How to Optimize Your Amazon Product Listing (and Why You Should)

When it comes to selling on Amazon, the devil is in the details. You might have a solid product, a competitive price, and even a great PPC strategy, but if you haven’t covered your bases with optimizing product listings, you’re not likely to convert consumers to sales.  

Optimizing product listings, as well as your product detail page is an often overlooked, simple strategy for improving organic rankings, conversion rates, and PPC efficiency, all of which can lead to higher profits, better reviews, and a more sustainable consumer base. Here are three key moves for making the most out of your listing. 

1. Pick the “Right” Title 

Your product title holds the majority weight in determining relevance for each Amazon shopper search. Leveraging resources for search engine optimization (SEO) will prove invaluable in the long run, as whatever you write should be based on well-researched keywords that will appeal to the value and relevance of your product. 

However, be careful not to overload your title to the point that it doesn’t make sense by the time an actual human reads it. Leaning into Amazon’s algorithm will definitely increase your visibility, but a jumbled product title will fall short of impacting your conversion rates. 

It’s also important to be mindful of the length of your title. You cannot exceed 200 characters, but utilizing at least 150 characters is optimal. This is the sweet spot for keyword indexing. 

2. Describe Your Product Strategically 

Your product description and bullet points should also be tailored around your keyword research. If you’re familiar with SEO and the importance of content hierarchy, you might think of the product title as your H1 header, and each bullet point as an H2. These points (aka subheaders) strengthen your relevance from an Amazon algorithm perspective, but they are also a chance for you to add value propositions that will help you with optimizing product listings and stand out from competitors.  

We recommend including 5 bullet points for maximum impact and cross-referencing your mobile view to be sure they appear just as concise for Amazon’s majority on-the-go consumer base.  

The section below your bullet points (your product description or body content) is where you’ll want to spend time developing engaging A+ Content that includes branded imagery, dynamic text, and other multimedia elements. If you’re not familiar with A+ Content, it is enhanced messaging that registered brands can take advantage of to customize their product listings and seller profiles.   

Because your baseline product images must be relatively simple, A+ Content is your chance to get creative with visual storytelling, flesh out the narrative appeal of your product, and cross-promote your catalog. Your keywords will register in this section of your listing as well, so utilize the extra space to zero in on your niche. 

If A+ Content doesn’t appear as a feature on your Seller Central account, it’s likely because you haven’t yet registered your brand with Amazon. Doing so is simple, free, and well worth the added features it unlocks. Learn about Amazon Brand Registry here.

3. Don’t Neglect Your Images 

Consumers will typically only spend a moment or two determining whether to click on a listing, and the quickest way to grab someone’s attention is with a high-quality image. Investing in professional photography to capture and clearly illustrate the quality of your product is a small price to pay for sustaining an impact on lead conversion.  

While you can add up to nine photos per listing, only seven will be immediately visible to Amazon shoppers. There’s no logistical reason you would need to max out the full nine photos, but you should be sure to post a minimum of seven, including at least one video file (e.g.: six photos, one or two videos). Videos provide a more dynamic view and ultimately help consumers envision their use of your product.  

For your still images, be sure the product is displayed against a pure white background, assumes at least 85% of the image space, and is a minimum of 1000 pixels on the smallest side (ideally 2000 x 2000 pixels overall).  

The format of the video is a little more flexible, but you should be mindful of maintaining presentational consistency across the board. If your images represent the product in a way that differs from your videos, this may raise red flags to potential customers: another case for investing in professional photography. 

To help you make that investment amongst others—search engine optimization, PPC advertising, etc.—Yardline offers flexible-use, non-dilutive capital and a team of on-call ecommerce experts to provide more strategies for growing your Amazon business.

Begin your three–minute funding application here and scale up with Yardline.