[{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BlogPosting","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2017\/10\/05\/amazon-search-engine-optimization\/#BlogPosting","mainEntityOfPage":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2017\/10\/05\/amazon-search-engine-optimization\/","headline":"Product search engines: It’s a jungle out there – are you prepared?","name":"Product search engines: It’s a jungle out there – are you prepared?","description":"How you can get to the top of Amazon\u2019s results and stay relevant on the #1 place buyers are looking for products.","datePublished":"2017-10-05","dateModified":"2020-11-17","author":{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/contributor\/brian-beck\/#Person","name":"Brian Beck","url":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/contributor\/brian-beck\/","identifier":182,"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/97f46accbfe54d4ef9f1b1097ccd4a541d14f04f611b69e9501cfadc889bb580?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/97f46accbfe54d4ef9f1b1097ccd4a541d14f04f611b69e9501cfadc889bb580?s=96&d=mm&r=g","height":96,"width":96}},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"The Future of Commerce","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/logo-foc-schema-app-1.png","url":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/logo-foc-schema-app-1.png","width":172,"height":60}},"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/thumbnail-e22225ced797ef9a1c505969832de260.jpeg","url":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/thumbnail-e22225ced797ef9a1c505969832de260.jpeg","height":375,"width":1200},"url":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2017\/10\/05\/amazon-search-engine-optimization\/","about":[{"@type":"Thing","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/commerce\/b2b\/","name":"B2B Commerce","sameAs":["https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/B2B_e-commerce"]},{"@type":"Thing","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/commerce\/","name":"Commerce","sameAs":["https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Commerce","http:\/\/www.wikidata.org\/entity\/Q26643"]},"Commerce Platforms + Software",{"@type":"Thing","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/commerce\/omnichannel-commerce\/","name":"Omnichannel Commerce","sameAs":["https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Omnichannel"]},"Retail Trends, Data, News",{"@type":"Thing","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/marketing\/seo\/","name":"SEO","sameAs":["https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Search_engine_optimization","http:\/\/www.wikidata.org\/entity\/Q180711"]}],"wordCount":1578,"keywords":["Amazon","B2B","B2B E-commerce","B2C","Customer Experience | CX","Ecommerce","Marketing","Omnichannel","Sales","SAP Hybris","Search"],"articleBody":"Once upon a time, in the middle of the first decade of the 2000’s, Google was the home of ALL search (well, the vast majority of it). It didn\u2019t matter if you were looking for a new pair of shoes, your favorite band\u2019s song lyrics, or an academic paper on Botswana\u2019s economic system. Google was the place to go. It still is today, for the most part; Google has captured more than 80% global market share of search.However, as of early 2017, Amazon has become the top place consumers go on the Internet to search for products. In a Raymond James\u00a0study\u00a0published in early 2017, 52% of people said that Amazon is now their first choice for product searches. A 2016\u00a0BloomReach study\u00a0found that the percentage of people who start online searches for product on Amazon is even higher – at 55% – while Google\u2019s share of product search has dropped to about 28%.\u00a0This continues a more than three-year growth trend for Amazon, suggesting that their share of product searches will continue to grow.Places have been tradedIt is now clear: Amazon has traded places with Google as the preferred search engine for products.This only means one thing for companies across the B2C and B2B spectrum – retailers, brands, manufacturers, and distributors: Not being listed on Amazon creates risk of obscurity and irrelevance for your company. The rate of return on \u201ctraditional\u201d internet marketing methods for products\u2014using search engine optimization and paid search tactics to drive traffic to products on a branded website experience\u2014is decaying. Yes, branded product websites remain relevant and can still provide a powerful customer experience. However, they are simply not the engine for product discovery they once were.Many online sellers, however, have not yet fully realized this trend.\u00a0Most continue to allocate the majority of digital marketing budgets to \u2018traditional\u2019 search engine marketing and related digital advertising channels.\u00a0This fact creates first mover advantages for companies that shift advertising budgets to where buyers are looking – which is increasingly on Amazon.Adding to the appeal of Amazon, it turns out that Amazon converts buyers at a far superior rate than the average ecommerce website. According to a recent\u00a0study\u00a0by website traffic measurement firm Millward Brown Digital, the average conversion rate for Top 500 ecommerce merchants is 3.32%. Amazon, however, converts at 13% for non-Prime customers and an astonishing 74% for Prime customers. While these numbers are impressive, they shouldn\u2019t be a shock: the buying intent of visitors to Amazon.com is extremely high.Getting visibilitySo how can a merchant succeed on Amazon? Luckily, Amazon\u2019s marketing tools for sellers work similarly to other online tools (not yet to the level of Google\u2019s advertising tools, but getting there!)Following are four tips to ensure your business succeeds on Amazon. It is important to note that some these require a significant use of resources and advertising investment, but let\u2019s be honest: Won\u2019t it be worth it if you can capture new customers and convert at four times the rate of your website?1) Invest in building a foundation of great product dataMany digital marketing managers have invested a lot of time, energy and budget into developing robust product data for their websites. The good news is that a lot of this data is extremely relevant to Amazon\u2019s system. Amazon is a data-driven company, and products with better quality data will perform better. Unfortunately, too many product listings don\u2019t go far enough, only including a basic product photo, title and description. That simply isn\u2019t sufficient.Each product listed on Amazon needs to have a strong, very descriptive title which incorporates product benefits, an extremely detailed product description, technical product data like size, weight, and other details, 5-7 images, and ideally at least one video. This means having staff with excellent product knowledge, who can produce high-quality videos and photos. Over many years in ecommerce, I\u2019ve learned that great images sell products online \u2013 and this holds true on Amazon as well.