Last updated on September 10th, 2023 at 04:58 pm
If you’re an online FBA seller, then ranking your products up on the first page of Amazon is crucial to your success. Before I knew these strategies, I failed many times over but now, with this guide, you don’t have to.
With over 350 million products for sale on the site, it can be difficult to get your items seen by potential customers. Amazon’s search engine is constantly changing, making it harder to stay ahead of the competition.
In this article, we will discuss Amazon’s algorithm and how to rank on Amazon using different tools and services. We’ll also talk about how to improve your sales rankings and increase traffic to your product pages so you can make consistent sales.
Table of Contents
Key Amazon Ranking Factors
Some of the most important ranking factors on Amazon I’ll discuss below.
Keywords
The keywords you use in your listing have a direct impact on how well it will rank. You should be using long tail keywords (keyword phrases) that are relevant to your product and target audience.
These can be found by doing keyword research with one of the best Amazon product research tools.
Customer Reviews
Reviews are another important ranking factor. The Algorithm uses them to determine customer satisfaction and overall user experience with the product. If you have many positive reviews, then this will help your rankings in Amazon’s search results pages (SERPs).
Pricing
The product price is an important factor in ranking in search results. The Algorithm takes into account the price of similar items in order to determine which one should show up first when someone searches for related keywords or phrases.
The link between pricing and ranking is not clear cut, however it can be assumed that lower prices will help with search engine optimization (SEO) overall because customers tend to buy less expensive products when compared to their higher priced counterparts. This does not apply if you’re building your own premium brand.
Sales History & Velocity
Amazon looks at how well a product is selling over time to determine its ranking.
For example, if you only sell one product per day then your rankings will be lower than someone who sells five products per day.
This is also important for new products because there isn’t a history to go off of yet so Amazon needs some time before it can determine if people like or don’t like what you’re selling.
Once you’ve built up your sales history and hit your first $1,000 in sales, then Amazon now has a reference point for your listing and can judge how to rank you.
Brand registry
Amazon’s brand registry program helps protect intellectual property rights of sellers and brands on the platform. If you register your brand with Amazon, then this can help improve search visibility for authorized retailers and resellers of that brand.
It also means no one else can alter or mess with your listing. This is really important to avoid Amazon hijackers and bad actors who might attempt to sabotage your business.
Listing Quality
Listing quality is one of the more important factors for Amazon’s algorithm and making your way up the search results.
If your product detail page is poorly written with typos and grammatical errors, then this can hurt rankings because customers will not want to buy from you!
The listing quality also has a direct impact on conversion rate. The higher the listing quality, the higher the conversion rate and higher the sales.
Product Title Optimization
The title of the product should be optimized for search engines as well as humans so that it has a better chance at ranking higher in the search results. You should include your target keywords in the title, as well as brand name and what the product is.
Don’t be one of those people who stuffs their title with so many keywords you don’t even know what the product is.
Humans can’t read it and Amazon will knock you down.
Images
Having high-quality images is critical for conversion rate and ensuring your Amazon listing is better than competitors.
Good images not only help improve customer experience but also increase click-through rates (CTRs), which will increase your chances to rank higher.
Bullet Points
The Amazon bullet points are prime real estate to show off your product features and benefits.
You should be sure to list out all of the relevant information that will help convince customers to buy from you. You should also include important keywords here to help with your Amazon SEO.
Viral Launch’s listing builder is another great tool to use here for your bullet points because it will show you the exact keywords you need to use to ensure everything is optimized.
Product Description
Similar to the bullet points above, the product description is also important for ranking because it gives you a chance to explain in detail what your product is and what makes it different from the competition.
You should use persuasive language and list out all of the features and benefits that make your product stand out.
If your brand has a trademark, you should get Brand registered, which will enable you to create enhanced brand content (EBC).
This gives you additional capabilities in your Seller Central to create engaging product descriptions that include custom content and graphics.
It’s been proven that these types of listings convert better compared to regular listings.
Step By Step on How to Rank Higher on Amazon
There are a few specific things you should do to increase your Amazon sales rank and rank higher. Below I will detail the steps you should take to improve your product’s visibility in Amazon.
1) Have a great product
It goes without saying, but you NEED to actually have a good product. You can’t expect to climb the ranks selling something low quality.
You need to have something that will be in demand and have a high level of customer satisfaction.
It is essential for you as an eCommerce seller, that you do your due diligence on your products before listing them on Amazon.
The quality of the product will determine how well it sells, which directly affects its ranking within the marketplace.
2) Do Your Keyword Research
After you’ve selected and sourced a great product, the next step is to do your research and figure out what keywords you should be targeting. Luckily, there are a number of excellent Amazon product research tools that assist with keyword research.
These tools show relevant keywords as well as keyword volume so you know which keywords to prioritize.
My two favorite tools for this are Helium10 and Viral-Launch.
3) Create an Amazon SEO Optimized Listing
Once you have your target keywords, it’s time to start creating an Amazon SEO optimized listing. This means including those keywords throughout your listing, but especially in the title, bullet points, and product description.
