Research Amazon keywords and avoid these "minefields"

Amazon has created an unparalleled shopping experience for customers around the world and has become an object of imitation for countless platforms.

Although Amazon is a platform with rich products and excellent experience for customers, it takes a lot of effort for Amazon sellers to achieve good results on it. Among them, the most time-consuming part for sellers is keyword research. The success of sellers is closely related to whether consumers can successfully find their products.

Amazon is now equivalent to a search engine, similar to Google and Bing. Unlike other search engines, Amazon's searches carry purchase intent, and users' search habits vary.

When people search on search engines like Google or Bing, they’re doing research. When they search on Amazon, they’re specifically looking for products to buy.

Since Amazon’s search intent is to purchase, keywords must be directly related to a specific product in order to appear in a user’s search results.

The market competition for most products on Amazon is fierce, and most sales come from the first page of search results, so the question facing sellers is: “How do you get your products seen by consumers?”

Keywords can lead customers to your product pages, so keyword ranking is the best way to increase exposure and sales.

Because more than one seller sells the same product, they will all compete for keyword rankings. There are different variations of products in the same niche market, so it becomes very important to attract the target audience.

For example, if you choose the pet market and plan to sell dog food, then the keywords you choose represent your market. Different keywords represent different markets. For example, the market positioning of "dry dog ​​food" and "wet dog food" is different. However, some keywords in these markets are related to each other.

If used properly, it can attract more consumers than competitors.

There are also many sellers who use keywords as a way to select products.

There are several keyword types to be aware of when doing keyword research:

These keywords are usually one or two words long and are highly competitive in ranking due to their huge search volume. However, short-tail keywords have a wide coverage, covering the most common types of products. In PPC advertising, short-tail keywords have high bids and are not valuable for sellers who offer specific categories.

Short-tail keyword example: flashlight

Long-tail keywords are usually three or more words long. They are less competitive in rankings because they are more precisely targeted. They are more closely related to categories, so they are only applicable to specific markets. They have lower PPC bids, so they are more cost-effective. Long-tail keywords are very suitable for new sellers.

Long tail keyword example: Metallic tactical flashlight

The following three types of keywords can be either short-tail keywords or long-tail keywords, depending on the choice of keywords :

Broad match keywords are all-encompassing. When the keyword is the same as the broad match keyword or a variation of it, your product will appear in the search results. Broad keywords can be synonyms, misspellings, or related words of the keyword.

For example, if your seed keyword is "flashlight", its broad keywords can be:

• Hand torch (synonym)

• Flashlite (misspelling)

• Headlamp（Related keywords）

Phrase match keywords include your seed keyword and are more relevant to your product. In addition, phrase match keywords include the singular and plural versions of the seed keyword, as well as words that describe the seed keyword. For example, if the seed keyword is "flashlight", phrase match keywords include:

• Flashlights (plural)

• Metallic tactical flashlight (descriptive)

The exact match keyword is the seed keyword of the product. For example, if the product seed keyword is "flashlight", the exact match keyword is:

• Flashlight (Standard)

• Flash light (separate)

Recommendation : The type of keywords you choose depends on your product and market saturation. It is best to start with exact match keywords and then add variations of seed keywords and other options.

Just like other search engines index search terms based on relevance, Amazon also finds products based on search terms. But because the customer's intent is to buy, Amazon's A9 algorithm handles it slightly differently than search engines.

First, it is inappropriate to apply the search volume factor in search engines to Amazon. Although search volume is a key factor when choosing target keywords, customer intent is more important. Amazon consumers are more likely to use functional and product as search terms, so choosing product function keywords is an effective strategy to attract buyers.

As an e-commerce platform, Amazon’s purpose is to get consumers to place orders, so this purpose directly affects the product’s search ranking. Amazon’s search algorithm prioritizes products with a good sales history based on high click-through rate and conversion rate.

The higher the sales volume of a product, the faster the ranking will rise and the more exposure it will get.

