The COVID-19 pandemic has had a huge impact on retail businesses. With social distancing measures forcing more and more people to shop online, many are focusing on e-commerce marketplaces like Amazon. With these radical changes to how we live come radical changes to how we buy, as well.
While e-commerce is blooming, it’s important to keep in mind that competition is growing within the Amazon marketplace. That’s because retail businesses are moving from the offline world to the online world. It’s important that sellers go back to the drawing board and change their marketing strategy to avoid being eliminated by competitors.
In order to thrive in the ever-competitive Amazon marketplace, you need to focus on how to convert visitors into customers through methods such as listing optimization, great product images, and more. After countless hours of testing and implementation, we have developed the “Halo Effect Method," an effective technique for improving your sales and overtaking the competition.
What are Amazon search terms?
In a nutshell, Amazon search terms are keywords that customers use to find products. Amazon’s A10 algorithm matches customer searches with search terms in your product listing’s back-end data before compiling relevant products for search results.
The most important rule for listing optimization is to ensure that you optimize listings with as many relevant keywords as you can. This gives your products the highest visibility possible.
Short-tail vs long-tail keywords
Let’s take a look at the characteristics of short-tail and long-tail keywords. Both types of keywords play an important role in listing optimization, advertising, and overall SEO strategy. For instance, finding 10 to 20 long-tail keywords often returns the same search results as one popular short-tail keyword for the same product.
Long-tail keywords are generally an easier market to compete and rank within. Also, long-tail keywords have lower advertising costs. That means when you convert for long-tail keywords, your PPC campaigns have a lower ACoS (Advertising Cost of Sales).
Amazon often rewards your success from using long-tail keywords with better and higher rankings within short-tail keyword categories down the track.
Refer to the table below to learn more about the difference between short-tail and long-tail keywords.
What you need to know about the A10 algorithm
Amazon’s A10 algorithm aims to increase visibility for product listings with authentic reviews and sales. There are a number of factors that influence Amazon's A10 algorithm and knowing these will help you work towards ranking on page 1 of search results.
First, the A10 algorithm loves high conversion rates and looks into your sales history to rank your product in the organic results.
Keep in mind that products with a consistent sales history rank higher in the SERP (Search Engine Results Page). This is one of the strongest factors influencing the Amazon A10 algorithm.
Traffic both on and off Amazon that converted into sales will boost your rankings significantly. Driving external traffic to your Amazon listings is much more effective than PPC campaigns.
For instance, sales converted from Facebook ads increase your rankings much more than Amazon PPC conversions. That being said, Amazon PPC is still important for both short- and long-term marketing goals.
Getting more impressions for your product also increases your organic rankings and gains higher visibility. It is important that your product is optimized with relevant keywords before you focus on increasing your impressions.
If your product shows a good conversion rate for long-tail keywords that your competitors are not optimized for, you will be rewarded by the algorithm with a better short-tail keyword ranking. This is known as the Halo Effect.
5 steps to implement the "Halo Effect" method
Here’s a breakdown of the 5 steps you can execute to implement the Halo Effect method and overtake your competitors.
Step 1: Keyword research
Run a keyword search generator to obtain keywords customers are searching for on Amazon. Combine that with a reverse ASIN lookup to obtain keywords that your competitors are ranking for on Amazon to create your list of keywords. For instance, use ZonGuru's Keywords on Fire to find the exact search volume of keywords and valuable insight about your competitors.
Step 2: Identify relevant keywords
Focus and find relevant the top 25 long-tail keywords that are less competitive and have a mid-search volume on Amazon. Next, filter and select a group of keywords that you can use for optimization.
Step 3: Identify short-tail high-volume keywords
Similarly, you want to target both ends of the spectrum and obtain short-tail keywords with high search volume that you can leverage.
Step 4: PPC optimization
Optimize your product listing on the front and backend using both long-tail and short-tail keywords that you have obtained in the previous steps. Once your product listing is fully optimized, proceed to create a manual targeting PPC campaign using only long-tail keywords for a higher conversion rate.
Step 5: Optimize your listings
Optimize your campaign with long-tail keywords for higher conversions. Get these 5 steps right and you will notice the Halo Effect in the first 14 days generating more sales and conversions for your product listing.
Looking for a step-by-step guide to implement these five steps to increase your sales through better keyword rank? Download the SOP on how to build your list of long-tail and short-tail keywords HERE.
Final thoughts
Once you have implemented the Halo Effect method for your existing products or product launch strategy, continue to monitor the performance of your keywords within your PPC campaign and product listing. ZonGuru has just released new updates to Keyword Tracker and Product Pulse that will allow you to monitor the effectiveness of the Halo Effect on your product.
If certain keywords aren’t driving traffic to your listing, change your keywords to reach more customers. Run keyword research on a regular basis to obtain the latest customer search terms that you can incorporate into your Halo Effect method.
Feel free to reach out if you have any questions or bright ideas!
P.S. Don’t forget to download the SOP on how to build your list of long-tail and short-tail keywords HERE.
