How To Optimize Your Products for Amazon.com by Anthony Verre

HOW TO OPTIMIZE

YOUR PRODUCTS

FOR

AMAZON.COM

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Anthony Verre

Rockfish

@TonyVerre

#SMX #22D

October 2, 2013

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@rockfish | @TonyVerre

#smx #22D

9/26/2013

Everything You Always Wanted To Know Me* (But Were Afraid to Ask)

The Professional• Rockfish Assoc. Director of Search

Strategy

• eCom SEO Lead for WPP Team Kimberly-

Clark

The Personal• Married, Father of 3 Girls

• Former Literary Teacher-Turned-SEO

• Digital-Obsessed Search Geek

• 1-Time Triathlon Finisher


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Amazon: Search-Centric eCommerce

1999 June, 2004

Jan, 2010 Jan, 2013


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Amazon Wants Consumers To Search

You Tell Them

What You Want

They Give You What

Best Fits Your Needs


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Unlocking the A9 Black Box


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Amazon 101: Defining the Elements

Amazon Element Definition

Vendor Central Amazon.com’s 1st Party retailer destination to create and

manage your products, manage your inventory, view item level

reporting on sales and inventory, view invoices/payments and

access to ARA data (Invitation Only)

Seller Central Amazon.com’s 3rd Party seller destination to create and manage

your products, manage your inventory, view invoices/payments

and analytics (professional only) (Subscription-Pay Model)

Amazon Predictive Search The most commonly typed keywords and phrases consumers

use on Amazon queries

Amazon Retail Analytics (ARA) Amazon analytics on product sales and consumer search terms

Pageview Rank Metric that shows how “visible” and “how much awareness” a

product has with consumers on Amazon.com

Seller Rank Metric based on Amazon.com sales that is updated hourly to

reflect recent and historical sales of every item sold on

Amazon.com


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Amazon Vendor Central vs. Seller Central

• 1st Party Retailer Hub

• Amazon Invitation Only

• Amazon responsible for all

logistics

• Works with Vendor Central

Team or Agency to set up

products

• Access Amazon Retail

Analytics (ARA)

• Ability to Advertise on Amazon

• 3rd Party Seller Hub

• Individual/Businesses in

Subscription-based model

• Seller manages virtual

storefront

• Products are listed by Seller

• Access analytics (Professional

Only)

• Ability to Advertise on Amazon


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What’s in Amazon’s A9 Algorithm?

Relevance

Seller Rank

PageviewRank / CTR

Amazon uses Product

Information + Consumer

Interaction to power the

components of their A9

algorithm


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Amazon’s Virtuous Optimization Cycle

Predictive Search &

Vendor Central

Product Optimization

PageViewRank & CTR

Seller Rank


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Google + Amazon = Win

Primal consumer behaviors move across platform. If

the query has high purchase intent in Google, they’re

doing it the same way in Amazon.


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Amazon Predictive Search

Use Amazon Predictive

Search to see what

keyword phrases

consumers use to find

products.

Screen shoot. Catalog. And

test in Amazon Retail

Analytics (ARA).


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Amazon Vendor Central

Amazon Retail Analytics (ARA)

gives you consumer search term

data across Amazon as a whole

and by Top-Level Categories


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Amazon Vendor Central

Search Frequency is

“Percentage of

significant search terms

on Amazon with fewer

searches performed

during the reporting

period.”


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Predictive Search &

Vendor Central


PageViewRank & CTR

Seller Rank


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2 Types of Product Content

All Products

Free

More Search

Weight

Non-

Customizable

(Uniform fields)

Not All Products

Extra Cost

Less Search

Weight

Customizable

Templates and

Information


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Optimizing Basic Product Content

Product Title

Key Features

Product

Description

Search

Keywords

As all products must have basic content, these

elements are the prime area to optimize and have the

most search weight.