What kind of keywords are good keywords? How can you find good keywords? You can confirm the keywords that are suitable for you in the following ways:

Are your competitors using the keywords you selected? If your top competitors are not ranking for a certain keyword, this may mean that the keyword has a low conversion rate or is too competitive. Whatever the reason, you need to reconsider this keyword. Some keyword tools, such as Cerebro by Helium 10, can provide keywords used by competitors.

As the old saying goes, standing on the shoulders of giants, your competitors can be your starting point, providing a solid foundation for your keyword research efforts.

Are the keywords relevant to the product? The more relevant the keywords are to the product, the higher the ranking Amazon will give you. Some sellers may take shortcuts and fill in various keywords to increase exposure. However, Amazon is very disgusted with such behavior and strictly prohibits sellers from doing so. Moreover, consumers will not click to view the results if they see that they do not match the search.

Once you’ve found relevant keywords for your product, you can put those keywords into the tool to find other related keywords that you hadn’t thought of.

How do you know which keywords are relevant to buyer intent?

• Use common sense - if the keywords recommended by the tool have nothing to do with your product, don't use them. Perform keyword search tests to find more suitable keywords;

• See what keywords your competitors are ranking for;

• Research multiple competitors and see what keywords they use;

• Make sure the converting keywords are not unique to your product or brand.

Even if your product is unique, it must be associated with keywords that have traffic. Amazon is not suitable for selling products that have no search history. If no one is using the keywords you choose, choose some more keywords that have search volume.

For example, “red water bottle with a twist cap” is a keyword that is highly relevant to your product, but not many people are searching for it.

Find keywords that are relevant to your product and have traffic.

New products and new keywords appear every day. In addition, long-tail keywords are not fully utilized. Long-tail keywords may be more relevant to the product. For example, if your product is "red water bottle with a twist cap", then a long-tail keyword such as "twist cap water bottle" is very effective.

Long-tail keywords may have lower bids, and you can get ad traffic at a cheaper price. Even if long-tail keywords have lower search volumes, buyers who search using these keywords may be highly interested in your products.

When you launch a product on Amazon, it’s possible for you to optimize it for only a few keywords and get it to rank on the first page.

Then you need to strategically place these keywords in the title, description, and bullet points. Which positions have the greatest impact on keyword rankings?

The rankings in order of impact are:

• title

• Subject Matter (product description)

• Search terms

• bullet points

• Long description

Researching keywords is just as important as any other part of your Amazon marketing. If you make the following mistakes during keyword research, it could put your business at a serious disadvantage:

Many keyword tools use data from other search engines. Not only is the search volume different from Amazon, but the search intent is also different. So make sure you are using an Amazon tool.

Keywords with high search volume are usually general keywords, which may not be suitable for your product. How to judge whether these keywords are suitable for you: Use these keywords to search on Amazon. If you don’t see many results similar to your product, don’t waste time and money on these keywords.

The “relevance score” is not as accurate as many people think. For example, if you sell skin care products and use “skin toner” as your keyword, then the “relevance score” of “ink toner (for photocopiers)” will be very high, even though it has nothing to do with the product you sell.

Don’t rely solely on the Keyword Scores given by the tool. While this score can narrow down the relevant keywords for your product, other factors such as high conversion rates are more important. Be wary of data that claims to be from Amazon, as Amazon generally does not release important keyword data to the public. When measuring whether a keyword is useful, use product rankings and sales to speak.

Don’t be lazy and copy your competitor’s listings, as this can get you into trouble. You can get inspiration from them, but make sure you create your own original listings.

For example, Tactical Flashlight might be your seed keyword, but can you compete with the big sellers to rank for this term? The bigger the keyword, the more sales you need to get a top ranking, which means you must have enough inventory to maintain your ranking. Instead of focusing on the main keywords in the market, try keywords with less search volume that may be overlooked by big sellers.

Never translate keywords from the US site and then apply them directly to other language markets. Effective keywords vary in different markets. Also, don’t copy keywords from the US site to the UK or Canada site. A keyword that ranks high on one site doesn’t mean it will rank high on another site. Words may be spelled differently between the US, UK, and Canada, so take that into account.

Text ✎ Mary/