10 Mistakes To Avoid In Amazon Listing Optimisation

Selling on Amazon is a dream for every budding entrepreneur or Indian seller. With 60,000 MSMEs registered on the platform and 6 million sellers, the competition is high in the eCommerce marketplace. Amazon tools and resources have changed the way eCommerce brands operate. You must wonder, how can you get your products to rank higher on the list of the most selling products on Amazon? Is your Amazon listing optimisation benefiting you? What are the mistakes to avoid in amazon listing optimisation? We bring all the answers to you here.

What is Amazon listing optimisation?

An Amazon product listing is a simple list of all the products you sell using the seller account on Amazon. It includes details like title, images, description, and price of the products listed. How well you list your products will decide the fate of your Amazon products.

Here are the top 10 mistakes you should avoid while optimising your Amazon product listing:

• Keyword Stuffing:

Keywords play an essential role in the success of your Amazon products. Stuffing keywords for SEO optimisation is no longer the way to rank higher on Amazon. It could lead to a search penalty for stuffing keywords not relevant to your product.

Use keywords strategically and place them throughout your content for listing optimisation. Choose the right set of keywords for your product and see the listing improve.

• Removing your brand name from the title:

Amazon prefers the following formula when choosing a title for your Amazon product:

Brand name + Series name + Model name + Form factor + Unique identifier.

Indian sellers should follow this protocol to maximise their listing optimisation, and generating higher sales and revenue.

Amazon has made it mandatory to include your brand name in the title of your product listing. Building branding recognition will determine product success.

• Using Competitors’ Brand Names:

Many Indian sellers use brand names that are similar or deceptively resemble a competitor’s brand name. While the Copyright Board prohibits this act, leading to your brand attracting penalties, using this tactic could also affect your brand sentiment. Avoid targeting competitors’ while optimising your listing.

• Repeating Keywords

While writing headline and content copy, keep the character restrictions in mind. Avoid using needless keywords in the product title and bullets. Use the most relevant and effective keywords to optimise your product listing. Using different keywords will help increase brand visibility and make your product reach the top Amazon products list.

• Using special characters in the title

Using pipes or special characters in the title of your product is futile. Apart from Amazon prohibiting its use, it could also lead to Amazon suppressing or suspending your listing. Avoid using special characters or symbols like *, $, #,! in your title.

• Crossing character limit

Amazon has outlined a fixed set of character limits for every product copy. The eCommerce giant Amazon has implemented a standard 200-character title board for products across all categories. They have also emailed all sellers on Amazon stating that this step is to maximise customer experience. They will suppress listings that exceed the 200 character limit from search and browse.

When a seller is creating a new listing, they should ensure the product name is under 200 characters. If defaulted, your Amazon selling privileges like Fulfillment by Amazon, FBA Amazon account, and pricing will face the consequences.

• Using health or prohibited claims

Seller Central strictly prohibits this move to optimise your product listing. Amazon disallows the use of health, product, and IP claims for your listings. Amazon can also take down listings that infringe these rules.

Indian sellers who have the documentation and certificates to support claims can, however, use it to optimise their product listings.

• Featuring creatives as the primary image

Creative and attractive pictures lure customers to your product, making them curious and increase click-through rates and sales. However, Amazon has imposed several restrictions when choosing images for your products.

Nine image slots are available for specified requirements for Amazon sellers. The primary image of your product gets displayed the most in organic and paid search results. The primary image has size specifications, and it has to be on a white background. If you do not follow the Amazon guidelines, your product listing optimisation will fail. Amazon will suppress it or hide it from the search results.

• Ignoring the importance of product descriptions

Product descriptions add exceptional value to your listing optimisation. While most sellers pay attention only to the enhanced brand content instead of the product descriptions, they both work simultaneously.

80% of the people shop via their mobile phones. Here is where product descriptions play their part. Product descriptions appear on mobile search results in place of enhanced brand content. Pay attention to your product descriptions and put on your creative hat.

• Adding customer reviews to images and listings

Indian sellers and entrepreneurs believe that using customer reviews and promotional texts in product image slots and listings enhance their chances. However, Amazon disregards such practices that violate its terms of service. If you get caught, Amazon could levy a heavy penalty and suspend your FBA account.

Thus, these are the top 10 mistakes you should avoid making in Amazon listing optimisation.

Conclusion

There are no hacks or magic tools that can optimise your listings. Constant effort and lessons will help you get better with every product you sell to Amazon. Amazon has specific expectations and criteria for how you write and portray your product listings. Amazon uses every bit of information put in by you in their internal searching algorithm.

While it is essential to keep a check on your product optimisation practices, you must avoid committing these mistakes. Your goal, if well-defined, will help determine how effective your listing is. Be it generating sales, traffic, or revenue- all tools used to optimise listings must conform with Amazon’s rulebook.