Chances are that if you’re trying to learn how to increase your sales on Amazon, you’re going to hear about keyword research. But what does that mean, and how can you actually do it? That’s what this article is all about.
What is Keyword Research and Why Should I Do it?
A “keyword,” in Amazon terminology, is a word or phrase that appears in both product listings and customer searches, which Amazon’s algorithm uses to match the two. The idea is to show customers the products they’re most likely looking for, and to determine which products are most relevant by evaluating the similarity of words used in the customer’s search and the product listing itself. For instance, a product with “Blue Broom” in its title will show up at least near the top of the search results page after a customer searches “Blue Broom.”
When shopping on Amazon, customers usually already have some idea in their head of what they’re looking for and must try to put that idea into words, into the search bar, to find it. Interestingly, even customers looking for the same thing tend to type a variety of different words/phrases in the search bar. This is where keyword research comes in. To get great organic search rankings and therefore listing visibility, you need to have the relevant words and phrases that people most often use in their search actually written in your listing; so that Amazon’s algorithm will match those searches with your listing and show your product. To have those relevant and frequently searched for keywords in your listing, you need to know what they are, and keyword research will tell you.
How to Do Keyword Research with Helium10
Keyword research involves using an Amazon tool (e.g. Helium 10, Viral Launch, Jungle Scout, ZonGuru) to gather and evaluate keywords for criteria such as search volume and product competition. We’ll be using Helium10 to illustrate the process, and we’ll pretend that we’re doing keyword research because we want to sell tents on Amazon.
As you begin the process of researching keywords, put yourself into your customer’s shoes and try to understand what they would search. Keep in mind that people in different market segments will have different needs, and that will most likely be reflected in different search terms. One quick hack for considering potential keywords that customers might use is to start typing in Amazon’s search bar yourself and take note of the suggestions they give. Once you have a general idea of potential keywords, go to Helium10’s “Magnet” tool. There you can enter the keywords that you found in your previous consideration.
The search results of Magnet will look like this:
Magnet shows useful information about keywords, including search volume (how many times the keyword is searched per month), the trend in search volume (whether demand is going up, down, or remaining stable), and title density (how many competitor listings have that exact keyword in their title). In these search results we see that a lot of these keywords are getting hundreds of thousands of searches each month. Let’s say you consider that too competitive and need to find more of a niche in the market.
You can use filters within Magnet to further specify results:
Applying those filters gives us these results:
Helium10 enables users to save keywords into lists for further analysis and data storage, but you can also export all of the data you see here in a .CSV or .XLSX (Excel) file. An important and useful way to further evaluate these keywords is to actually search them on Amazon (note: you can also click the "Open in a new window" icon to the right of the keywords in Magnet results to be routed to that search on Amazon). Once on the Amazon search results page for a keyword search, you can evaluate things like how relevant the product results are (indicating how well customer needs are being met and whether there’s an opportunity), how many reviews the products have, and what review ranking they have.
Remember, the goal of keyword research is to find the keywords to include in your listing that will get your product ranked as highly as possible and seen as much as possible. After you have the keyword data from Magnet, then, your job is to apply your own criteria to evaluate what the best keywords to use for your product would be. While there are many factors involved in that determination, you’ll want to build criteria around things like:
- Market size
- Search volume that fits you and your product (to ensure enough people are looking for your product in the first place, but also that you’d have a chance to rise in the organic rankings and actually be seen).
- Sales volume necessary to rise in the rankings.
- Product Competition
- How many competitors have the exact keyword in their listing title.
- How many reviews competitors already have.
- The number of sponsored products for that keyword.
For instance, if I had exported Magnet results to an excel file, I could then sort that file and build a finalized list of keywords that meet the criteria I set. It’s wise to “tier” keywords according to their quality for use in building a listing because you’ll want to put your best ones right in your title, your next best in your bullet points, and so on. While you don’t want an overly long listing, every line of material is an opportunity to get another keyword in, and potentially be ranked for even more searches. The more keywords you have (within reason) the better.
Conclusion
In summary, keyword research involves using a tool like Helium 10 to gather data about what customers are searching for on Amazon and the products they see when they do. With that data, sellers can glean insights as to potential product opportunities and determine what wording they should include when they build their own listing. Now that you’ve done your keyword research, you’re ready to build your listing!
