If you’re reading this, chances are good that you’ve been pushing hard towards the goal of running a successful Amazon business. 

So why is it that after doing extensive product research, determining which product models work best, and spending countless late nights setting up your company, you’re failing to draw customers in?

Often, the solution to this sales slump lies in properly implementing Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

This practice focuses on creating product listings for your stock that focus on increasing visibility and breaking into the top search results for Amazon’s portal. In this article, we’ll be diving more into how SEO works, how Amazon’s algorithm is designed, and key tips to rank higher than ever before!

Let’s start with the basics:

Just like Google, Amazon also runs its own search engine, based on an algorithm named A10. Amazon Search Engine Optimization (SEO) essentially focuses on understanding how A10 ranks search results, reads product listings, and decides which products match best with Amazon’s customers.

This can be effectively applied to any product model, whether you’re looking to dabble in retail arbitrage or create a private label. More on the latter in this article.

SEO can be achieved by several techniques, such as image optimization, keyword usage, correct pricing, and many other factors.

In a nutshell, Amazon’s ranking algorithm works quite similarly to Google’s – both aim to deliver the most relevant, ideal results to shoppers/searchers.

Previously, Amazon’s system used to work on the A9 Algorithm, which was fairly limited in scope. It used to rank product listings based on:

• Sales History: How many products are sold over a specific period.

• Text Matching: Checking how relevant the product title, description, and product copy are to the search query.

• Price: A9 compares your product’s price to competitors – more profitable/costlier items would receive preference.
• Remaining Stock: If you run out of stock, A9 would place a penalty on your product listing.

While there are other factors that influenced product listings under A9, the primary idea was to focus on product details over consumer behavior. A10 takes the exact opposite approach.

As a result, A10 is largely focused on search result accuracy and giving customers what they need over profitability. 

While Amazon has not released an official list of A10 ranking factors, detailed research from various SEO experts tells us that the following factors are key:

Perhaps one of the most important compiled metrics on Amazon, this refers to the authority of the seller to whom the product listing belongs.

This can be affected by a variety of factors, such as:

• How long the seller has been active on Amazon
• How high their feedback ratings are
• Sales performance metrics
• How wide the seller’s product range is

Combined, these form a major chunk of A10’s ranking factors.

This refers to how often the product is featured anywhere connected to Amazon on the web. This includes Amazon itself, affiliate links, and partner websites.

With more views, your product ranks higher.

Not all sales on Amazon are initiated through search results – a fair portion of them come from Amazon flash sale recommendations, “frequently bought with” tabs, and many other points of interest.

A product that garners sales figures from these points ranks higher under A10.

Sometimes, customers simply know about your product and find it without the prompting of any ads or promotions. This number goes up as more people search for your product naturally, find the product page, and make their purchases.

Arguably part of one of the biggest changes between A9 and A10, Amazon has put a lot more weight on sales that are generated from off-site web traffic, as compared to the previously higher weightage assigned to PPC Sales, which we’ll get to in a moment.

While this isn’t as important as it was previously, it certainly matters when it comes to your overall rankings. This refers to all sales generated by PPC ad leads.

Click-Through Rate or CTR refers to how often your product link is clicked upon when it shows up in search engine result pages.

A classic online sales metric, conversion rate relates to how often your product is viewed and subsequently sold to a customer.

Your overall sales performance across time is a major factor that plays into your product rankings. To stay on top of this, make sure that your products are always in stock.

While these key factors may not seem that manageable with SEO, a deeper look reveals that there actually are several ways in which you can optimize key parts of the Amazon algorithm game.