\u00a0The bonus here is that you can leverage all of these assets across other selling channels. Amazon calls these great product listings \u2018A+ Pages\u2019, and you should aim for nothing less for your listings.2) Spend resources on customer engagementYou might think Amazon is simply an ecommerce website; it isn\u2019t. It is a consumer engagement platform. And the more engaged you are in the selling and optimization process, the higher your products are going to rank in Amazon\u2019s search. This means:a)\u00a0Encouraging positive product reviews: Amazon weighs the number and ranking of product reviews very heavily. Anything you can do to encourage satisfied customers to write a review will help your overall rankings and visibility. Tools exist in the marketplace to assist with generating reviews on your products, including Amazon\u2019s \u2018Early Reviewer Program\u2019, which enables sellers to generate more review content, more quickly.b)\u00a0Rapidly responding to all feedback: The quality and speed of your responses is extremely important, as it impacts your seller rating, which in turn impacts visibility. Amazon sets a high bar here for response time from sellers, and you need to comply in order to achieve and retain good rankings.c)\u00a0Monitoring competitors and testing content: See how your pages compare to your competitors and test micro-adjustments to the title and description to increase conversions. Don\u2019t be afraid to use superlatives in your titles (within Amazon\u2019s guidelines). Price monitoring is also important, particularly for manufacturers and brands who are looking to ensure resellers are not eroding selling prices on Amazon (including Amazon itself).d)\u00a0Develop a brand page: Amazon gives brands the opportunity to build branded pages on their platform, to create a brand-appropriate experience within the marketplace. The payoff here should be obvious, and the more volume you do in sales, the more benefits you get from Amazon (if you get big enough, you may even qualify for Strategic Seller status). For examples of good brand pages,\u00a0check out GE Lighting, or this B2B page for\u00a0Fluke Multimeters.3) Take advantage of the marketing tools Amazon offersAmazon offers several paid tools that can boost product visibility. These tools are critical to drive visibility for your products amidst the millions of listings on Amazon, and can help new sellers get started on the platform. These marketing tools include:a)\u00a0Sponsored products\u00a0(paid search) where you can buy keywords like you do with Google AdWords. This drives more visibility for your products, helping them garner more reviews, which ultimately improves organic visibility. Additionally, Amazon offers analytics to help users understand and manage ad spend for better ROI.b)\u00a0Headline search ads\u00a0(banner ads) are also based on keywords, showcasing several products in a single ad at the top of search results and category pages.\u00a0Headline ads also give you the ability to create targeted landing pages on Amazon, which improves their effectiveness.c)\u00a0Product display ads\u00a0are closer to the point of purchase, displaying on Amazon\u2019s product pages. Here marketing dollars can be more effective because they are typically more targeted and there is higher buying intent. Note, however, that Product Display Ads can only be used by certain types of sellers on Amazon (specifically, Vendor Central sellers).d)\u00a0Retargeting\u00a0\u2014Amazon is rumored to soon be offering the capability to drive traffic back to your Amazon store or even to your own site by using display ads served across the web. Keep your eyes peeled for news of this new tool.With any of these tools, it is critical to have a well-organized strategy and experienced resources executing for you (as you would for a traditional Google search engine marketing program). The good news here is that higher Return on Ad Spend levels are still available to sellers on Amazon, even for non-brand specific terms (similar to Google from 10 years ago).4)\u00a0Make sure your fulfillment is on-point: \u00a0Several options exist for marketplace sellers for fulfillment on Amazon, including merchant fulfilled (where you ship directly to the buyer) and Fulfilled by Amazon (or \u2018FBA\u2019, where you ship in bulk to Amazon, they store your product, and then ship individual orders on your behalf).There are two reasons why you need to make your fulfillment system works flawlessly.\u00a0First, you are more likely to get good product and company reviews when your shipments arrive on time and the contents are accurate. Second, being visible to Amazon Prime members increases the likelihood that your products will be found and purchased.For your products to be eligible for Prime, you either have to sell products directly to Amazon (not necessarily optimal, as you will lose margin, and you can\u2019t control pricing or product presentation), or you can leverage Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA). As mentioned above, Prime members convert at a 74% rate, and are expected to number almost 70 million people in 2017, making this group a market segment you don\u2019t want to miss capturing.Sellers have much to gain from developing and boosting their presence on Amazon. It is the #1 place buyers are searching online for products.Ignoring the giant in the room will put your business at risk.\u00a0Even if you view Amazon as a competitor, you need an Amazon strategy.\u00a0This could include selling on Amazon in the near term, in order to capitalize on the volume to be found on the marketplace.This post was originally published by Brian on LinkedIn, and has been republished with permission."},{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"2017","item":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2017\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"10","item":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2017\/\/10\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"05","item":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2017\/\/10\/\/05\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":4,"name":"Product search engines: It’s a jungle out there – are you prepared?","item":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2017\/10\/05\/amazon-search-engine-optimization\/#breadcrumbitem"}]}]