modulators.

If you’re ranked high for those keywords you’ll be one of the listings shown.  And that’s the beauty of Amazon. You really only need to rank high for the keywords people use to search for your product, and the interested buyers will come to you.

  • Buyer needs/wants an XYZ
  • Buyer searches Amazon for XYZ using keywords
  • You show up in the Buyer’s search
  • Buyer looks your product over and buys

Keyword Awareness

The complexity in this enters in with the sheer number of keywords and keyword combinations that can exist.  Even for what you might consider a simple product, there can be dozens, even hundreds of possible keywords buyers use to search for it.  Discovering these keywords is a process of understanding your product, your buyers, some research and bit of trial and error. Once you know the keywords buyers are using, the next thing to discover is where you stand.

What’s the best way to do that?

Keyword Awareness, real, detailed awareness, is something for which you need a tool.  There is no easy, manual way to both know and keep track of where you rank for each keyword and keyword phrase on a daily basis.  This is where automation comes in.

ManageByStats offers a Keywords tool designed to do just that, to keep a running record of the daily ranking for each keyword and keyword phrase.

Knowing your rank lets you know where you stand.

Strategies

Here’s the official blurb from Amazon:

“Customers must be able to find your products before they can buy your products. Search is the primary way that customers use to locate products on Amazon.

Customers search by entering keywords, which are matched against the information (title, description etc.) you provide for a product.

Factors such as degree of text match, price, availability, selection, and sales history help determine where your product appears in a customer’s search results.”

Some things to be aware of when crafting your ranking strategy:

  • Search volume.  Note, you may not necessarily want to focus exclusively on the highest volume keywords.  This may seem counterintuitive, but other sellers will also be focused on those, and so one strategy might be to look for opportunities to dominate lower-volume keywords.
  • Your competition.  You can see where they rank using the same tool, and get an idea of any additional strategies you might use to win impressions.
  • Amazon Sponsored Ads.  Bidding on the keywords for which you want to rank can force your listing to the top, if you’re willing to invest.  Ongoing clicks and conversions will help drive your rank.
  • Email lists.  Building and maintaining your own email list gives you an easy way to reach your customers.  Using that to drive outside sales to your listing, which then turns into conversions, is also a good strategy.
  • A burst of sales over a short period of time helps drive rank.
  • Optimizing your listing for the search terms (keywords) you want to rank for.  Enough can’t be said about this one. Investing time and energy into other strategies without a top-notch listing can end up wasting your efforts.

Organic vs Paid

The game is to drive your ranking high enough so that you come up on Page One organically.  In other words, when someone does a search for your target keywords, your listing shows on the first page of results naturally, without paying for a sponsored ad.

Getting on Page One, having a product image and title that get people to click when they see it — in other words, an image and title that embody the keyword being searched for — then having a listing that drives home the sale and converts …

Working that sequence, achieving it, refining it, will keep you selling organically for those keywords or keyword phrases.

Rank To Win

Once you’ve moved one keyword or phrase up to that position, do another.  Work a new one the same way, while maintaining your gains for the others, and you could soon rise to dominate for your product, or possibly even your product category.

Competition on Amazon is fierce, and it’s only growing.  Achieving and maintaining the top spot is no small feat, but it can be done, and working on your keyword ranking is one of the best ways to win.

All the best,

Your ManageByStats Team

 

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