Have you listed your products on Amazon and are not getting the sales results you anticipated?
Your business is not alone.
This article provides tips and ideas for your Amazon listing in Australia to increase your search ranking and grow sales on Amazon. Topics covered include Listing Images, Product Name, Key Product Features, Product Description and Product Keyword Optimization. Increase your ranking and sales conversions on Amazon Australia.
Images
“A picture is worth a thousand words”.
Unlike with traditional retail channels, customers cannot touch and feel the product they are about to buy so images play a very important role in helping a potential customer through their acquisition process.
As images are crucial to success getting these done professionally is usually worth the investment in long term sales conversion. The perception of quality can also allow your product to sustain a higher price in a competitive niche.
Amazon has specific requirements for images which can be viewed via the link at the end of this post. The requirements are split into two categories:
Main Image - must have a pure white background and show the actual product only
Other images - These can include graphics, props, mockups, illustrations (ensure that images are not misleading as this can result in negative reviews).
While different categories have their own requirements generally Amazon allows between 7- 9 images. You should use ALL images available as this is a key asset on your listing.
Not sure what you should show?
Here are some ideas of the images you can consider:
Main image (Required)
Lifestyle image showing the product being used by your target customers
Technical specifications
Infographics
Before and After Images
Benefits of Using The Product
Customer Testimonials
Highlight Specific Features
Instruction on how to use
Special Offers
Detailed Image Listing Requirements can be found via the following link: https://sellercentral.amazon.com.au/gp/help/G1881
Product Name
At the simplest level, Amazon is a search engine. The product description is your first opportunity to provide Amazon with keywords to help your product be indexed and found by customers on the platform.
With a 200 character limit, there is enough space to carefully craft a listing that includes keywords and ensures readability for a potential customer.
Your product description should match the image and vice versa.
Key Points:
Listing should include keywords
Simple language should be used to ensure readability
Listing should be a fair reflection of the product being sold
Use the characters available
The effectiveness on ranking appears to diminish so ensure your primary keywords are near the front of your listing however simply filling a listing with keywords may help your listing in the search however if it doesn’t convert into sales you will find that your ranking will quickly drop.
Keywords Research
Understanding the search terms a potential customer will use to find your product is a critical element of any good product listing and an important part of your Amazon keyword optimization strategy.
A well researched primary search term for your product will allow your product to be found by the greatest number of customers searching for the product while the relevance of the search term to the product remains important to achieve sales conversion.
Your keyword research will also inform secondary keywords for inclusion in Product Description, Key Product Features, Product Title and Sections of your listing.
We recommend remaining very focused on specific keywords as going too broad may result in missing out on all. Remember the old adage
“Man who chases two rabbits catches none”.
Search terms used by customers can often differ from what the seller might expect and listing should be refined as evidence emerges.
As an example, consider the following product image and think of a search term you would use to find this product:
All the following search terms returned this product on Page 1 of Amazon.com
table set toy boy
tanks toys for toddler boys
toy trains for 2 year olds
wooden toys toddler boy
magnets toys for kids wooden
Key Product Features
This section provides your listing with 5 text boxes of 500 characters each to describe your product. It is the primary tool to help sell your product. However, copy needs to include relevant keywords to help your search rankings. Use all 5 text boxes.
Consider including the following in your bullet points:
Product Benefits Features
What makes your product different
Any warranty/guarantee
We recommend you start each text box with a heading in capitals to help highlight the feature/benefit and break up the text block for your customer.
The examples below highlight the benefit of using capitals to help make the key benefits stand out:
Example 1
Great for a backyard adventure: With a door and clear window, it's great for encouraging fun play and creativity. No doubt they will become little shop keepers in no time.
Quick and easy to assemble. Sets up in seconds. Just put it up and insert support poles for additional stability. The poles are inserted from underneath into sleeves. Folds away compact for easy storage.
Example 2
GREAT FOR A BACKYARD ADVENTURE. With a door and clear window, it's great for encouraging fun play and creativity. No doubt they will become little shop keepers in no time.
QUICK AND EASY TO ASSEMBLE. Sets up in seconds. Just put it up and insert support poles for additional stability. The poles are inserted from underneath into sleeves. Folds away compact for easy storage.
Product Description
This section allows for 2000 characters.
Note that only the 1st 200 words show up on mobile so these should focus on the key sales messages with the balance of the text having a greater weighting towards keywords.
The product description has the dual purpose of helping conversion and search ranking by including keywords throughout the text.
Update in 2021 - HTML is no longer allowed in product descriptions, the product description should now have an increased focus on keywords.
Reviews
“The proof of the pudding is in the eating."
You can only judge the quality of something after you have tried, used, or experienced it.
Reviews form a key component of any listing and provide the social proof for potential purchasers. Your customer is relying on other customers to validate their purchase.
Caution! Negative reviews early on in the product listing can destroy a listing as product will never get off the ground!
All sellers need to develop strategies to ensure they build positive reviews for their product on Amazon.
Key to maintaining your positive review ratings are having:
a quality product
providing good customer service (both responding to customer concern and ensure timely delivery of products (if using FBM)
ensuring that listing images and text don’t offer false promises to your customers
We generally consider that between 5 - 10 reviews are the minimum to establish any social proof. The early reviewer program offered by Amazon is suggestive (as it provides a way of getting 5 reviews). Not currently available in the Australian market.
Note that review requirements will depend on the category and market place. More reviews may be required in some highly competitive categories while less may be required in less competitive market places or categories.
Culture and/or eCommerce adoption rates in market places appear to have an impact on reviews both in star ratings and willingness of customers to provide reviews.
For example, US Customers appear more willing to provide reviews while in India 3 Star reviews are the norm. Obtaining reviews in Australia is fairly challenging compared to the USA.
Aside from the overall number of reviews, the average rating is important for your listing as customers may not click on the listing to if the average is below 4 or if there are competitor offers with both better average ratings and number of reviews. (Comes back to social proof).
Logically it would be more difficult to manipulate 100’s positive reviews compared to single-digit reviews which also drives customer behaviour.
There are various nefarious ways that some sellers use to obtain reviews. If Amazon detects such activity they will either remove the reviews or worse suspend your account. A further crackdown on reviews can be expected following a recent successful case brought by the FTC in the US against a seller who was systematically acquiring fake reviews.
Any review strategy needs to be well considered and thought out with some level of expert guidance recommended to avoid common pitfalls.
Behind the Scenes
Your Product Listing Page has a section on keywords that are split across several attributes.
Search Terms
In order for customers to find your products on Amazon, it’s important to provide Search Terms they might use when searching for what they want to buy.
Amazon limits the length of the Search Terms attribute to less than 250 bytes. Important if you exceed 249 bytes all your search terms will be ignored.
You should use synonyms, alternate names and abbreviations informed by your identification of search terms.
Keywords can be included all in lower case separated by a space.
Other Attributes
Other fields on the Keyword section vary by category and should be completed where relevant. Amazon is phasing out some of these. For example, platinum keywords are now redundant.
For the majority of these fields, there are text limits. Rather than ignoring the field if the text limit is exceeded, Amazon will truncate the listing at the maximum character count.
About Us
Clover Global Pty Ltd is an Australian based consulting agency that is primarily focused on helping established Australian small and medium-sized businesses be successful on Amazon. We are Amazon sellers ourselves!
Our services include expert advice on set-up, listing and growing sales on Amazon marketplaces.
Find out more about our Amazon Consulting Services or Get In Touch with us today to see how we can work together to successfully launch your products on Amazon.