3 Quick Ways to Optimise Your Amazon Product Listings

Welcome to the bring your product idea to life podcast. This is the podcast for you if you're getting started selling products or if you'd like to create your own product to sell.

I'm Vicki Weinberg, a product creation coach and Amazon expert. Every week I share friendly practical advice as well as inspirational stories from small businesses. Let's get started.

Hi and welcome to this quick episode about three quick things that you can do to improve your product listings today.

So you might think that once you set up your Amazon product listings, you're done, because let's face it, it might have been hard work, but actually it's really important to review and optimize your listings at least every few months. And the best part is you don't need to spend any money at all to make meaningful improvements. So let's get on with these three quick tips.

Tip number one Strengthen your product title. Your title is one of the biggest ranking factors on Amazon for their algorithm and it's the first thing that shoppers see.

So if it's not clear or irrelevant, then they won't click through.

You've probably heard me say before that in the search results you see the image and you see the title and that title really needs to tell the customer that this is a product they want to find out more about. So here are some quick things that you can do.

You can make sure you include the key details like the major details, like the size of the product, the color, the material, the major benefits. If there's anything really important that stands out about your product, it needs to be in the title.

It should also be towards beginning of the title because titles do get cut off in search and so anything that's really important needs to be right up front. And I'm going to share an example of this in just a moment. You need to avoid keyword stuff in your titles.

So while they're important for SEO, they still need to read naturally. And finally, you need to keep your product titles concise but informative. So don't use any words that don't need to be in there.

But equally, you know, make sure you've got everything that should be. It is a real balancing act. Titles are really, really tricky, but they are important. So I'm going to give you a real example of this.

I had a client who was selling lovely handmade products and most of their competitors products mass made in China. But my clients products were handmade because they were handmade.

They could also be customized as well and this meant they were a little bit more expensive they weren't selling as many as they would like. And when I took a look, I noticed that the fact they were handmade and the fact they could be customized was right at the end of the title.

So unless the customer clicked through into the listing, they weren't aware of this, which meant that they probably were thinking, well, this product looks quite a lot more expensive than all of these others. But they couldn't see why.

But by moving the really key information about the fact they were handmade, the fact they could be personalized further up in the title, so it did show in the search results that really made a positive impact on their sales because customers could then see, ah, okay, that that justifies the additional cost and that made a real difference. So if your products aren't selling as well as you'd like, think about if there's anything in your title that you could move around.

Move up and see if that starts to make a differ. Tip number two is to optimize your bullet points for conversions. The bullet points are where you sell your product, not just describe it.

And customers scan bullet points really quickly. So this is a great place to put all of your key product information.

So in terms of how to do this, I would always lead you with a benefit and then explain it. And that might mean talking a bit about features, but you've probably heard me say before, your bullet points should be benefits, not features.

However, of course some of the features will enhance the benefits though. You can definitely talk about features, but do it in a way that the customer can understand the benefit of that feature to them.

Why is having this feature a good thing? How will it improve their lives? Why would they want to buy it? I like to capitalise the first few words of each bullet point so they stand out.

I also like to avoid emojis. Lots of people use emojis. I personally don't like this, but you do. You.

But I think capitalizing the beginning so that the key benefit stands out and then you talk about the reasoning why, and then you share some of the features is a really good way to do this. I think bullet points are a really good place to address common concerns or objections. Maybe share your USPs.

When I say concerns, I mean if you think there's a reason that someone might not understand your product or there's something they might want to know, get it up front in the bullets. And also make sure your bullet points are concise and readable, so no really long paragraphs.

To give another real world example, I worked at a brand who was selling alpaca wool socks and the bullet points on their product listings were really short and factual. So one had the composition like it's whatever percentage alpaca wool and this is what the rest of them are made of.

One bullet is point spoke about the size ranges. The third had washing instructions. They were really useful, but they weren't actually that compelling.

So I rewrote the bullet points to explain that the socks can be worn year round. The that they're because they keep your feet cool in warm temperatures and warm in cool temperatures.

That they're ideal for walkers, hikers and campers because they don't need to be washed very often, but they don't smell. I share that they're naturally hypoallergenic so that they're great for sensitive skin and they're ethically made as well.

So all of this, getting all of this into the bullet points is so much more compelling and gives so many more reasons to buy. It also talks about the type of person who might buy them.

So hikers, walkers, campers, people who we don't want to wash their socks often, so maybe someone will recognise themselves in that and say, oh, these sound like the socks for me. People with sensitive skin who maybe struggle wearing woolly socks because perhaps they make their feet itch.

