• Home
  • Blog
  • Start Here
  • About
    • Contact Us
    • Book Club
      • Book Club Archives
        • Start With Why
        • Eat That Frog
        • The 4-Hour Workweek
    • Privacy Policy
    • Sales Numbers
    • Shoe Profits
  • Resources
  • Sales Rank
  • Videos
  • * Podcast *
  • Our Trainings
    • The Reseller’s Guide to Black Friday: The Fool-proof Strategy to Rock Black Friday Sales Every Year
    • JumpStart Amazon (beginner course)
    • Next Level Amazon (advanced course)
    • The Reseller’s Guide to A Year in FBA: A Month by Month Guide to a Profitable Amazon Business
    • The Reseller’s Guide to Keepa : Using Amazon Sales History to Make Smart Sourcing Decisions
    • The Reseller’s Guide to Sales Rank: Understanding Amazon Best Sellers Rank For Maximum Profits
    • The Reseller’s Guide to Selling Shoes: Kick up Your Profits with New Shoes via Amazon FBA
    • The Reseller’s Guide to Board Games: How to Turn Play Money into Real Money
    • The Reseller’s Guide to Road Trip Arbitrage: Expand Your Sourcing Radius and Increase Your Amazon FBA Profits
    • Married to Reselling: Balancing Family Life With Your Online Business
    • The Reseller’s Guide to Black Friday: The Fool-proof Strategy to Rock Black Friday Sales Every Year
  • Members Area

Full-Time FBA

Turn part-time hours into a full-time income via Amazon FBA

Turn Part-Time Hours into a Full-Time Income via Amazon FBA
Home Advanced 5 Little-Known Facts About Keywords & Amazon Product Listings That Could Hinder Your Success

5 Little-Known Facts About Keywords & Amazon Product Listings That Could Hinder Your Success

October 14, 2014 By Stephen Smotherman 9 Comments

Have you ever created a new product page for an item you want to sell on Amazon? If you have, then you know just how important it is to make sure you have the best title and keywords on the product page. If you currently create product pages, or are interested in doing so sometime soon, then I’m excited to share with you a guest post from my friend, Karon Thackston, who is the author of the very helpful book: “Amazon Advantage: Product Listing Strategies to Boost Your Sales.“  In today’s blog post, Karon shares with us 5 little-known facts about keywords and Amazon product listings that could hinder your success.  Tip #3 is one that I had no idea about and I’m so glad that she shared it in this post.

article_separator

5 Little-Known Facts About Keywords & Amazon Product Listings That Could Hinder Your Success

By Karon Thackston
 

Lately I feel like a broken record. It seems the more people I talk with, the more times I hear, “I didn’t know that” when it comes to keyword-related facts about Amazon product listings. Most people are making this way harder than it has to be. In fact, many are seriously wasting space by not following what Amazon clearly lays out in the Seller Central Help section. Let’s take a few minutes to go over some specifics from Amazon so you can start benefiting from the right way to use keywords.

Not using keywords correctly in your product listing copy and not having them formatted the right way in your keyword fields can cost you both traffic and sales.

1. Amazon (Basically) Counts The Title As A Keyword Field

Many people believe that they must put the keywords in the keyword fields and also in their product name/title. Not true. According to Amazon:

1In essence, Amazon’s internal search engine works by exactly matching individual words (not phrases) that the customer types into the search box with the individual keywords you put into your product title and keyword fields.

2. The Title And The Keyword Fields Hold Equal Weight

I think the belief that the title holds more weight than the keyword fields comes from people who are flooded with information about ranking well on Google. Title tags hold more weight with Google so, therefore, most people assume the same is true about Amazon. Incorrect.

Amazon specifically tells us not to “waste space” by repeating words across certain fields because they are all included when a shopper conducts a search.

23. You Should Not Enter Entire Keyphrases Into The Keyword Fields

Amazon’s search engine works by combining individual words, not by looking to match entire phrases. There is no need to waste valuable keyword space by entering:

USB computer speaker, USB Bluetooth speaker, USB iPhone speaker, etc.

Instead, remove the repeated words and put them into a logical order.

3You end up with a much more compact list of terms that allows more space for relevant search words. Here’s what you end up with after removing the repetitive words:

USB computer speaker Bluetooth iPhone

So, instead of using 63 characters with the original list, now you’ve only used 37, leaving you a lot more room for additional keywords.

4. Amazon Accounts For Stemming, Plurals & Commas

Another common debate is whether you should use commas and plurals in your keyword fields. Seller Central outlines this clearly as well.

Stemming is taking a root word and adding various endings to it. For example:

  • diet
  • diets
  • dieting
  • dietary
  • dietitian
  • etc.

As you see below, Amazon can handle “basic” stemming. I have not found a definition of “basic” but my interpretation is plurals and common other endings such as “ing.” Anything beyond that I would consider adding as another search term.

4No commas are needed in your keyword fields. In fact, as stated in the next screen capture, you don’t need any type of punctuation. Amazon’s system ignores commas … all you need is a space between the terms.

55. You Should Not Add Competitor Brands To Your Keyword Fields

There is a common practice of putting other brands into your keyword fields. The assumption is that this is a good way to get more traffic to your page. Actually, putting irrelevant keywords into your fields (including brand names that aren’t yours) is a good way to have your listing removed. Amazon classifies this as keyword bombing and makes it known that your product listing could be deleted from the category it is in if you’re found guilty of using irrelevant keywords to drive traffic.