You should also use other relevant terms that customers might be searching for. For example, if you’re selling a wireless speaker, then you will want to use keywords like “portable speaker,” “bluetooth speaker,” and so on in the listing (this goes back to the keyword research portion of the process).
Make sure your listing is well-written, with no grammatical errors, and formatted correctly.
The layout of your listing can also affect Amazon SEO and your rankings, so be sure to follow Amazon’s guidelines.
4) Create Amazon PPC Campaigns
Source: SEOclerks.com
Over recent years, Amazon has prioritized their pay-per-click (PPC) platform as an important part of ranking in the search results.
I always recommend starting an Auto campaign for two weeks at $25-$50 per day to start gathering data. The more data you have, the better understanding you will have of what keywords are converting for your product.
You can then take this data and move those keywords into Phrase Match and Exact Match campaigns.
If your conversion rate is higher for certain keywords, then you can spend more and bid higher on those, which will help you rank higher.
You’ll want to target long-tail keywords as they are much easier to rank for and can be very lucrative. Try to find keywords that have a low competition level and high search volume.
5) Use an Amazon Ranking Service
Amazon rank services are a great way to get an edge on your competition and improve your visibility in Amazon’s search results.
These services use various tactics to help sellers improve their sales rank through discount codes, rebates, and other strategies. The idea is to get your sales velocity up to or better than your competition for a specific keyword, which will help you get to the first page.
They also offer suggestions on what you can do to improve your rank, including listing optimization and Amazon SEO.
There are a number of different Amazon ranking software and services available. My favorites and ones I’ve personally used and recommend include: Viral Launch, Zonjump, and RebateKey.
DISCLAIMER: Use these services at your own risk. Amazon is constantly updating their Terms of Service and may prohibit these activities at any time, which may result in account suspension or ban from selling on Amazon.
6) Build an Email List & Drive External Traffic
An excellent but lesser known strategy is to build up your own email list. The benefits of this strategy are tremendous and will give you a huge leg up on your competition.
An email list works by generating leads of people who are interested in your particular brand and product.
After they opt-in, they are now YOUR potential prospects, NOT Amazon’s. You can then drive them to your listing and incentivize them to purchase.
Amazon rewards this external traffic, which generates a higher ranking. As the leads are usually more warm and comfortable with your brand, you’re also likely to achieve a higher conversion rate.
You can build an email list using Facebook and Instagram ads or through other marketing strategies.
Once you have a large enough following, you can send out emails at least once or twice a week (three to four times works best). Your goal should be to turn your leads into long time customers.
Side note: Having your own email list will also make your business more attractive and more valuable if you decide to sell one day.
7) Have Killer Review Follow Up
You need to get reviews as quickly as possible. You can do this by signing up for Amazon’s VINE program but also by having a killer review follow up sequence.
After someone buys your product, send them an automated email sequence that thanks them for their purchase and asks them to leave a review.
Source: omnisend.com
A general rule of thumb is to send two to three good emails post purchase. One to thank them for ordering and any instructions if the product requires it. And then two emails asking for a review spread out over a week.
8) Don’t Run Out of Stock
It’s important to make sure you have stock as often as possible. You’ll want to make sure you have enough inventory on hand at all times, so that when the orders start coming in and your product ranks higher, you’re able to keep up with demand.
If a customer wants to place an order but you can’t fulfill it because of stock issues, Amazon knocks you down in the search results.
FAQs
How do you rank up on Amazon?
You rank on Amazon by having a solid product, good reviews, optimized listing and sales. You can also improve your ranking by doing things like running sponsored ads or using software to monitor and optimize your listings.
What is Best Sellers Rank (BSR) on Amazon?
Best seller rank is a metric used by Amazon to determine the rank of a product within a category. It is calculated using a combination of sales and velocity (the rate at which products are selling). The higher the BSR, the more popular the product is.
Every category has its own BSR, with some obviously more competitive than others. For example, the BSR for a product in “Sports & Outdoors” will be different from one selling under the category of “Kitchen & Dining”.
You can find the BSR for every product listed on Amazon by scrolling to the bottom of the product page. There you’ll see the category, subcategory and rank number.
If you want to check out the rank of several products at once, I recommend using Jungle Scout Chrome Extension.
This tool will show you how your product ranks compared to other products in your category.
How Does Amazon’s Algorithm Work?
Amazon’s search engine is a complex beast, and its algorithm is constantly changing.
Source: ecommvida.com
The algorithm takes into account many factors including reviews, sales and product prices.
The goal of the algorithm is to serve up relevant search results to customers based on their past behavior. So for example, if you’ve been searching for “running shoes”, then Amazon will show you running shoes in your future searches until they think it’s time to refresh your recommendations with something else (like yoga pants).
The more relevant your product matches the search intent of the buyer, the higher your chances of being shown in the eyes of the Algorithm.
Final Thoughts
There you have it! These are some of the most important things to focus on and some of the best ways to rank your product on Amazon.
It’s important to remember that Amazon is constantly changing their algorithm, so make sure you stay up to date with the latest changes and use the right tools and tactics. That being said, a good product, reviews, and optimized listing will take you 80% of the way there every time.
Good luck and happy ranking!
