In this episode, Matt DeCoursey was joined by Andrew Morgans, CEO, and Founder of Marknology, an Amazon brand accelerator. What makes Marknology unique among other Amazon consultants and agencies is that they specialize in branding and overall strategy on the platform, not just on sales— for brands and manufacturers looking to establish their presence on Amazon.
Andrew is a regular guest at Startup Hustle, with this being his second time in the show. He shared his idea of having a regular segment in the Startup Hustle called, “Amazon Update” where the hosts discuss all things happening in the Amazon space.
Amazon is now way ahead of its competitors, accounting 50% share of the e-commerce industry. Matt and Andrew showed the nitty-gritty details about the Amazon marketplace and how to dominate competition using solid Amazon SEO strategies.
The Basics of Amazon SEO
Here are some of the basics on Amazon SEO to keep in mind when you’re about to sell your products on Amazon:
- Amazon is a huge online marketplace that hosts millions of product pages.
- The Amazon search engine uses the A9 algorithm.
- Whenever you list a product on Amazon, it’s going to generate a catalog number called ASIN (Amazon Standard Identification Number), a 10-character alphanumeric code used to identify products cataloged on Amazon and its partners).
- Amazon Standard Identification Numbe (ASIN) is Amazon’s version for Stock Keeping Unit (SKU), a term used for inventory management.
- The product page is where you sell your products, display your brand and convert visitors once they land your product page.
Common Mistakes Sellers Make when Setting Up Their Product Page
- Not spending enough time getting professional images of their products. This is one of the areas that are often overlooked.
- Selling on the wrong category.
- Interpreting Amazon’s tech specs incorrectly.
- In the product pages, some sellers are listing to describe the product, instead of trying to find buyers. People search differently on the web vs. Amazon. (example: on the web, you might search, “how to get stains out on my shirt?” but on Amazon, you might search, “stain remover”. There are things that brands can’t do on Amazon what they’ve done on the web.
- Poor keyword research strategy. Think of a product in a way that your parents would be able to search for it.
- Some brands do not spend enough time analyzing their competition.
Keyword Optimization on Amazon
- There’s no one-size-fits-all strategy when it comes to keyword optimization on Amazon.
- If you’re a big brand, you can go right by using big keywords.
- For brands that are starting out, your images and copy are more important than branding, since you still have to establish it. In this case, go after long-tail keywords.
- Even if you’re a big brand, Andrew suggested that you still go after long-tail keywords. It might get you 10K searches on a keyword.
Amazon Search Engine Visibility
There are two ways to get found on Amazon:
- Organic search results – You’re going to pick 10 with different keyword strategies that are important to the listing.
- Paid search results – Use paid ads to hit all those other ones that aren’t in the previous 10. This is to have a bigger range of exposure.
Search Engine Marketing Strategies on Amazon
Here are some important points raised when optimizing for search on Amazon:
- Having good photos can raise your conversion rate by a couple of points.
- The first two images on Amazon listing should be on a white background, with not a lot of other products.
- Image 3 to 7, sometimes 8, can be different things. It can be an infographic, or customer reviews put into an infographic, or could lifestyle photos. It depends on what your product is.
- You can also put videos in it if you’re brand-registered. Being brand-registered is the ability to protect your brand on Amazon. To get it, you need to register your brands through a trademark.
- Being brand registered allows you to do things such as a storefront, which is like an infographic and allows videos on your listings.
- Amazon’s transparency program allows the brand to get a private label, no matter where the product is coming from. How it works is that once you ship the item, you need to scan the transparency code.
- Add alt text attribute to your product photos. It’s for the hearing-impaired but Amazon could also be setting this up for voice search to find products when they’re ready.
- Length of titles. You need to consider how your product page renders on smart devices, smartphones, etc.
- When choosing to advertise for keywords other than what you put out on the listing and they are doing great, you can switch them up a bit. Be flexible and know when to change things.
- The paid ads can tell you which part to re-optimize in your listing.
Andrew Morgans’ Webinar Series
Andrew launched a webinar series where he discussed anything related to Amazon such as product optimization. It’s a four-part series with Q&A at the end. It’s the ultimate playbook for sellers who wanted to optimize and dominate the Amazon marketplace.
Listeners to this webinar series can expect to get in-depth information about how to better optimize their product pages. It will air a few times a month, every other Tuesday.
Other Notes:
- If you need help in accelerating your startup for maximum growth and profitability, then we suggest you reach our startup experts at Full Scale – Matt DeCoursey and Matt Watson themselves. Contact us to get your free consultation today.
- Scroll down to get the full transcript of this episode.
Listen to Episode 52 of the Startup Hustle Podcast – Amazon SEO.
