Amazon Retail Readiness, Part 3: Product Copy

In this part of our Retail Readiness Series, we address the importance of Product Detail Page Copy.

Product Detail Page keywords are how Amazon’s A9 algorithm determines the relevancy of your product(s) for a given set of customer search terms.

For example, if you sell a vitamin C oil and all your Product Detail Pages copy contains the following: “vitamin C oil” and a customer uses this search query, “vitamin C serum 1 oz”. Do you think your product has the best chance of ranking for that search? If you answered yes, you’d be wrong.

Amazon A9 algorithm rewards brands based on how detailed their Product Detail Pages are. Because Amazon cares about the customer experience and anything it takes to improve the discoverability and buy-ability of a product, Amazon will reward the brand that does it best.

Thus, if another competitor’s Product Detail Page had the “1 oz” and “serum”, their product has a much better chance of their product ranking or displaying for a search versus yours.

Amazon tells us 75% of sales happen on page one for a given customer search, and 80% of sales occur for one of the first three products on the Search Engine Response Page. In short, the higher your product ranks for a relevant and popular search, the higher likelihood your product will get the sale.

PRO TIP: Do keyword research using Amazon third-party research tools such as Helium 10 or Viral Launch to discover what keywords have the most searches on Amazon and which keywords are most relevant to your product.

A common mistake brands make is keyword stuffing, adding a bunch of keywords that are highly searched but not relevant.

Remember, your customer will be reading what copy YOU decide to write about your product, and if your product oversells on something that your product doesn’t actually do, your prone to get negative reviews, which is going backwards.

Always qualify your customer. Yes, you want the sales but, reinforcing the last point, you never want to oversell. If you sell a more expensive vitamin C than the competition, it’s vital that you fully explain why you believe the value of your vitamin C is higher than your competition.

Let your customers know all the intricate details of your product — how to use, what not to do, when to use it, commonly asked questions, etc.

Product Detail copy includes the following components of a Product Detail Page:

• Title

Title Character counts range from 100-250 characters, dependent on the category of your product. Utilize all of the characters allotted; Amazon gave you these for a reason and use this to your advantage to share why your customer should spend their hard-earned money on your product.

PRO TIP: Use the Title as the area as if it were the only thing your customer had time to read. Useuse that as the opportunity to give your customer a quick synopsis of your product in the allotted character count. Remember to include the following, Brand, Product, Size, Color, Key attributes, etc.

• Bullet Points

You get five of these and up to 500 characters per bullet. Rule number one: Maximize your character count, but also remember to include popular and relevant search terms in these areas. For example, does your vitamin C product moisturize the skin?

Look for relevant keywords to include based on what your product does.

Use these five bullet points to share the five unique selling points of your product. Most brands miss the boat here because they believe they can cover this in two to three bullet points, but remember Amazon gave you five for a reason!

State anything your customer may need to know that makes your product different than your competition or any area to mitigate negative reviews by sharing things your customer may not expect. For example, your product is 2.8 oz even though it’s in a 3 oz jar.

PRO TIP: Capitalize your 5 unique points at the start of each bullet point as a summary to make it easier on your customers eyes when unpacking the bullet point.

• Product Description

As a brand, this area is not as important as others if you’re Brand Registered; your A+ Content will cover this. However, your Product Description keywords will still be indexed for keyword ranking.

Regardless if you’re brand registered or not, as a Seller or a Vendor, use this area to discuss a little bit about your brand. Include a short story and what makes your products different. If you have extra room, discuss your money-back policy.

• Backend Search Terms 

Last but not least, Backend Search Terms. In 2016 and 2017, Amazon used to put a lot of weight in keyword ranking for this, but now this isn’t that critical in terms of spending your time on research and writing (most important: Title and Bullets).

Use Backend Search Terms to include relevant keywords that you may not want to include on the front end, as these keywords will not show up on the product page but are indexed in the backend.

For example, if you sell a vitamin C serum, include “holiday gift.” Obviously this is a peripheral aspect of the product, but you’d still like to be ranked in the backend for this search term. Don’t expect this to generate immense traffic in comparison to what you could experience in the front end with Title and Bullet Points.

To summarize, utilize all the areas where you can write Product Detail Page copy and conduct research. Do NOT keyword stuff and never oversell. Always keep your future customer in mind and ask yourself, “will this properly set expectations for my customer?”