When people first begin selling on Amazon Handmade, SEO is the top issue they experience. Amazon SEO is so much different than Etsy SEO, and it’s crucial to optimize your listings effectively to increase your traffic and sales.
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I’ve been selling on Amazon Handmade since it launched in October 2015, and have had 6-figure sales each year. The main reason for my success is my knowledge of SEO and understanding how to optimize my listings correctly. I’ve also optimized hundreds of listings for other handmade artisans over the past couple of years in different niches and categories.
This complete guide to Amazon Handmade SEO should help you gain a better understanding of how SEO works on Amazon. As well as how you can increase organic search traffic to your products.
What is SEO?
If you’ve been selling online for any amount of time, you’ve likely heard the term SEO a lot. Besides photography, SEO is the most important aspect of selling online and getting organic sales through search engine traffic.
SEO stands for search engine optimization, and how the search function works on Amazon is a little different compared to Etsy or Google search, for example.
What matters for Amazon Handmade SEO?
The first thing to be aware of for Amazon SEO, you want to optimize your listings for the Amazon search bar. That should be your goal and should affect how you optimize your listings.
If you sell elsewhere, like on Etsy or your own website, you don’t want to worry about optimizing your Amazon listings for anywhere else besides the Amazon search bar.
Why? It’s simple. Amazon has such a massive built-in customer and traffic base that it makes sense to optimize your Amazon listings to be found within Amazon’s search better. When it comes to Google, because you do pay fewer fees when selling elsewhere, you don’t necessarily want your listings on Amazon to come up first on Google. You’d be better off having your Etsy listing or your website listing coming up first within Google Search. Plus, your Amazon listings don’t need much help, since Amazon already has such a high domain authority. That means their listings (including your product listings) will already rank in Google without you worrying about that.
The 3 key areas to optimize for a handmade listing are, in order of importance, your title, your search terms, and then your style keywords (if applicable to your category on Handmade). Some categories don’t have a style keyword field.
The Best Tools for Keyword Research
Before we dive into the best ways to optimize your listing, don’t forget the most important step of SEO, keyword research. Performing keyword research is essential for using the right keywords. You don’t want to use keywords that have no traffic, and alternatively, you don’t want to use keywords that are too simple or generic, either.
The best tool for Amazon keyword research is merely using the Amazon search bar for manual keyword research. This process takes more time, but it’s the best method because it allows you to see precisely how Amazon customers are searching, what phrases they are using, and how they think.
Here is a tip, go to Amazon.com and enter a keyword you want to rank for. Then, type a after it and see what suggestions dropdown. Then, type b after your keyword and see what comes up in the suggestions, and so on. Write down any keywords that apply to your item, and you might not have thought of otherwise.
Alternatively, these are excellent SEO tools for additional keyword research, too:
Writing Optimized Product Titles
Your product titles on Amazon are the most important when it comes to optimizing your listing correctly. Your title is where you should be putting your most important keywords. They should also include any critical listing information that the customer needs to know (for example, size, quantity, color).
At the time of posting, Amazon has stipulated that titles need to be 200 characters or less. I personally recommend keeping them under 100 characters, because readability is important and is weighted in search. You definitely don’t want to keyword stuff your titles.
An example of a good product title:
Fire Opal Gemstone Chandelier Dangle Earrings Jewelry Gift for Women
Red Fire Opal Sterling Silver Stone Drop Earrings Christmas Jewelry Gift
Important points to remember:
- Use your most important keywords in your title
- Don’t repeat any words within your title
- Keep it around 100 characters in length
- Order matters – if someone searches “gemstone chandelier earrings” your listing will rank higher than someone who has a title of “Fire Opal Earrings Gemstone Jewelry Drop Chandelier.” This is because the words the customer is searching are closer together in the original example above vs. that one
- Don’t use commas
Writing Optimized Style Keywords
Some categories within Handmade don’t have style keywords, and if your category doesn’t, you can skip this part. Style keywords are additional space that we can use for style terms, such as, bohemian, modern, traditional, rustic, etc.
Style keywords mostly apply to home decor or fashion.
You want your style keywords to be under 100 characters and separated by commas within the style keywords box.
If a style term really applies to your item, you might be better off using that word in your title or search terms, since they are more important in terms of SEO.
Writing Optimized Search Terms
Search terms are where all your additional keywords go. You have up to 250 bytes or characters or space to use in this box, so make them count! You don’t want to repeat words within the search term box as that is unnecessary and takes up valuable space. The same is true for commas, they take up space and aren’t needed.
Your search terms should just look like a huge block of text.
I always write my search terms out in lettercount.com and then copy and paste them into my Amazon listing when I have them ready and under the 250 character limit. It’s much easier to make sure you are formatting them correctly when you can see them all in the lettercount.com box.
What is Sales Rank?
Sales rank is how Amazon measures your product against all other items within your category. If you are a handmade seller, that means that your sales rank is how your listing is ranking within the entire handmade category.
You can turn the sales rank column on from your Manage Inventory page within Seller Central since it is usually turned off by default.
It’s important to keep in mind that your sales rank will fluctuate a lot. There are also a lot of other factors that impact sales rank on Amazon, such as:
- Recent sales history
- The conversion rate of listing
- Product reviews on the listing
Generally, your listing won’t have a sales rank until you have sold at least one of that item.
How to Measure Results:
SEO takes time, and that’s true for Amazon’s search algorithm, too. Any new listings or SEO changes should be given approximately 2-6 weeks before you calculate results or make any additional changes to the listing.
You can check your views for each listing, for a specific date range, under Reports > Business Reports > Detailed Page Sales and Traffic (under the by ASIN heading). Keep in mind, the traffic stats here are always 24-48 hours behind, though.
If your listing isn’t getting much traffic after a few weeks, do some manual test searches from the Amazon search bar within the handmade category. Is your listing coming up for your key searches on the first couple of pages? If yes, then something else might be responsible for no sales or traffic. Something is making the customer decide not to click on it, such as:
- Your photos
- Your pricing
- You’re using the wrong keywords
If your item isn’t coming up within the first page or two, then you might need to do some additional tweaking on your SEO and some more keyword research.
Final Thoughts
Amazon Handmade is a fantastic platform, and so many artisans I’ve worked with have found massive success on the platform. SEO is continuously changing and always requires additional tweaking and adjustments. That’s just how it is! Using these tips, you can optimize your Amazon Handmade listings much better and start increasing your sales.
If you’d like to hire me to do some Amazon listing optimization for you, please reach out to check my availability, and let’s discuss your needs!
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