Summary
People who search on Amazon are 3x more likely to purchase than people who search on Google which makes ranking well on Amazon a very important step for your business. ASO (Amazon Store Optimization) is a set of optimizations that help your listings page to rank higher with the relevant keywords. Things that fall under ASO are better images, a higher number of reviews, better keyword targeting, etc.
But that’s not all. Other factors that affect your rankings on Amazon are stock availability, text match relevancy, product price, sales velocity, and more. Sales velocity is crucial and you can increase it by including contextual information, using high-quality images, using bullet-points, encouraging legit reviews, using flash sales, and more. Unicorn Smasher and MerchantWords, KeywordsEverywhere, and AMZtracker are some of the best tools that can help you out in this process.
When I started my first e-commerce business, Flux Chargers, we struggled a lot getting sales.
There were so many things to focus on from customer development to PR to SEO that frankly we left our Flux Amazon store behind.
Little did we know that a simple set of tweaks would take us from $100/mo to $100,000/mo in sales.
The beauty of ranking well on Amazon is that people who search on Amazon are 3x more likely to purchase than people who search on Google.
In this post, I’ve included my best Amazon store optimization tricks, all tried and true.
At the end I’ll also show you how to find profitable products if you haven’t decided what to sell yet.
Hope you enjoy this guide! (If you do, share it!)
What is Amazon ASO/SEO?
ASO stands for Amazon Store Optimization. Most people also refer to it as Amazon SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
In short, it is a set of optimizations that you can do your listings page to help it rank higher for the keywords that matter the most to you and your buyers.
Those improvements can include: better images, higher number of reviews, better keyword targeting, and more that I’ll cover below.
How Does SEO Work for Amazon?
In essence, Amazon SEO is very similar to pure Google SEO.
Having a great experience (i.e. a thorough product description, beautiful pictures, and great reviews) will lead to higher rankings on the Amazon search engine.
This is turn will lead to more searches, and eventually more sales.
Let’s dive into these concepts in much more depth by first understanding how the Amazon searches are powered…
Amazon’s A9 – the new search engine
What is the A9 Algorithm?
Amazon’s A9 algorithm is what determines which products show up when you do a search (i.e. “baby wipes”) and in which order those products appear.
(The division that builds, maintains, and makes improvements to Amazon’s search engine is called the “A9 Division”. The search engine is called A9 because the word algorithm has 9 letters and the A represents Amazon)
The A9 algorithm powers Amazon’s search box, which decides what product recommendations it should show the user by using data from thousands of queries that people already created.
These recommendations are also modified by the customer’s past purchases and shopping preferences, and as well as other factors including price and shipping times.
A lot of sellers don’t realize the importance of optimizing their Amazon’s listings.
I’ve seen countless of products that have meager descriptions and fail to even entice me to buy.
Compared to the time and effort that you could spend on ranking a site on Google, it is much simpler and faster to crack Amazon’s algorithm.
And quite similar to Google, optimizing your Amazon’s search rankings is necessary because:
- 35% of online shoppers click only on the first featured product on a search page
- About 70% of shoppers never click on the second page of results
- The first few products usually take away around 64% of the clicks
Now let’s look at how to rank #1 on Amazon…
Factors that Affects Amazon Rankings
The Amazon’s rankings can be influenced by both direct and indirect factors.
The Direct Factors
1) Stock availability
Needless to say, but if your product has run out of stock and won’t be in stock anytime soon, Amazon might demote or remove your listing completely.
2) Text Match Relevancy
The most important direct factor is the text match relevancy. That is how well does your product title, description and copy match the keywords typed by the user?
Notice for instance the title we are using on our Flux portable charger:
Flux Portable Charger 4,000 mAh, Ultra Slim External Battery Pack with Built in Cords for iPhone Xs, iPhone X, iPhone 8s, iPhone 8, Galaxy s7, Galaxy s7 Edge (Premium Aluminum Power Bank)
We have aimed to include the most relevant keywords that most of our buyers could use, i.e. portable charger for iPhone 8s. This helps that listing rank high for any given combination of {portable charger, battery pack, power bank} + {phone model}.
3) Product Price
Amazon wants to offer you the best product and a reasonable price, since their main focus is to have happy customers.
Therefore, if you are selling a commodity product or a product that is very similar from your competitors, you will need to have a price differentiator to rank higher.
How to pick a good product Title on Amazon
Having a great product title is key when it comes to increasing your Amazon sales.
Therefore, this part should be completed without thorough keyword research.
