Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is referred to a process of activities which attempts to boost a website to higher ranking on internet search engine, for example Bing, Google, etc. (Todd 2017, 3) The search engine (Google, Bing, etc) is defined as a set of rules, operated by an algo-rithm, which ensures that people get a relevant result of a product or service based on their searching term.

As an emerge of ecommerce, SEO plays a key role in digital marketing strategy. In fact, a degree of visibility in the digital world is extremely important. An organiza-tion’s digital activities, such as website or promotional program, need to appear in the search results, in order to ensure an awareness of customer regard to the organization.

A website, nowadays, needs to be “optimized” not only for users, but also the “search

engine”. To have an over-view of the search engine, these following chapters will de-scribe a few key parameters that will impact on the website’s visibility on search en-gine.

The SEO techniques apply directly to marketing function of Amazon business. In spe-cific, it helps to improve “listing relevancy” factor, which mentioned in previous chap-ter. Algorithm A9 has a set of rules on its own ranking system. There are mainly 4 influencers that the A9 takes into consideration. Those factors will be listed in the following, respectively to the ascending degree of its influences (1 means most im-portant, 4 means least important) (Website of Retail performance marketing blog 2019):

1. Titles

2. Feature Bullet Points 3. Product Descriptions 4. Backend Search Terms

A common sense regarding search engines is that the engine tends to favor those searching results with relevant keywords and details. Amazon’s algorithm seems to be indifferent. The A9 algorithm prefers listing those products with detailed titles.

Therefore, an optimized title is especially important to Amazon product listing. Due to its significance, a further guidance to optimize a product listing on Amazon will be illustrated in the following parts.

1. Title

There are a few suggestions on how to optimize a product title on Amazon platform.

First and foremost, a list of relevant keywords and terms should be established. For example, if the seller is about to sell “blanket” on Amazon market. The list of key-words, firstly, should contain the word “blanket”. Additionally, some of blanket’s fea-tures should be mentioned, for example its colors, size and so on. However, it is worth to note that spamming keywords or terms on a title is such a bad idea. In fact, it could even harm your ranking due to your obvious manipulation on title.

Secondly, there are a few do’s and don’ts things about title of product:

• Do things:

o Capitalize the first letter of title

o Spell out measure words such as ounce, inch and pound o Numbers should be in numeral forms

o If something is not relevant details, do not list it in the title

• Don’ts things:

o Price and quantity o All caps

o Personal information

o Promotional messages, such as 90% sales off o Suggestive commentary, such as best seller o Symbols (% $)

Subsequently, after the list of optimized keywords established, it’s time to write a com-plete version of the title. Regarding A9 preferences, Amazon algorithm forms a posi-tive correlation between higher relevancy and earlier appeared keywords in the title.

Therefore, few notes should be taken into consideration:

• Firstly, the title should start with its own brand (private brand) and its product name.

• Secondly, the product’s characteristics may include in the following, for exam-ple pattern, model, size, color, etc.

• Make use of special characters, such as & | , .

Altogether, a basic title listing may look similar to this formula:

(Brand name) – (Product name) – (Feature #1) – (Feature #2) – (size, color) – (etc) 2. Feature bullet points

The feature bullet points refer to where the seller describe his/her product’s features in detail. According to A9 algorithm, the feature points are second most influence on search ranking.

Figure 3. Example of feature bullet points (Website of Amazon 2019)

Similar to the case of product title, the product feature contents may also apply a few following standards (Website of Retail performance marketing blog 2019):

• An average character number approximate 250.

• Highlight top 5 features of products, the more or less number of features may consider as less significant effect on bullets optimization

• Begin each bullet point with a capital letter

• Bullet sentences in fragmented forms and no punctuation at the end of each bullet

• Numbers in numeral forms

• Separate phrases in one bullet with semicolons

• Spell out measurements, such as quart, inch, or feet

• Avoid vague descriptions, be specific

• Not mentioning any private information, such as seller contact, listing features only

• No promotional messages

• No shipping information

3. Product description

Regarding to a third influencer, the product description actually has similar character-istics to those previous bullet points. However, it is usually written in several long paragraphs. In addition, a light HTML technique is required in this phase. For exam-ple:

Figure 4. Example of product description in HTML syntax (Website of Amazon 2019)

Considering the previous product description written by HTML syntax. The outcome will be illustrated in the following as:

Figure 5. Result of HTML syntax on website of Amazon (website of Amazon 2019) In the product description, it is possible for making call-to-action phrases or creating your own slogan to attract the customers’ attention on your product.

4. Backend keywords/ terms

Regarding the product visibility, there is a list of “invisible keywords” helps customer to discover products. The backend keywords follow the influences order. Amazon allows a seller to add additional 5 backend keyword categories, a seller needs to list the most priority category in the first row and lower relevant in the subsequent rows.