If you have a brand and your products are sold on Amazon, this article will be of great value to you.
Many brands have misconceptions about Amazon that prevent them from realizing all of the growth through a steady stream of new customers that Amazon can deliver directly to their brand.
The truth is that Amazon is like a huge billboard on the busiest highway, and if you can make your products stand out — more people will stop by and potentially try them.
If you’re someone who’s thinking, “I don’t sell on Amazon, I have sellers that sell there”.
Well, I have some potentially bad news…your sellers may have failed YOU!
In this regard it’s more important that you look at their sales as an extension of your sales. When they aren’t using the strategies that bring in more customers, it costs you the ability to leverage Amazon’s huge traffic source and get more customers trying and using your products.
In the past, you may have seen things that made you scratch your head, like an inferior product that you know is selling better than yours.
Why does that happen?
The answer is simple: Optimization!
The Amazon platform is essentially a massive computer system that relies on very specific inputs to help it – help you. You have to have the right things in place to help the Amazon Platform help you!
And even more importantly, you need to have a proactive strategy in place to grow your brand on Amazon.
One of the cornerstones here at Spotlight Brand Services is operating with a proactive approach to ensuring that your brand is positioned for growth and setup for success. We need to do things right from the start that bring customers to your listing.
Now what does that mean exactly?
Well, to start, it’s important to ask the right questions, “How can I optimize my listing?” as opposed to, “How can I get better pictures? How can I get better descriptions? How can I get A+ content, etc.?” All of these are components of an optimized listing, to achieve maximum results; however, just like your favorite recipe, it takes the proper mix of each to make it just right.
There are 5 components needed for an optimized listing. Let’s dive into each one individually!
A. Great Pictures
Imagery is extremely important when it comes to online shopping. It is a way for your customer to instantly connect with your product and what catches their eye and contributes to WHY they click on your product and not your competitors.
There are 3 types of images that are needed when optimizing your listing:
1. Hero Image.
A hero image is an oversized banner image at the top of your page. It serves as a customer’s first glimpse of your product and/or company. It is crucial to have a hero image and when adding it to your Amazon listing you must make sure it is maximized to fit the full-frame, and perhaps more importantly, that it’s optimized for mobile!
2. Infographics.
An infographic is graphic visual representations of information, data, or knowledge intended to present information quickly and clearly. These are used to describe the product in a visually compelling way.
3. Lifestyle Pictures.
Lifestyle images are extremely important. They help your customers understand how the product’s being used and allows them to visualize themselves using the product. This makes a prospective buyer more likely to click “add to cart” when viewing your listing on Amazon.
B. Optimized Titles
The title is important for many reasons when it comes to optimizing your listing on Amazon. When creating the title for your Amazon product listing, it’s important to ensure that it correctly uses all of the right key words that are most likely to bring customers to your listing. In addition to using the right, strategically selected keywords, being optimized for mobile search is critical.
C. Mobile Search Optimization
Optimizing your Amazon Product Listing for mobile search may be the most important component when optimizing your listing.
Studies show that more than 70% of the transactions on Amazon are now taking place on mobile. So, if your product is NOT setup correctly or NOT optimized properly to display in mobile search, you’re losing out on a lot of potential conversions, because POTENTIAL BUYERS may not be compelled to click on your Amazon product listing to learn more – when the words aren’t showing in that title. That’s a HUGE problem!
When it comes to mobile optimization for Amazon, there are two points of optimization that must be considered. These are the two things that a customer can see when searching for your product:
1. The Title.
The title – and the ORDER of the words in the title are mission critical. Only the first 45 characters display in your title will display on mobile, so you must ensure that the highest, most converting keywords are positioned upfront so that a customer is more likely to click.
2. The Hero Image.
When uploading your hero image keep in mind that you only upload one, but it’s imperative to make sure that it’s optimized for how it displays on mobile. We all know the old adage, “A picture is worth a thousand words,” but on Amazon – it might be changes to say “A picture is worth thousands of buyers!”
D. Bullets
Bullets are the key details about your product that helps a prospective Amazon shopper understand more about your product in your Amazon Product Listing.
When creating your bullets optimize your Amazon Product Listing, it’s key to ensure the bullets are loaded-up with keywords, but also are presented in a very readable fashion that appeals to potential buyers.
Most people read an Amazon listing in the shape of an “F”. So, they’re going to read that top line then skim down and look through your bullet points.
So, what are prospective shoppers looking for in your Amazon Product Listing Bullets?
They’re looking for anything that catches their eye! That’s why you have to position your bullet points to be very readable and stand out to catch somebody’s attention – to highlight the specifics they are looking for.
Once they’ve read the bullets on your Amazon Product Listing, they’re going to skip down to the description, where they’re going to engage a little more heavily and then further down to scan for anything else that they would see, such as reviews.
E. A+ Content
At this point you should have an engaged potential customer looking for that last bit of information to help them click that “Add to Cart” button.
This is where A+ content comes in.
The A+ Content feature enables brand owners to change the product descriptions of branded ASINs. Using this tool, you can describe your product features in a different way by including a unique brand story, enhanced images, and text placements.
Ideally, your A+ content engages the customer, selling them on your solution, and ultimately causes them to purchase!
F. Back-End Search.
Beyond the information that your customer sees, there’s a whole other world going on “behind-the-scenes”. A truly optimized listing leverages back-end search. This is essentially a process of packing your listing with critical keywords that help your product show up in search. These types of keywords may have common typos, differently languages and other specifically crafted content that will help your listing show up!
G. Search Filters.
When you are looking for a product, there’s a whole list of filters that show up on the left side of the screen. The purpose is to help the prospective customer have a better experience by filtering what is shown to them.
A properly and professionally optimized listing takes full advantage of this feature, ensuring that the right keywords are part of the listing and the search filters are setup strategically so that your product will move to the top when the customer selects the appropriate filters.
I hope you can see how important it is to ensure your listing is optimized to maximum sales of your products on Amazon.
It is important to remember that a fully optimized listing, is optimized not only for traffic using the right keywords, but it’s also optimized for conversion and helping the customers be clear about the product they’re purchasing.
When you understand how a customer views a page, it’s going to tell you a lot about how to optimize to be able to get them the information they need to make a good purchase and a happy customer.
If you’d like more information or assistance in optimizing your listings on Amazon, click the button below to schedule a FREE Amazon Product Listing Audit and one of our Spotlight Brand Services Brand Optimization Specialists will meet with you to help you start growing your business on Amazon.