A simple way to do this is to type your target keyword (i.e. vacuum cleaner) and see what other people have picked as their titles.
Below is a quick list of the title elements that Amazon recommends to sellers:
- Brand
- The actual name of the product
- Packaging quantity
- Product line
- Material
- Color
- Product types
- And other modifiers such as size (small, medium, large), weight
For example, here’s Juan Valdez’ coffee description:
Juan Valdez Gourmet Balanced Colombian Coffee, Organic Ground, 10 oz
When you are creating your listing you want to make sure you pick a product category that is as narrow as possible, that way you can win the “Amazon’s choice” tag.

How to create an amazing Amazon product copy
Similarly as in the product title, you want your product description to not only be keyword-rich but also useful to the user.
A great way to do this is to reverse engineer the top results for the particular keywords you are targeting.
First, search your desired keyword (“dining table”)
Then, open the top 7-10 results on a new tab and take note of any interesting keywords that either keep popping up or that are an excellent USP unique selling proposition (i.e. “with chairs included” or “lifetime warranty”)
What I like to do now is put all that information into a spreadsheet (brand, title, price, reviews, description, top keywords) and try to come up with a product and product description that beats them in at least 2-3 categories.
By doing this you will not only gather a solid amount of keywords but you will have also analyzed all your competitors, their strengths and shortcomings.
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Now make sure your product copy has a healthy balance between keywords and the right words that are going to make you sell more.
Indirect Factors
Now let’s talk about many other factors that indirectly affect Amazon rankings.
The Key to Amazon Rankings is Sales Velocity
Another important metric that Amazon takes into account is how fast your product is selling, or sales velocity.
If you can sell inventory on a daily basis, that’s great. Even better if you can sell multiple per hour.
Nothing can move you up the Amazon search ranks like the sales velocity.
Amazon’s ultimate goal is to maximize revenue per customer (RPC). Therefore, it keeps promoting those products who are selling the best, because that represents the most earnings opportunity for them.
How can you sell more on Amazon and increase your sales velocity?
Here are a few things that work:
1)Include Contextual Information
Adding additional contextual information in your Amazon listing will help you increase your sales.
Contextual information can include things like hidden features, wow factors, reviews from reputable sources (“as seen on CNBC”), software compatibility (PC/Mac), etc.
As an example, when you search an item in Amazon’s search box, let’s say for example a “scanner”, you would see lots of additional keyword results as a suggestion. With this kind of information, you can recommend contextual information, such as:
- Does the product offer a feature that your competitors haven’t thought of yet?
- Does it fit in the pocket?
- Can it be used in PCs? Is it compatible with Macbooks?
- Is the scanner compatible with other additional IOTs?
When you answer these kinds of questions in your product’s customer concerns, you can increase conversations with your customers.
2) Use Beautiful High-Quality Images
Make sure to use large, high-quality product images to enable the app’s zoom function.
According to the recommendations of Amazon, the images should at least be 1000×1000 pixels, as it would enable their zoom function on their site.
(The smallest file should be at least 500x500px.)
The zoom function has been proven to increase sales, and it is very helpful for potential buyers as it allows them to have a closer view of the product.
Multiple images also allow the customer to view the product from different angles, read nutritional labels, warnings, and get a feel for the size and shape of the product.
Some sellers have also reported that adding 360-degree rotating images increased their conversion rates about 27%.
3. Consider Using Bullet Points
On Amazon’s product descriptions, using bullet points has been proven to be another opportunity for you to increase your product’s conversion rates.
Bullets points make the content much easier to read than just reading a block of texts, which help increase conversion rates.
They can also clarify your product’s features, which will be indexed by Amazon’s algorithm to boost search rankings.
Make sure your bullet points are extremely detailed. I also like to use the checkmark emoji as a bullet point which creates a positive psychological association with the product.
4. Use an Enhanced Amazon Brand Content
You can really make your content shine with the help of the A+ Tool and Enhanced Brand Content.
With the Amazon Enhanced Brand Content tool, you can modify the description field of your products, allowing you to add more images and even a company storyline.
Different brands can enhance texts and images, and then add various design aspects to their product’s description.
Also, building a very strong brand by means of appearing on publications such as Forbes, Techcrunch or Fox will help a ton.
5. Ran out of creativity for your Amazon Descriptions?
Sometimes you just hit writer’s block and can’t think of anything to put on your products description.
Maybe you’ve read all my marketing articles and still can’t quite find the right words to put together an stellar product copy.
