Amazon Marketplace: the Ultimate Guide to Creating Optimised Content that Boosts Your Sales

Amazon's online marketplace has swiftly become an indispensable place to market everything from herbal medications to independent fashion boutiques. 

In theory, the site provides instant global reach -- even for relatively small companies. But, as any Amazon veterans will confirm, competing for attention is no picnic.

Because of this, managing Amazon content has become a crucial challenge for businesses across the world, and plenty of companies struggle to make the impact they desire on the eCommerce platform.

At greatcontent, we're ready to help out any companies with Amazon marketing headaches. And to get you started, we've put together a quick guide to Amazon listing optimisation.

What is Amazon listing optimisation?

The quality of an Amazon product description matters a great deal when customers are choosing what to buy -- a truth that people often lose sight of, especially when you are managing thousands of listings.

When we talk about optimising Amazon listings, this is generally what we mean. The technique aims to make each and every product description as informative, accurate, and enticing as possible, while staying in tune with your branding strategy.

Additionally, optimised listings feature keywords that fit into Amazon's search algorithms, helping to ensure a high search ranking.

Does that sound hard to achieve? Although very 'doable', optimising your Amazon content does require some expertise. Here are some core things to think about when selling on Amazon.

How to optimise your Amazon listings

1. Ensure that listings are as accessible as possible

First off, your product or category descriptions need to be harmonised with the way customers surf Amazon's platform. Customers are not likely to spend much time on each individual Amazon product description. Instead, they linger for very little time, skipping between listings until something catches their eye.

That's why your content needs to be digestible at a single glance. Using bullet lists, clear language, and illustrative images should help the customer to get the idea within 5-10 seconds. No longer.

2. Optimise every listing for relevant keywords

Keywords are a vital part of creating solid Amazon product pages. Fortunately, finding relevant terms isn't difficult. Web-based searches like Keywordtool.io or Sonar provide simple interfaces and deliver clusters of relevant words.

Make sure at least one of the top keywords is included in your product title, and add 4-5 terms to the "backend keywords" section of the listing. This is the core field that Amazon's algorithm references, so including high-value keywords is essential to getting more from Amazon searches.

Other than that, only include keywords when they enhance the text; don't stuff descriptions with them. Keyword stuffing can hinder the effectiveness of your Amazon product descriptions.

3. Get your title right every time

Next, you'll need to pay attention to the first thing most users see: your product title. There's an art to creating effective Amazon titles, but it can essentially be boiled down to a few principles.

Start by describing the core function of the product, then add any other properties that are relevant. But remember, you can't exceed 200 characters, so stay concise.

Include a couple of keywords where possible, but try to ensure coherent sentence structures. The title must read as a connected series of pieces of information, not a verbal mess.

Second, check you've added as much information as possible, without compromising the quality. Add multiple descriptors (such as lengths, sizes, weights, colours) and connect them via dashes (-) or connecting words.

Finally, make sure the title connects directly to your main image. This correlation is crucial to the customer establishing what the product is quickly, and it's important for presenting you as a trustworthy seller.

4. Write persuasive, readable product descriptions

Our final tip is fundamental. When the aim of a product listing is to achieve a conversion (which, in almost all cases, it will be), customers need to be persuaded. Our other tips have helped to attract attention. Now we need to 'bring it home'.

This is where fluent, relevant, information-rich writing is invaluable. Include the USP of each product as well as all of its key properties, and focus attention on how the product will serve the reader.

But don't be long-winded. Keep descriptions tight!

If you're still unsure, seek Amazon Marketplace (and SEO) support...

None of this is easy for companies with little Amazon experience or who lack in-house copywriting resources. But solutions are available. For example, greatcontent's content marketplace lets you source large quantities of well-written, brand-specific descriptions with ease. And our managed services also offer you the chance to produce Amazon-optimised or SEO texts at scale with the help of our in-house content experts and professional freelance writer pool.

Be sure to get in touch if you are facing an Amazon marketing challenge. Our team will be happy to help.

Text: Sam Urquhart
Image: unsplash.com?