With more than 50% of shoppers starting their purchasing process doing product research on Amazon, it should be a brand’s priority to rank its products as high as possible in the shelf. How can sellers improve their Amazon products rankings to boost brand awareness and increase sales? Below are 5 tips to improve the position of your products but first, let's review what rank means on Amazon.
Within the Amazon marketplace there are many ranks that matter.
The first one is the search result rank, similar to the search result in Google and other search engines. When a potential buyer searches Amazon using product related keywords, Amazon displays a series of products, ranked in order of relevance, that makes of Amazon's algorithm a topic of much interest and speculation.
The second rank is within the Buy Box (literally a white box on Amazon product pages where buyers click to add the item to their shopping cart). The more sellers that offer the same item, the higher the competition to win the Buy Box and pressure to rank at the top.
The last rank is the best seller rank. Like the pop music billboard charts do for songs, the best seller rank measures the relative popularity of all products in a given category.
With that in mind, let's look at 5 ways to improve your rankings in the search results, Best Seller lists, and in the Buy Box.
1. Target the right keywords
When crafting your product Amazon listings, include compelling and descriptive keywords about your offering to make it attractive and, most importantly, include your category's most popular and relevant search terms right in your product title and description. Many Amazon seller packages, including Gradient and Amazon Seller Central, offer keyword research tools to assist you in finding the most popular searches for different product categories. Potential buyers are more likely to find and buy your products once you've done the work of putting yourself in their shoes while in the decision process.
2. Offer high quality product detailed pages
For online buyers, the product detail page is the most convenient source of information. You want potential buyer to rely on the detail page to make their purchase decision. For this reason over-invest in your Amazon listings and study the leaders in the category for improvement opportunities. Provide online buyers with appealing and easy-to-read information about your products. Accompany text with high-quality images and videos. Even for an established brand, include basic details about your product and brand values so that first-time buyers can learn about you and make an easier decision. The more informative and rich your product Amazon listings, the higher your conversion rate and, as a consequence, the higher you will rank. That is the virtuous cycle.
3. Pick the right Amazon categories to list
When you list a product for sale on Amazon, you will select the Amazon category that makes the most sense for your product to be listed in. Often sellers don't spend enough time on this step which can result in weak sales traction. Explore the Amazon Best Seller categories available to determine where it would make the most sense for potential buyers to find your products. Again, use market leaders as a guide. Often the most obvious categorization is best for discovery. But it may also make sense to list in adjacent categories with related consumer usage scenarios, lower competition and fewer barriers to entry. Remember, rank is Amazon's way of rewarding relevant product listings and relevance is really just a measure of sales.
4. Obsess over your Amazon Ratings and Reviews
High ratings and positive reviews on Amazon are a reflection of customer satisfaction and retention. The better these two signals, the higher the probability of winning the next sale. Sales velocity and conversion rates have a heavily influence on product rankings. Keeping a close eye on Amazon ratings and reviews, making sure customers are heard and making sure to quickly address issues that consumers report, is key to improve Amazon rankings.
5. Ensure product availability
The easiest way to lose rank in the search results and in the Buy Box is to decrease availability. Avoid testing your customer's loyalty. When a product is out of stock, consumer choose an alternate seller (or worse a different brand), conversions plummet and Amazon quickly penalizes the listing as less relevant. Having products out-of-stock or uncompetitive shipping times obviously results in short term lost sales, but on a regular basis leads to customer frustration and reduced rankings in the long run.
In the end it all comes down to ensuring the best customer experience possible, adapting to new consumer behaviors and market trends. Monitoring and fine tuning the factors we've discussed will give you a path to higher Amazon rankings in your search results, Buy Box, and best seller categories. Here at Gradient we track thousands of signals to make monitoring, competitor analysis and opportunity detection on Amazon easier. Create a free Gradient account to see how we can help.
Photo by Jungwoo Hong on Unsplash