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Optimizing A+ Product Content

• Optimize A+ Content with key

unbranded phrases

•Optimize Alt-Text on all images

with branded and unbranded

keywords

• Content: 300 - 1200 words

•No ASIN linking, Brand Store

linking only

•Images: 2 - 5 main images

Pay-to-Play content. Less search weight but can

provide a relevance boost.


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9/26/2013


Predictive Search &

Vendor Central


PageViewRank & CTR

Seller Rank


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What’s PageView Rank?

All ASINs on Amazon

accumulate PageView

Rank. This metric shows

how “visible” and “how

much awareness” a

product has with

consumers.

A general correlation can

be between a lower

PageView Rank and

increased order counts.


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How Can You Increase PageViewRank, CTR, and Orders?

Use multiple digital channels to drive traffic to your

products, and measure them.


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Amazon Services: Sparkle Search & Banners

Sparkle Search is Amazon’s

version of Paid Search. How it

works:

•Target up to 100 keywords

(branded, unbranded and

cross-category)

•Drive Consumers to Coupons,

Brand Landing Pages or Brand

Stores

•Pay for Impression Share, Not

Per Click


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Amazon Services: Sparkle Search & Banners

Amazon offers multiple ways for

retailers to place ads (in a

variety of standard & custom

sizes) in virtually any area of the

site.

Amazon offers targeting and

serving options depending on

the banner ad.

See the full list of Amazon

Media Group offers here: http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=az_adv_ln_dads_as?&node=3055324011

http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=az_adv_ln_dads_as?&node=3055324011


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Amazon Brand Stores

Amazon offers retailers brand

stores to drive consumers to a

brand destination on

Amazon.com.

Three Types of Brand Stores:

1. Free

2. $10,000

3. $70,000

The difference in price extends to

various types of customizations

and targeting allowed for brand

stores.


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Predictive Search &

Vendor Central


PageViewRank & CTR

Seller Rank


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What’s Seller Rank?

The Amazon Best Sellers calculation is based on

Amazon.com sales and is updated hourly to reflect

recent and historical sales of every item sold on

Amazon.com.

Simply put: the more a product sells (volume), the

better the Seller Rank.


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Amazon provides Seller Rank at a category

level/department and sub-category

level/department.

Two Types of SellerRank

Category Seller Rank Sub-Cat Seller Rank


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Does Seller Rank Matter? It Depends.

Some Amazon Search Queries

are much more Seller Rank-

driven than others. If the query

has a high search frequency or

is a part of the categorical

taxonomy, it’s likely more

Seller Rank-driven.

Queries with less search

frequency or are out of

categorical taxonomy are more

likely to relevance-driven.


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Not All Queries Created Equal

“LED TV” “Moist Wipes”

44%25%

6%13%13%

Seller Rank Breakdown

LED TV 1- 10 Seller Rank LED TV 11-20 Seller Rank

LED TV 21-30 Seller Rank LED TV 31 - 40 Seller Rank

LED TV 41- 50 Seller Rank LED TV 51+ Seller Rank

6%

6%6%

13% 13%

56%

Seller Rank Breakdown

Flushable Moist Wipes 1- 10 Seller Rank Flushable Moist Wipes 11-20 Seller Rank

Flushable Moist Wipes 21-30 Seller Rank Flushable Moist Wipes 31 - 40 Seller Rank

Flushable Moist Wipes 41- 50 Seller Rank Flushable Moist Wipes 51+ Seller Rank

75% of products for “LED TV” are in the Top 30 Sub-

Category Seller Rank; 18% for Moist Wipes.


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Winning Means A Well-Oiled Machine

There isn’t a single phase of

the A9 algorithm and

Virtuous Optimization Cycle

that is inherently more

important than another.

All of the elements of the

Virtuous Cycle have to work

in unison.

http://www.slideshare.net/SearchMarketingExpo

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How To Optimize Your Products for Amazon.com by Anthony Verre

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Transcript of How To Optimize Your Products for Amazon.com by Anthony Verre