10 Amazon Algorithm Hacks to Accelerate eCommerce Marketing

Amazon's algorithm cares about relevance, conversions, and customer experience. Here's how to boost your eCommerce marketing to get Amazon pages right.

Even before the coronavirus outbreak, TechCrunch announced that Amazon had already taken over about half of the entire eCommerce market. During the outbreak, eCommerce spiked. Larger and recognizable online brands gained the lion's share of that boom, so it's easy to imagine that Amazon has retained or even increased its position as a market leader.

If, like so many others, you've decided that joining Amazon is a lot easier than trying to beat them, make sure you employ the best tactics to gain as much visibility and as many sales as possible. Begin by understanding how the algorithm works and the Amazon marketing hacks you can use to benefit from that knowledge.

Ten Amazon marketing hacks to help ensure your products gain exposure

Actually, Amazon only has three core ranking factors. They based these upon their intimate knowledge of what it takes to sell well on their platform. Improving these will help you gain more visibility and earn higher revenues:

• Conversion rates: Higher total sales and higher sales per visit can help win favor from the Amazon algorithm. Of course, more sales and profits benefits you as well. 
• Relevancy: Amazon needs to see product pages as relevant to searches and also-bought and also-viewed suggestion boxes. People who want what you're offering will be able to find you, further increasing your chance of making sales.
• Retention and customer experience: Having repeat customers, a good number of mostly favorable reviews, and a low defect rate can help you find favor with Amazon's ranking scheme. They're signs that you're satisfying first-time buyers well enough to turn them into loyal customers.

Of course, most businesses set eCommerce marketing goals that will help them attract and retain customers. To use Amazon marketing services to meet these goals, consider these ten tested tips:

1. Optimize product listings: Clear images, engaging, informative text, and a completed product page can keep customers on the page longer. They're more likely to consider you credible enough to buy from. Bounce rate, time spent on page, and of course, sales all factor into the algorithm.
2. Encourage social interactions: Make sure customer questions get answered and try to encourage reviews. You should never pay for reviews, but you're certainly free to ask for them. Having more social interaction also gives you user generated content that can feed Amazon's algorithm and even help you rank well in other search engines.
3. Price right: Amazon makes it incredibly easy for shoppers to compare prices. You need to make certain you're either competing on price or making it clear why some aspect of your product makes it worth more than seemingly similar products that cost less.
4. Craft good titles: Optimize your product title by including search terms and product and brand names. You should strive to maximize both clarity and relevance. Your title needs to encourage buyers to click while also letting the search engine understand the nature of your product.
5. List product features: If you list your product features with bullet points and additional search terms, you'll make it both user- and search-friendly. A list makes it easier for buyers to quickly figure out if your product meets their needs.
6. Fill in the specification section: Amazon provides this section for such important information as size, weight, and color. Completing it provides customers with information in a fairly standardized form that they're used to. It also shows Amazon that you're diligent.
7. Carefully consider categories and subcategories: Some people browse by category and subcategory. By choosing the right ones, you'll have a better chance to get found both by searchers and browsers.
8. Spend time choosing search terms: You can find some research tools that will help you uncover the types of search terms that shoppers may use to find products like yours. Avoid frivolous or subjective terms while including as many potentially relevant terms as possible.
9. Provide excellent customer service: While Amazon cares about sales and conversions, they also care about returning customers. Your attention to quality, prompt shipping, and other aspects of customer service should help you enjoy better reviews, repeat customers, and a better rank.
10. Become an Amazon Prime seller: Amazon Prime members now outnumber non-Prime shoppers on the site. Naturally, they give more exposure to Prime sellers. You need to apply and in some cases, work your way up to getting accepted into the program as a third-party seller. 

Why spend time on your Amazon product listings?

While Amazon has plenty of shoppers, it also attracts fierce competition.  It might seem like you need to spend a lot of time in your product page to get it right. Many sellers invest in an eCommerce marketing agency to help them get started. After all, a well-crafted product page can complement your excellent service and high-quality products to keep producing sales for years in the future. As you work to improve the way that Amazon's algorithm views your pages, you will also improve your chances to sell more products and grow your business.