What do you do now?
You look at your competitor and their product reviews, and use their exact language in your copy.
Why this works: Since you are using the words that your potential customers already use, you will create a much better connection with them through your messaging.
6. (Big booster) Encourage Product Reviews
Social proof is massive.
About 84% of customers trust online reviews as much as they trust their friend’s recommendations.
If they see a product with 4+ stars, they will be very compelled to pulled the trigger.
Since Amazon is aware of this, it promotes the products with the best average reviews. At the volume and scale of Amazon, this helps as a great way to filter quality products from shitty ones.
Needless to say: A competing product that has a lot of reviews, tend to rank much higher than products with relatively low reviews.
7. Get higher conversions using flash sales ⏰
Who doesn’t love a deal?
Amazon shoppers certainly do.
To offer what Amazon calls a Lighting Deal, you must be a Professional Seller with at least 5 Seller Feedback Ratings per month and an overall rating of at least 3.5-stars. Additionally, products must meet these criteria:
- Have a sales history and at least a 3-star rating on Amazon
- Include as many variations as possible
- Not a restricted product or offensive, embarrassing or inappropriate product
- Your product needs to be Prime eligible in all states, including Puerto Rico
- Items must be in New Condition
8. Add useful FAQ and Q&A’s sections
Even the most thorough product description might miss an important question from a customer.
Make sure you are not preventing a sale by having a section where you answer the most important questions.
Be consistent on all your channels
Your website should also be consistent with your Amazon store.
If you promise a lifetime warranty on your website but fail to do so on Amazon, people might not shop there and that will lower your rankings.
You should also aim to have all the variations, sizes and colors in all of your stores. This also includes Ebay, Facebook stores.
After the sale
If you are looking to build a long lasting brand and company, you need to make sure your customers are satisfied throughout the whole product experience.
That means that the customer journey doesn’t end with the purchase, but rather it is just getting started.
Having a low return rate and low order defect rate will also help you boost your rankings.
Blackhat Amazon SEO: Don’t Use these Tactics to Increase your Products Reviews
As you might know, some sellers tend to resort to fishy techniques to increase their product’s reviews.
A few ways they do this is by manipulating the URLs appending some keywords to the end such as “dog+food” so that Amazon thinks the buyers typed those keywords when they were surfing for products.
Then they employ people to write fake reviews.
How to get legit Amazon reviews
A better way to get real Amazon reviews is to include a small thank you card inside your product and encourage people to give their honest feedback. A great way to encourage them is to give them an incentive such as:
- we will email you a discount code for your next purchase
- extending their product warranty by 1 extra year
- doing a giveaway of another product among the reviewers
My Favorite tools for Amazon sellers
- Unicorn Smasher and MerchantWords will show you an estimate of product serach volume and other keyword details
- KeywordsEverywhere: shows you how many people are
- AMZtracker: will help you optimize everything possible in your Amazon listing, it can also help you track competitors and estimate their sales.
Other tools that might come in handy are covered in my SEO tools roundup.
How does Amazon SEO differ from Google SEO?
On Amazon each search is ranked relative to the user’s previous purchasing habits.
Unlike Google, Amazon doesn’t directly take into account social media, domain authority, or backlinks (debatable) to determine the rank of a product.
However, having a strong brand and a lot of social buzz will certainly drive a lot of brand queries and will eventually lead to stronger rankings.
You can shoot up to the first spot on an Amazon search very quickly if you have a solid product with great sales and reviews. With Google, it still takes months of building domain authority until you get first page rankings.
Since Amazon owns the entire sales funnel, it can track each customer’s moves with more accuracy; understanding where they clicked, how long they stayed on each site and which products they viewed before deciding on one.
You must aim to have a long product page view time and a low bounce rate (when someone views your product but ends up leaving or purchasing something else).
Conclusion
Amazon is arguably the best place to sell your items.
Optimizing your store and product means having thorough product titles and descriptions, high quality images, and great keyword selection.
But it also requires having a great quality product, answering all your customer concerns and providing amazing value post-purchase.
If you liked this Amazon SEO guide, please send it to a friend!
Lastly, comment 3-5 sentences relevant to Amazon optimization, how you do it, and what you are selling, and get entered into a raffle to win a post on Soinfluential or Remarkable.
To learn more about SEO, read:
- My step-by-step SEO tutorial to crush Google
- How to do keyword research like a pro
- What is Google Rankbrain?
- How to optimize Youtube videos