Have you ever wondered what is the secret behind Amazon sales, the world's largest e-commerce platform? If you've thought that the simple variety of product range, special prices or word-of-mouth popularity have turned this online retailer into a global giant, which in return will automatically guarantee your success in the e-commerce industry, you are wrong!

The answer is simpler than you expected, but at the same time very complex: SEO is the basis for success on Amazon. More exactly, to the success of brands using this platform to market their products. Amazon resembles Google a lot, running on the same principles - it`s just like a special search engine that requires SEO to deliver the desired results.

This way, with hundreds of millions of visitors per month, thousands of brands and "indexed" products, competition is harsh, and the chances of you selling considerably are quite scarce. But not if you are well informed about how the whole process works. Read on this article about SEO on Amazon if you want to get more visibility on the platform and increase your earnings!

As with Google, the SEO process for Amazon aims to drive certain products or brands to the top of the results page, following the user search. Search is done by using keywords that indicate the product, category of product or brand that the user is interested in or might be interested in. Nothing new here, right?

But because it's a giant, Amazon owns its own algorithm specialized in SEO, called A9. Here are 3 interesting things about it and how it works:

"Exclusive" keywords. More than meta tags

A peculiarity of the algorithm is that, in order to benefit from SEO on Amazon as specific to the platform as possible and at the same time, extremely efficient, it offers you the opportunity to enter up to 7 "exclusive" keywords. This means that the descriptive words for your product will be indexed exclusively by the A9 algorithm and will not be displayed by other search engines, including Google. This way, they will only be relevant to Amazon searches!

Pay attention! The A9 optimization algorithm on Amazon does not take into account the total sales of a product or the overall popularity of that brand. In this way, a criterion for displaying your offer on the first page of the results page is the number of recent orders. This is an advantage for seasonal sales (Christmas gifts or Valentine's Day gifts, thematic gifts etc.). So, overall, the conversion rate (CTS) is more important than the clickthrough rate (CTR). In order to generate more sales in a short period of time, it sets a lower price that will be compensated along with the benefits of the conversion rate growth!

"Verified" reviews, a decisive factor for conversion rate

Although sales are the main objective for Amazon, it seems that user experience is at least as important! Therefore, the SEO algorithm A9 takes into account customer reviews of purchased products, first verifying that they are real and trustworthy. A "verified" review means that a customer who bought from this platform subsequently expressed their opinion about the product, using the same registration account. Such a review is considered by Amazon to be a sincere one, indicating the quality of the product and influencing the purchasing decision.

Giving the fact that the big retailer's goal is to make money and to thank the visitors he wants to convert, A9 will evidentiate the products with positive reviews - which he recognizes according to the rating offered (the number of stars). Another notable aspect is that for Amazon, the number of positive reviews is more relevant than the number of overall sales in the SEO process. Motivate your buyers to leave a positive review by giving them a bonus, a gift or a discount!

So, as a conclusion, we can say that the main feature of the A9 algorithm is its mode of operation: simple and on point. Therefore, if you want to be successful on Amazon, you have to proceed in consequence.

Here are 5 Essential SEO techniques that impact on Result Pages (SERP) to launch a new product or increase your current sales:

Include the name of your brand in your product list

For example, if that brand contains the keywords that you usually target, this can help you to organically occupy a better position in the Amazon search results pages.

Specify the name of the seller

Also, by including your vendor name in your SEO process on Amazon, you are more likely to get to the top of the results posted by the platform. This is true if the seller's name contains relevant keywords for your product!

Use the Amazon e-fulfillment services

It appears that the products which are stored, packed and delivered directly by Amazon, instead of the vendor, are much more relevant for the A9 algorithm. Starting from this idea, products with the Fulfillment by Amazon option are better positioned in SERP.

Complete all the fields for describing and editing the product page

Make sure you've filled in even the optional fields available on the product page, as this has proven to influence positions and filter results in SEO on Amazon. Detailed descriptions help you move forward in the SERP!

Use only professional presentation photos

Last but not least, the images that accompany the product must have a very good quality. This is due to the fact that the pictures that allow the "zoom" option demonstrate more confidence, and so the decision to buy the visitor is influenced. The number of conversions, in return, influences the place you occupy in the Amazon searches. At the same time, a larger number of pictures is correlated with a better positioning.

So a good optimized Amazon product page has basically the following structure:

• title and subtitle including the name of the manufacturer / seller,
• a detailed description of the product, accompanied by a review;
• presentation images that include in their names the keywords;
• keywords, avoiding keyword stuffing.

As for SEO tools on Amazon, we recommend the following tools:

• Keyword Inspector and Keywords Everywhere - for keyword research;
• Feedback Genius and Sales Backer - automated email for Amazon vendors, feedback and reviews monitoring;
• Helium 10 - to identify the most searched words and new trends in electronic commerce, competitor analysis and competition study, etc.