Click here to get this post in PDF
As an Amazon Seller, Sales Rank aka “Best Sellers Rank”, on Amazon can make or break your product sales. Amazon uses its product search algorithm (A9) to decide what happens when a user searches for something. Amazon’s goal, of course, is to generate the most revenue out of each user during each visit. So it makes sense that they want to show the right product to the right user at the right time. The more sales you have the better your ranking will be and the better your ranking is, the more sales you will have. You can find high-quality products in China and have them shipped to you or an Amazon warehouse. Sourcing Nova is a great place to learn about products, shipping, and even how to photograph products for Amazon Images.
There are three overreaching factors that go into A9 search result decisions which can include; Customer Satisfaction (how happy your customers are with you), Conversion Rate (how often people buy your product after seeing it on Amazon), and Relevance (how relevant your product is to the customer’s search).
Here are 7 actions you can take right now to increase your sales rank on Amazon.
Product Cost/Price
You probably know this already, but being competitive on a product price level is the name of the game on Amazon. Amazon looks at how much your product costs, compared to other identical and/or similar products. Amazon also looks at how much your product costs compared to what an average customer is willing to pay historically for a similar product. All of these factors and many more, go into the evaluation process. Amazon wants to make money but they also want to sell a LOT and optimize the user experience. Price is a heavy contributor to sales rank.
Product Information/Details
When you set up a listing on Amazon, don’t just toss up a few pictures, add some basic text and call it a day. This will make your listing look abandoned, uninteresting, and actually a bit untrustworthy. Amazon takes these details into account as well when considering sales rank.
Take the time to complete as many aspects of your listing as possible. Make sure to craft the best product title you can. Your title needs to include relevant keywords but also has to be readable. You cannot just stuff a bunch of keywords in there to try and improve ranking. It has to come across as somewhat natural to the reader. Also, keep it under 200 characters. Pay attention to your Features, Bullet Points, and Product Description Sections as well. These are crucial components of any listing and should not be ignored. Fill them with detailed useful information and use relevant keywords, features, and benefits.
Search terms
Amazon provides you with an opportunity to add search terms for your products. These search terms should only include generic words that enhance the discoverability of your product. For example, if you’re selling headphones, your search terms can contain synonyms such as “earphones” and “earbuds.”
Here are some best practices for providing search terms as provided by Amazon:
- Don’t include product identifiers such as brand names, product names, compatible product names, ASINs, UPC codes, and so on.
- Don’t provide inaccurate, misleading, or irrelevant information such as the wrong product category, wrong gender, out-of-context words, and so on.
- Don’t provide excessively long content. Respect the limits that are set for different fields.
- Don’t provide redundant information that is already captured in other fields such as title, author, brand, and so on. It won’t improve your product placement in search results.
- When entering several words as a search term, put them in the most logical order. A customer is more likely to search for “big stuffed teddy bears” than for “teddy stuffed bears.”
- Use a single space to separate keywords. No commas, semicolons, or carets are required.
- Don’t include statements that are only temporarily true, such as, “new,” “on sale,” or “available now.”
- Don’t include subjective claims such as amazing, good quality, and so on, since most customers don’t use subjective terms in their queries.
- Don’t include common misspellings of the product name. Amazon’s search engine compensates for common customer misspellings and offers corrective suggestions.
- Don’t provide variants of spacing, punctuation, capitalization, and pluralization (“80GB” and “80 GB”, “computer” and “computers”, and so on). Our search engine automatically includes different case forms, word forms, and spelling variants for searching.
- Don’t include terms that are abusive or offensive in nature.
- Abbreviations, alternate names, topics, and key characters (for books, movies, and so on) could be included as search terms.
Bounce Rate
If customers land on your product page and immediately bounce (leave), this tells Amazon that your product either was not a good match for this user or something else is wrong. This can happen from time to time where it has nothing to do with your listing. Customers are notoriously fickle. But, your sales rank will suffer if you have a continuous high bounce rate. Keep an eye on these metrics and address them if it becomes an issue.
Product Reviews
The quality and the
Image Quality/Size
Spend money on good quality images for your products. If you don’t have a professional photo set up in your office, pay a professional to take product pictures for you. The investment will pay you back 10 fold in sales. Customers do not want to buy products on Amazon with poor quality images that look like they were taking with a cell phone.
Also, be sure your images are 1000 pixels by 1000 pixels and each listing should have at least 6 images.
Seller Feedback
Keep an eye on your Seller Rating. Amazon takes this into account for sales rank but customers also look at this number. If you get negative feedback from a customer that was not warranted, make sure to contact Amazon and have them remove it. For example, if a customer gives you a negative rating because they were unhappy with the price, that is against Amazon review terms and you can likely get it taken down. A negative review for the price should be on the product listing not connected to your seller feedback.
Amazon Sales Rank for each one of your products is a continuous process. You need to set yourself up for success from the start with every new product. From Pricing to Product Details to Keywords and more. Everything matters and it’s crucial that you pay close attention to every detail. Good luck and happy selling!
You may also like: Is selling on Amazon FBA worth it?
Image source: Shutterstock.com
[…] You may also like: How to Increase Your Sales Rank on Amazon […]