5 SEO Tips to Grow Amazon Sales

Amazon Expert

Hi I’m Steven, Founder of My Amazon Guy, a 500+ person Amazon Seller Central agency out of Atlanta, GA. We Growth Hack eCommerce and Marketplaces through PPC, SEO, Design, and Catalog Management.

5 SEO Tips to Grow Amazon Sales

Search engine optimization on Amazon is one of the most underrated and underutilized facets to growing sales. We recommend five actionable methods to improve your SEO.

Have 500 to 1000 Words of Copy 

It is crucial to include around 1000 words of copy, positioned in multiple locations on each listing. Place plenty of that copy inside the A+ content, keeping the most essential and unique information at the top, working down towards more general information, including category details and your brand story.

Add 100 Characters to Your Alt Text for Each Photo 

Although there is no record of Amazon publicly announcing they use alt text to index products, thorough testing at My Amazon Guy, with hundreds of clients selling thousands of products, makes it abundantly clear that they do.

Make use of this opportunity, in the 100 or so characters of alt text of an image, to include common misspellings, synonyms, and foreign language terms, because they’re not visible to the public but will improve your ranking. Spanish, for example, is the fastest-growing demographic on Amazon.

Run Video Ads 

We have observed the considerable value of video ads because Amazon positions them at the top of their search. That allows you to quickly rank a product based on the keywords used in your video. Best of all, these videos don’t have to be high production value. You can easily take your phone out and film a 15 to 30-second video.

Rotate Your Keywords 

Doing this is probably the most important tip. A lot of people ‘set it and forget it’ with SEO. 

We exercise a three-phase process:

  1. Index for as many keywords as possible when you’re setting up the search term field for a new product. The easiest way to do this is by looking at a competitor’s product and taking all of their top keywords based on impression counts. The aim is to get around 1000 keywords in the first 30 days.
  2. The focus of phase two is incremental indexing. One of the most effective means of doing this is removing anything in the title and bullet points from the search term field. You should expect to index 15 – 20% more keywords. 
  3. Once you have 50 keywords in the top 50, it’s time to ignore everything you did previously and concentrate on matriculation – getting words from slot 20 through 50 up to slot 1 through 10. Redo your title, bullets, A+ content, copy, photo alt text, and the backend search terms all over again.
Seller central management icon with keyword rotation arrows on a white background.

Rotate Your Search Terms Continually 

It’s advisable to redo those mentioned above every 30 to 90 days. The regularity depends a lot on waiting for data to come in, but you’re missing a significant opportunity if you don’t do it often enough. On the other hand, doing it too often won’t result in the best bang for your buck. 

Avoid Gamification Strategies 

Any effort to game the system to expedite your keyword rankings on Amazon is generally high risk. These include but are not limited to external traffic, rebate programs, and Search Find Buy. Take the safer route and aim for steady, long-term growth. Shortcuts often end up in dead ends.