Selling on Amazon - get the clicks!

While users can browse for items using the categories on the left-hand side of the page, the search bar remains the primary method for locating products. As such, it is important to make sure product details are optimised for search.

Amazon’s search function harvests keywords from the product title, standard product ID (UPC, EAN, ISBN), brand/designer, manufacturer and search terms.

1. Product titles

Burnham said that product titles should use all the space available and be full of keywords, while also maintaining a customer-friendly structure. It is important to avoid punctuation, asterisks, caps or special characters as users won’t include these in search terms.

Similarly, customers won’t all use the same keywords, so merchants should vary their product titles and experiment to see what works.


2. Search terms

Amazon allows merchants to include five additional search terms for each product.

Burnham said it is important to use all five, highlighting a Nokia smartphone that appeared fourth in a search for ‘Nokia phone’, but top for ‘Nokia phone with Bluetooth’. The boost in rankings was down to the fact that the merchant had used included the search term ‘Bluetooth’ in the product details.

To optimise the additional search terms, avoid using any words that appear in the product title.

Don’t repeat the title, product name or brand, it’s a waste of search terms.

3. Search Index

Amazon’s search index takes into account price, availability and sales history, but the better selling products will generally rise to the top. However, Burnham pointed out that Amazon occasionally shuffles search results to more evenly promote products. 

4. Browse Nodes

These are essentially product codes that identify your items within the product categories. Merchants can select two for each product.

Again, it is about giving Amazon as much information as possible in order to increase your visibility in the marketplace.

5. Filtered Navigation

This allows merchants to include detailed product criteria, such as the size and colour of each item.

Users can then filter their product search to find more relevant items. Iit is very important for sellers to include the detailed information in their product listings otherwise they won’t appear in filtered results. 

6. Product Variation

This tool allows sellers to group different variations (e.g. size or colour) of the same product. Users can then check different items from the same product page.

Burnham said the merchant has to provide an SKU and establish each item’s parentage, but it is a user-friendly way of giving customers access to your full product range.

(source: Econsultancy)