You know, we're just trying to explain who this product is actually for and that's really important, as well as clearly demonstrating the benefits.

And my third quick tip, I promise you this is going to be a quick episode full of lots of actionable tips, is to refresh your images and a content because customers, as well as scanning your bullet points, they're also going to scan your images.

In fact, they might not even scan your bullet points, but they might flick through your images hoping to find out enough information about the product there. So your images need to be really good quality and they need to tell customers as much key information about your product as possible.

So your main image needs to be clear to show your product with nothing else. No text, no logos, nothing additional on a plain white background, because those are Amazon's rules.

Your additional images can show your product benefits and you can do this via infographics. You can do this via photographs with text overlaid. You can do this by using videos.

You can do lifestyle shots so people can see your product in the environment in which it will be used, perhaps being used by people, you know, customers that you intend your product for. It's just a great way of customers being able to actually see the product in real life.

So things you can do are check that your main image is really high resolution so it can be zoomed in. It's on a white background, it's correctly sized. If you have a number of images of your products on a white background.

So let's say from slightly different angles. You could also do some A B testing. You could try using one and then switch to another and see if one works better for you than others.

You can add lifestyle images showing your product in use if you haven't got these already. And remember, these don't necessarily need to be professional photographs.

If that's not within your budget, maybe you can set them up in your home, your garden, wherever. It's just really nice to have a range of images talking about your products. Use some infographics to highlight the features and benefits.

And if your brand registered, do review your A content. Think about, is it clear, is it benefit led, does it work well on mobile?

And does it really show off your brand, who you are, what you do, why you do it? Do you have a comparison table talking about the range of products that you sell?

All of this is really important and can really help with conversions.

So to give a real life example of this, one seller I was working with was struggling with quite high return rates for her products as people didn't understand the size of it.

But by adding images showing the product in perspective, we were able to cut down on returns because once people could see an image of the product next to another item that they, you know, kind of knew what the size would be, it made it a lot easier for them to visualize it.

I had worked with another brand who had an issue with returns because people weren't really understanding the product because it was something really new and unique. So adding a video showing the product in use and yet I do get that a video is an investment.

However, this really helped cut down on returns because it meant customers could watch the video and really understand what the product was and importantly, whether it was right for them or not before purchasing. Because what had been happening previously is they hadn't quite understood what it was from the listing text and images.

And that was no fault of the seller. It was just, this was a very unique product.

They were buying it, getting it delivered, taking out the box and saying, oh, this doesn't quite do what I expected. Adding the video really helps in that. And while I can't say if it had an impact on sales, definitely had an impact on returns. So almost there.

I've got one bonus tip for you and I said they were going to be free, but I couldn't help myself. I've spoken about this before. My bonus tip is to use customer reviews to improve your listings. So your reviews have so much information in there.

You can see customers describing your products in their own words and that gives you an idea of language you can use in your own listing. Maybe some keyword channel thought of. If you see things that customers really like, things they pull out and say, this is great.

I really like this about this product and that's not something you're highlighting. Well, add that in because your customers are telling you they like it.

And if you see repeated negative reviews, maybe that means there's something missing from either your description or your images. Or maybe you need to add a video, but there's just something customers perhaps aren't understanding.

You can tweak your listing to make that a little bit clearer.

As I say, I did a whole episode on this one so I'm not going to go into it again, but I'll link that in the show notes because it is well worth a listen.

So really quickly, the three things that you can do to improve your Amazon listing today are look at your title, look at your bullet points, and look at your images and see is there anything that could be tweaked or changed or updated to help you with, you know, selling more, converting better and reducing returns? Whatever it is, remember that small tweaks can lead to really big results.

So please do take some time to come and look at your listings, especially if you haven't touched them for a while. Go and have a look, look at your reviews and see is there anything that I can do to make my listing convert even better.

And remember, if you need any more help, you can book an Amazon account audit with me or you can join the waiting list for Amazon Made Easy. We only just close the doors but I will be opening up again later this year.

There is a wait list and you can get on there if you're interested in finding out more once that goes live. So thank you so much for listening. So far as promised, this was a quick overview.

Hopefully lots of practical things you can do and I will look forward to speaking with you again next week.

Thank you so much for listening right to the end of this episode. Do remember that you can get the Fullback catalogue and lots of free resources on my website site vickyweinberg. Com.

Please do remember to rate and review this episode if you've enjoyed it, and also share it with a friend who you think might find it useful. Thank you again and see you next week.