Creating Winning Optimised Amazon Product Listings
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It is unlikely you will be the only one on Amazon selling your type of product so you need to create a winning listing which attracts potential customers to click on it and buy it. Even if you have a great product but a poor listing your customers will likely click on your competitors instead, which is not what you want.
Creating a product listing initially seems easy but how do you really make your listing stand out from the crowd? In this article, we will detail the main elements of a product listing and what it takes to create a winning one that converts into sales.
Components of a Product Listing
When you create a product listing on Amazon there are 4 main components which you need to think about which include:
- Product title.
- Product images.
- Product features.
- Product description.
Let’s cover each listing component one by one.
Product Images
The main product image will be one of the key features that will make your customers click on your product listing aside from the product title. You may be selling your product competitively. However you can be pretty confident that customers will first look at your photo. It is therefore important that your main product image grabs your customer’s attention in order to generate high visitor conversion rates.
The main product image needs to have a white background. If you have an image processing tool such as Photoshop, Illustrator or any other suitable tool you can do this yourself. You can however always employ a freelance to remove the background for you cheaply as well. Fiverr is a great site to find someone to do this if you’re on a budget.
For your photos to be accepted by Amazon, they must have a minimum image size of 1000 x 500 pixels although you should aim for at least 1000 x 1000 pixels so potential buyers can use the zoom feature to inspect your product more closely. Amazon also advises that your product must fill at least 85% of the image area. You can always crop your image so that it fills most of the image area.
The recommended file format accepted includes Tiff, Gif and Jpeg (preferred).
Amazon allows you to upload up to 9 photos, we would definitely recommend that you upload as many photos as possible.
For your secondary photos you can include such things as:
- Photos from different angles (top, side, close-up).
- Charts showing how your product compares against other products.
- Include lifestyle photos of your product being used.
- Include photos of the product packaging.
- If possible try to convey the product’s main benefits in the photographs.
Product Title
The product title is one of the other key elements that your potential customer will see before they click on your actual listing. Amazon allows product titles to be up to 250 characters in length.
We would recommend that you keep your title clear but concise, you don’t want to have a long paragraph. If it’s too long, a customer may have difficulty trying to figure out what you’re actually selling.
Try to include some essential keywords relating to your product but don’t include all potential keywords.
So, how do you work out what keywords your customer may type into the search bar for your product?
Well, there’s a number of ways, one of which is to use MerchantWords. MerchantWords is a great tool and a powerful one as it collects the search terms used by Amazon shoppers from Europe, North America, Australia and Asia. For example, you enter the product name into MerchantWords and it will list search term variations and it will also list the total monthly search estimate for that particular term. You can also filter by different Amazon categories and you can download the results to a CSV file so you can analyse the results later.
Another way to find keywords is to use Amazon. Start typing your product into the search box and Amazon will autosuggest some terms relating to your search. You can use this to come up with new keywords to use in your product title.
Check your competitor titles also, see what titles they are using. Try to come up with better titles than your competitors and also include some key advantages over your competitor’s products.
Product Features
This is the section where you can list the main features and benefits of your product. Amazon allows you to enter up to 5 bullet points in your listing. Each bullet point can contain up to 250 words. Like the product title we recommend that you keep each bullet points clear and concise, only include the most important facts and try to keep it to under 100 words.
Apart from including the obvious such as product specifications like sizing, dimensions, colours etc include information such as guarantees or warranties that you may offer.
Before sourcing your product you probably would have checked your competitor’s listings and read through their reviews. You would have seen what their customers like about their product and most importantly what they didn’t like. Using these details you would have then tried to improve the product so include these benefits in your bullet points.
For each bullet point, try to include at least one keyword relating to your product.
Many customers may not even read the product features section properly, they may just skim over it quickly. You therefore must make each bullet point stand out. In order to this, you can capitalise the first few words of each bullet point like so:
EASY TO CLEAN: To clean, run brushes under warm water, washing out the paint and gently use your fingers to reshape.
This allows your potential buyer to quickly see the main benefits of your product and if they want to find out more information they can read the full details.
Product Description
You may think the product description is the least important section of your listing but you will be wrong. Users who view Amazon through their smartphone will actually see the product description first before the product feature section so don’t neglect this.
