The term listing optimization is frequently used but often not understood. What does that mean exactly and how can you tell when it’s done?

The ultimate measure of an effective listing on Amazon is sales. If it’s selling, you’re doing something right. Now there are times, when a product is so compelling that it sells even with a poorly created listing. There are other times, when a listing is fabulous but the product still does not sell. So an optimized listing is one essential piece of an entire product puzzle.

The optimization of a catalog listing or product page on Amazon is complex. It has to appeal to the human customer on any device that they are viewing it with and it has to work well with the Amazon algorithm.

To be human friendly, a listing needs the following to be optimized.
-The product itself should solve the customer’s problem
-The Images need to be clear and easy to view
-The Title and text should clearly state what the product is, what it does and also its uses and benefits. Clearly communicating the answers to potential questions is also helpful.
-Finally, the price needs to fit within customer expectations

Because Amazon is a vast computer network that acts alone and in conjunction with search engines such as google and bing, the listing should be also be optimized for the Amazon algorithm and overall internet search engine optimization or SEO. Now, Amazon does not actually tell us how to do this, so we have to figure it out with extensive testing and tweaking. To be algorithm friendly, a listing needs the following to be optimized:

The words or keywords need to be comprehensive in covering both the specifics of what the product is and what it might for used for. An example would be candles. They might pink but also good for birthday cakes.

Keywords need to be relevant. The goal with a good list of words is to cover all the times when your product will solve the customer’s problem, so that they buy. If they lead to false results, for example a mosquito candle coming up in a birthday search, then it’s going to hurt your listing because it’s not relevant

Indexing is the term used to describe when a word or phrase registers in the algorithm. Does the computer know that this candle is for birthday cakes and not patios? Every word in your listing can index alone and in combination with every other word as a phrase. So if candle is in the title, birthday in the bullets and pink in the backend keywords, if written correctly, it will index for the phrase pink birthday candle.

Test your indexing by entering in your ASIN and the words and phrases you want to index for into an Amazon search bar. The listing will either come up as a result or not and this will inform you about the indexing

Verified reviews that are detailed and different from each other are important too. The Amazon Early Review program, for $60 is a great way to obtain reviews safely along with organic results of sales

Once you have created a solid listing, pay per click can also enhance optimization. Amazon likes it when customers search for something, see your product, and buy it.

Since the ultimate goal of optimization is a good rank and good sales, it’s important to realize how they interrelate. Ranking is the overall rating that each product on Amazon receives. This is a dynamic number that changes and the lower it is the better. There are a lot of factors to achieving good rank on Amazon. Optimization, advertising, off amazon marketing and actual sales can all impact this positively. Seller performance, customer complaints, and stock levels can negatively impact this.
The best way to achieve a good rank is to first create the most effective listing, then work on an ad campaign. Some businesses also do extensive product giveaways, off amazon marketing and ads, and more.

Our class, Amazon Listings Demystified, teaches exactly how to create the best listing possible for humans and the algorithm and it also includes a group where we all work together to test and keep learning how Amazon’s updates are affecting the process. However you work on listings, make sure that you understand optimization factors so that you can measure results and improve processes.

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