6Having the correct keywords in place and having your keyword fields set up the way Amazon suggests will play a big role in boosting the visibility of your products to qualified customers who are ready to purchase. It isn’t hard to do once you understand the way Amazon works best.

article_separator

Thank you, Karon, for this very helpful post that will definitely help people boost their sales when creating product pages on Amazon!

116_1409831933In Karon’s ebook, “Amazon Advantage: Product Listing Strategies to Boost Your Sales,” she goes through the exact step-by-step process she uses when creating product listing copy for clients. After having written Amazon descriptions for years, the Marketing Words team has become experts in what Amazon will and will not allow and how to develop listings that rank well and convert shoppers into buyers.

I have personally read this book and know that it can help you if you currently create new Amazon product pages or would like to sometime soon. I wish I had a book like this when I had first started creating product pages. Now, I’m inspired to go in and update some of my current listings to make them even better. This book helps remove a lot of the guesswork about what you need to be aware of when creating product pages.  Not only will this guide help you make money, it will actually save you money because you won’t be wasting time creating poor product pages.

FREEBIE: You can also download a free cheat sheet from Karon with 5 product listing secrets for Amazon sellers.

Want to learn more? Karon also contributed another excellent guest post where she discussed the 3 most common (and wasteful) mistakes sellers make with their Amazon listings. 

Karon will be checking in here periodically, so if you have any questions or comments for her, please make sure to add them below.

Filed Under: Advanced, Guest Post, Ideas, Product Listing, Resources

Stephen Smotherman

About Stephen Smotherman

Stephen loves helping people turn part-time hours into a full-time income via Amazon FBA. When not reselling or blogging, Stephen enjoys reading with his wife Rebecca, playing games with his kids, serving at his church, and watching baseball.

Comments

  1. Sher Bailey says

    October 15, 2014 at 1:13 pm

    Love it! Keywords and so important, and she’s done such a phenomenal job of cutting through the murky Amazon SEO waters. Thanks so much.

    Reply
    • Stephen SmothermanStephen says

      December 13, 2014 at 4:31 pm

      Glad to help! And I know your site (www.seekbuysell.com) has some great key word ideas too.

      Reply
  2. Boris C. says

    October 18, 2014 at 8:36 am

    Thanks Karon.

    Can you advice what to do in a situation when you bundle 3 products of different brands or/and if those products have trademarked features that I want to include either in title or keyword fields? Would this case be exception to your fact #5 about avoiding putting irrelevant search terms?

    Thanks

    Reply
  3. Karon Thackston says

    October 19, 2014 at 7:04 am

    Thanks Sher! Boris, brand names of products that make up a bundle are not irrelevant. They are relevant because they are the items you are selling. If you were selling 3 varieties of Kellogg’s cereal in a bungle and were including Post and General Mills as keywords in your keyword fields (or your title, since it counts as a keyword field) then that would be irrelevant.

    Reply
  4. Ignacio says

    June 22, 2017 at 6:01 pm

    Hi,

    I have a Action figure (toy) in Amazon but they are not approving it for export? does someone knows why or how i can get this fixed?

    Reply
    • Stephen SmothermanStephen says

      June 24, 2017 at 2:36 pm

      Open up a ticket with Amazon and see if they can help. Not all items are eligible for global export, so they will be the best to answer your question.

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

​Enter your name and email to receive your free copy of Seller Central Tips: Reimbursements, refunds, and how to correct other possible Amazon glitches.

​We respect your email privacy.

Connect With Us!

Twitter Updates

Follow @FullTimeFBA

Recent Posts

  • The #1 Way to Ruin Your Q4 Sales on Amazon
  • Restricted Again? Why Your Approved Brands Become Re-Restricted on Amazon & How to Get Re-Approved
  • Top 7 Things NOT to Do During Q4 as an Amazon FBA Seller
  • Online Arbitrage Tips for Black Friday
  • Top 6 Tips for Amazon FBA Sourcing in November

Smarter Sourcing

Board Game Profits

Archives

Navigation

  • Home
  • Blog
  • About
  • Sales Numbers
  • Resources
  • Videos
  • Podcast
  • Our Trainings

Our Trainings

  • JumpStart Amazon (beginner course)
  • Next Level Amazon (advanced course)
  • The Reseller’s Guide to A Year in FBA
  • The Reseller’s Guide to Keepa
  • The Reseller’s Guide to Sales Rank
  • The Reseller’s Guide to Selling Shoes
  • The Reseller’s Guide to Board Games
  • The Reseller’s Guide to Road Trip Arbitrage
  • Married to Reselling
  • The Reseller’s Guide to Black Friday

Disclaimer

At times we might use affiliate links for services or products we endorse. If you click through and purchase one of these items, I will make a small commission on the sale, but your price will not be any higher. I only post these links when I firmly believe they will help you and your business, and I do not endorse products or services that I haven’t personally used and found to benefit my business.


Copyright © 2019 Full Time FBA | All Rights Reserved | Privacy Policy | Designed By Digital Business Managers

    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Twitter
    • YouTube
  • Get weekly tips and tricks on how to succeed as an Amazon seller - Subscribe for FREE today.
    Subscribe

    Get weekly success tips on how to succeed as an Amazon seller - Subscribe for FREE today.

    Your Privacy is protected.

    x