Amazon allows up to 2000 characters in this section so you can be as detailed as possible here. Don’t just repeat what you have mentioned in the bullet points that appear in the features section but try to answer any questions that your buyer may have and elaborate on the benefits and mention why you think your product is better than your competitors.
Try to break up your text so it’s not in one block and when possible use keywords as well. Amazon allows you to use basic HTML to format your text so use it to make your product description stand out.
Here’s some sample HTML which you can use:
To make your key benefits stand out make them appear in bold by use: <b>Your Text<b>.
To add bullet points to your description, add the following:
<ul>
<li>First Bullet Point</li>
<li>Second Bullet point</li>
</ul>
To add a new line to your text use: <br>
To add a new paragraph use: <p>Paragraph Text</p>
In the product description you may also want to create a FAQ section which answers some common questions your customer may have. You want to be as helpful as possible, if your customer is reading the description they are looking for more detailed information so make it as easy for them so that they click on the buy button and not on someone else’s.
Hidden Keywords
So far we have covered the components of a listing which are visible to your customers. However there other back-end components which are not visible but can be optimised as well.
One of which is hidden keywords, these are keywords which relate to your product but they won’t appear in your products title or description. It is important that you add these as it provides additional information about your product listing especially as you want your product showing up for as many related keyword combinations as possible which should result in more traffic and greater sales.
In order to get to the ‘Keywords’ section, follow these steps:
- Once you’ve logged into Seller Central click on the ‘Inventory’ tab.
- Locate your active product listing and on the far right side click on the ‘Edit’ button.
- Click on the ‘Keywords’ tab.
- Then enter your relevant keyword terms into the ‘Search Terms’ textbox.
- Once you have entered the relevant search terms click on the ‘Save and Finish’ button.
If you have used MerchantWords you should have a long list of keywords relating to your product which you can use. The aim is not to add the same keywords that you used in your product description, title and bullet points but use new keywords that you couldn’t fit there. Use different keyword variations, include misspellings of your product, add abbreviations, add synonyms etc.
You need to be careful with the number of keywords you enter as Amazon imposes a character limit. For Europe and US marketplaces, the character limit is 250. While for Japan it is 500 and for India it’s 200 characters.
Here are some suggestions when entering your hidden keywords:
- Separate the keywords you enter by a space, commas are ignored and there’s no need to use punctuation or speech marks
- Don’t enter your keyword multiple times
- There is no need to enter both plural and singular terms for your keywords as these will be included automatically. This is the same case for upper and lower-case keywords, they are treated the same so don’t include the word twice.
- Don’t include irrelevant or misleading keywords which don’t relate to your product even if you think they are popular keywords
- Don’t include your brand name, this should be included in your title, description or features section. As well as brand names, don’t include ASINs, UPC codes.
- Don’t include your competitors brand name hoping you may tempt buyers to your listing instead as you could get penalised by Amazon for doing this.
- When you use hyphenated keywords, Amazon will use all possible combinations. For example, “make-up” covers “make up” “make” “up” “makeup” and “make-up”.
- Don’t include subjective words like “fantastic”, “best product” etc
- Don’t use time dependant words like “limited time offer”, “on offer”, “sale”, “last few remaining” etc
Enhanced Brand Content
Enhanced brand content (EBC) is another great way for your product listing to stand out from your competitors. EBC allows brand registered owners to use visually rich content for their product descriptions including enhanced images, videos and it allows you to use multiple layouts far better than a regular product description where you only enter text and use basic formatting.
Using EBC should boost your traffic and therefore improve your conversion rates and sales. In order to use EBC your product needs to be registered in the Amazon’s Brand Registry.
In order to apply your product for brand registry, you first need to ensure that you have a registered trademark.
When you apply to be accepted for brand registry, Amazon will require the following details to be considered for approval:
- A link to your website which displays your product and brand.
- An image showing your branding on your product’s packaging.
- An image of your product showing your brand on it.
Here’s an example, the first one show a regular product description while the one is an enhanced brand content description. You can certainly the difference as enhanced brand content description certainly stands out over a boring regular product description.
Regular Product Description:
Enhanced Brand Content Description: