Even if you have an optimized website, the best keywords, and a perfect content strategy, you might be missing these two crucial things for your business’ success! If you don’t have an enticing SEO title or engaging meta description accompanying your content, the chances of your website being seen (let alone ranking on search engines) falls drastically.
Imagine you are looking at a Google Search Engine page. Each result you see has a blue headline and black subtext underneath. That blue headline is your SEO title and the black text underneath is called your meta description. Each and every page on your website has it’s very own SEO title and meta description. And yes, you should absolutely be writing this yourself not letting your website provider automate this. The automations are great when set up correctly, but what we usually find is that these titles and descriptions will end up being way too long.
Your title is the first thing your audience will see, so it needs to be eye-catching!
What Is An SEO Title?
Think of your SEO title like a paid ad. How can this headline entice a click? An SEO title is one of the most important aspects of your website content, so it needs to be attention-grabbing to draw in your audience.
We suggest writing your SEO title to be 50-60 characters so your entire title will show up on the SERP. As you compose your SEO title, make sure to incorporate keywords about your business and the services you offer as early as possible. Relevant keywords ensure that your title answers what people are searching for. It also helps your website rank on search engines.
Your SEO title needs to be readable, which means using title case to stand out. It should have proper grammar, spelling, and capitalization. Error-riddled SEO titles aren’t inviting because they aren’t readable or credible to your audience or search engines.
Quick Tip: Leverage characters like the vertical line and ampersand to help save space!
Another question we get all the time is when to use your brand name in an SEO title. The answer is definitely not everywhere. We suggest only using it on your home page because it’s likely people aren’t searching for your brand name. They want the solution you provide! For blogs, don’t use your brand name at all; focus on the question you’re answering with the content.
Our favorite SEO title “equation” is: Keywords + Context / Urgency + Brand
SEO titles are just one thing you need to include for your content to be successful. Don’t forget the meta description! It’s just as essential as the title.
What Is A Meta Description?
Your meta description should elaborate on your title or provide more context to what’s on the webpage. Meta descriptions that represent your content well encourage your audience to click on the search result, which will help boost your website’s ranking. Your SEO title should grab your audience’s attention, and the meta description should get them to click on the result.
Don’t treat meta descriptions like a social media caption or intro to a blog post. There isn’t much space for the description when it shows up on a SERP, so every word counts! Make sure you include keywords about your business/services, who you are, or where you’re located. Meta description should be 155-160 characters, which can fit almost everything you need on those two lines of the SERP.
Our favorite meta description “equation” is: Keywords + Pain Point / Benefit + Call to Action
Your SEO title and meta description should complement each other, but they shouldn’t be repetitive! If both contain relevant (but different) information about your business and website, then it will drive traffic and engagement to your website.
How To Write The Best SEO Title And Meta Description
It might seem like there are a lot of rules to master when writing great SEO titles and meta descriptions, but it isn’t too hard! This is something I want you to remember because this is going to take all the stress away from this little SEO optimization.
SEO titles are a ranking factor.
Meta descriptions are NOT a ranking factor.
This has actually been confirmed by the head of search at Google! Although it’s best practice to use keywords in your meta description it’s not going to affect where you rank on the page.
Here are a few best practices we use when we write our own.
UTILIZE ONLINE TOOLS
These are some of my favorite tools to use when writing these two things for my clients.
MRS Digital when I am writing this myself
AI tools. Ubersuggest has a brand new one under their Labs tab and you can get a personalized writer for things like SEO titles, meta descriptions, headlines and more.
I also love to use ChatGPT. I ask it to give me 5 options of meta descriptions for a web page in this industry, using this keyword. Be specific!
KEYWORDS
We’ve touched a bit on this already, but we can’t stress enough how important it is to use keywords in your titles and descriptions. A LOT of SEO success depends on the keywords used to drive traffic and build online visibility.
The best way to incorporate keywords into your titles and descriptions is to research some relevant to your business. These keywords should ideally have a high search volume and low to medium competition. These types of keywords help your website compete and rank on search engines.
LEVEL OF DETAIL
Next, your titles and descriptions should hit the right balance of simple and descriptive. A nonexistent title or description will do nothing (or possibly hurt) your business’ search rankings. SEO titles and meta descriptions that are too simple aren’t compelling enough to pull in your audience because it lacks context and relevance. An SEO title and meta description with too much detail usually have more information than the character limits allow.
If titles are too long, they’ll trail off into ellipses. Ellipses aren’t always a bad thing, but your audience is less inclined to click on the search result of your business if the title or description doesn’t address their search inquiry right off the bat.
A well-written SEO title has keywords, context, or urgency to click on your website and your brand. An effective meta description should have keywords, an audience pain point you’re resolving or a benefit they get from your content, and a call to action to encourage them to click on the result.
If you have to take away one lesson, let it be this: Keywords take priority! So much of your SEO success hinges on the keywords you use, so make sure they’re relevant to your business.
One final piece of advice: If you update any of these, be sure to request a manual recrawl in Google search console. This helps Google index your new data and serve it to people faster.
We can’t stress enough how crucial compelling SEO titles and meta descriptions are for your business’s online visibility and organic traffic. We hope these tips and tricks gave you some guidance on crafting the best titles and descriptions!
Search Engine Optimization, better known as SEO, can be a marketer’s best friend. (Who knew three little letters could have such a big impact?). Whether or not you’re a marketing wiz, you should brush up on a few key SEO practices. Entrepreneurs, bloggers, and anyone with a web presence can benefit from making sure their website is in tip-top SEO shape. These 10 SEO practices will help you cover all of your bases — so you can sit back, relax, and let that search engine traffic roll in.
1. Understand it
The first step to SEO success is understanding exactly what it means and what its capabilities are. As previously mentioned, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. SEO helps optimize web pages so they can reach a higher position in the results of a search engine — most importantly, to rank higher on Google. Improving your ranking increases your odds of someone clicking on your webpage in a search result. Because SEO is not a paid effort like an ad, this traffic is organic.
2. Utilize Keywords
This step is the second most important, and lays the groundwork for almost all of your SEO efforts. In order to rank higher in search, you have to align your web page’s content with Google’s (or another search engine’s) algorithm. One of the primary ways of doing this is by choosing the right keywords. A keyword refers to the words used on your website that you want to rank for. For example, if you own a bakery in Boston, you would want to rank highly for “Boston bakery.” You can choose secondary keywords to focus on like “best bakery in Boston.” You must choose keywords carefully. You want to choose ones that match your businesses’ goals, but that also aren’t overused by other websites. Essentially, many people are competing to rank highly with the same keywords.
There may be hundreds of other websites hoping to rank first on Google for your chosen keyword. If that is the case, you may be able to stand out by picking a less common keyword. Something more niche, such as “gluten-free Boston bakery” may do the trick. You can add keywords to many different places on your site to get the best results. Not sure where to start?
3. Title Images
You know how you can search for images on any search engine? When someone uploads a photo to their website, they name it with the keywords that they want to rank for. So if you want photos of your business, product, or blog to show up on image search results, you have to properly name them. You’ll have better luck getting users to click through to your website if your photo is properly named. In other words, this is not a time to play games. If you’re posting a photo with a title “vegetarian sandwich recipe” make sure the photo actually reflects that title. Not taking advantage of image search results is a waste, and is a step many people forget to take.
4. Blog About It
Have you noticed that every company under the sun has a blog now? In the past, only actual blogs or publications shared articles and content online, but now everyone does it because blog posts are the perfect place to drop desired keywords. Not to mention, search engines rank quality content higher than an average web page. It’s important that your desired keyword shows up in the first 100 words of a blog post. That way, the search engine can confirm that your content matches the title of your post. Which brings us to our next point…
5. Give it a Name
When it comes to blog posts, it’s important that you use your keyword in the title of the post. Ideally, the keyword should be as close as possible to the beginning of the title. If your keyword is “spring dresses,” the blog title should be “spring dresses under $100” not “the cutest spring dresses.”
6. Link it Up
Linking to other web pages can be extremely beneficial for SEO purposes. There are two types of links that you should utilize: external links and internal links. External links are those that send users to another website with a page on a similar topic. While it seems counterintuitive to lead users away from your website, search engines see you doing so as creating a valuable resource to readers. You can also include internal links in your content; this encourages search engines to find and review other pages on your website. Plus, they help the search engine determine the relevancy of your pages. If possible, you should link to at least two internal links on each blog post.
7. Get Linked
Now it’s time for a little old-fashioned PR. If your website has a link on someone else’s website, you’re looking at a marketing double whammy. Not only will you get a great PR opportunity and see organic referrals come through, but you’ll also raise your status in the eyes of search engines. When your website link shows up on another website, this is earning a “backlink.” Google keeps track of the quantity and quality of your backlinks. These links represent authority — if another website feels the need to mention you, Google takes that as a sign of your expertise and is more likely to recommend your content to users.
8. Make it Meta
No, we’re not getting philosophical here. Meta-title and meta-description tags are two pieces of code that determine how you rank in search. A meta-title (which can differ from a blog post or page’s actual title) is the title that will show up in search listings; the meta-description is that small blurb beneath the title on a search result. This description allows both the search engine and a user to understand what your webpage is about.
9. Simplify URLs
How you name your URLs is super important in the SEO world. Basically, search engines don’t like to read long URLs with complex structures. It’s best to always keep URLs short, and make sure they contain little more than the main keyword for which you want to rank.
10. Stay Updated
Like all areas of life, time brings change — and one of those changes can easily be to a search engine’s algorithm. Just as you think you’ve mastered SEO, Google or any other search engine can pull the rug out from under you by changing their algorithm — meaning that what once helped you rank highly may not any more. Keep an eye on your search traffic and make tweaks where needed. Stay updated on the latest SEO strategies and algorithm updates. Keeping abreast of current SEO trends is one of the best ways to make sure you’re using SEO to its fullest potential.
If you have a blog, chances are you already understand the importance of business blogging and its SEO benefits. But do you know how to optimize your blog posts to make them more search engine friendly?
The truth is, many bloggers fail to take advantage of the enormous marketing potential of their blogs. In fact, a recent study by blogger.com shows that although roughly 60% of businesses have blogs, 65% of those blog owners haven’t even updated in the past year! By providing fresh, relevant content and performing basic blog post optimization, you can take advantage of the many benefits blogging offers.
Here are six easy search engine optimization (SEO) tips to help get your blog noticed.
1. Do your research.
Keyword research is essential for on page optimization. Chances are you are naturally including keywords without realizing it simply by providing valuable content on a topic. However, there are a variety of tools and techniques for finding related keywords relevant to your blog post that you may not have considered. The Google Adwords Keyword Tool and semrush.com both offer great tools that allow you to find keywords related to your topic and even spy on your competition to see what words and phrases they are targeting to bring traffic to their sites.
2. Utilize keywords throughout your post. Once you have targeted a couple of valuable, relevant keywords, it is important to place them where they will have the most impact for humans and search engine crawlers indexing your content. Try to include them in the following places:
Title
Headings and subheadings
Introductory sentence
Concluding paragraph
Anchor text (text you hyperlink to other related pages on your site)
Title tags and meta descriptions
A word of caution: Don’t engage in keyword stuffing, which is the act of filling your content with so many keywords that it becomes difficult to read. Not only will this irritate your blog followers, it will also get you penalized by Google. A couple of strategically placed keywords will do the trick.
3. Optimize your images. Whenever you upload a photo to your blog, be sure to include keywords in the file name and fill out the alternate text field with a brief, keyword rich description of the photo.
4. Reference others with links. When you mention another blogger or article in your blog post, include a link to the information you are referencing. Not only is it good blogging etiquette, but you may also get lucky and receive a link back. Quality links are a valuable commodity for any site looking to rank higher in search engine results pages.
5. Give readers the opportunity to subscribe to your blog. Include prominently placed RSS or Feed Subscription Buttons and offer viewers the ability to subscribe to your posts via email when possible. This allows your blog followers to have instant notification of your latest posts without having to periodically check your site for new content.
6. Use social media to broaden the reach of your blog posts. As a small business, you may be utilizing Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or other social media sites to create connections with potential and current customers. Why not promote your blog content on these sites for even more web exposure? Free programs like Hootsuite make it easy to post links to your latest blog post on all of your social media sites with just a couple of clicks. You can even schedule your posts ahead of time!
By following these simple SEO tips, you can encourage higher rankings in SERPS, increased web traffic, and higher customer conversion rates.
When a buyer arrives at Amazon, he/she has only one goal: buy a particular product. But the ultimate question is: who will he/she get it from?
Now, if you want the answer to be “you,” it is important to comprehend how Amazon SEO (Search Engine Optimization) works in the current scenario and how to crack Amazon’s A9 algorithm.
With millions of active sellers in the Amazon Marketplace, you HAVE to keep your product listings optimized, clear, and appealing to potential buyers.
Considering this, here is comprehensive guide that not only unveils how the Amazon product ranking algorithm works but also highlights the key strategies and tools to outrank your competitors.
So, let’s get started.
Understand How Amazon Search Works
Like Google, Amazon evaluates the search results through its algorithm, which again involves a plethora of factors.
The underlying search engine is called A9. The algorithm employs multiple parameters to compute the relevancy of millions of products stored in its database with the search queries entered by the users.
Before we get into the various tactics to optimize your Amazon product listings, you need to have a basic understanding of how Amazon search works.
This usually includes the Amazon search results page, the different categories on the search result page, sponsored products, and search filters.
1.Amazon’s Search Result Page
The Amazon Seller Central has a comprehensive system for categorizing its products. Check out this comprehensive guide to know more about Amazon Seller Central.
When a user or buyer or shopper (however, you call it) searches for something on Amazon, there are two ways the products are displayed on the result page:
List View: This layout type features about 15 – 16 products on every result page.
Gallery View: This layout type has about 24 – 25 products on every result page.
This understanding is necessary to categorize the product correctly using these views and filtering.
2.Amazon’s Sponsored Products
Another imperative category in Amazon’s search results is the Sponsored Products. They can be seen in different pages scattered at different places. Typically, the sponsored product results are seen on the top part of a product page or sometimes be combined with the organic results.
Along with the right keyword bidding strategies, you will have to optimize the sponsored product listings for Amazon SEO too. By following the right Amazon SEO strategies and PPC campaigns, your product will be listed on the First Page of the sponsored products.
3.Amazon’s Search Filters
Then, on the left-hand side, you will have filter fields. There are various filters like the product category, seller rating, shipment method, brand, color, product condition, etc. Amazon’s algorithms are smart.
They are designed in a way to understand if a product is black or brown, provided that it is mentioned in the product listing copy. Only when this piece of information is included in the listing copy, it qualifies the product to be displayed in the subset of the filter query. No wonder, an “optimized listing” plays a key role.
Say, for instance, you are selling a red straightener from XYZ brand, and you want your listing to come up in the category “hair straightener” as well as in the “XYZ Brand” filter view, then you should specify these characteristics as precisely as possible while categorizing in the Seller Central.
If you fail to do these settings, your product is never going to be listed in those filters. So, think from every angle, especially from a shopper’s perspective.
The Connection Between A Search Query And A URL
During search result filtering, Amazon considers a listing’s URL. Consider the following parameters into account.
Keyword: This signified the keyword entered by the user. This addresses the generic requirement of Amazon. In our example, this would be “red flat straightener.”
Node: Every Amazon category has a specific number (ID). This ID is addressed via the “Node” parameter. To figure out the correct ID, look at the URLs of the categories on Amazon. For the category “hair straighteners,” this would be the number “1464599427”.
Brandtextebin: The “Brandtextebin” parameter is helpful when comparing the performance of different products from its own range. For example: “Grey hair straightener from XYZ brand” vs. “Red straightener from ABC brand.”
Learn About Amazon Search Engine Ranking
The Amazon Sales Rank is an inverse ranking system. This means that a product generating the worst sales ranks last whereas a product making the best sales ranks on the top.
While many Amazon users and experts are still trying to conclude what determines the sales rankings, there are three important things every seller on Amazon should remember:
Like Google, even Amazon features a search engine. This means that there is SEO too.
Potential buyers will certainly look for your product before finding it amongst other similar products. This is when improving your product’s visibility becomes crucial. This is exactly where Amazon SEO comes in. With right Amazon SEO strategies, not only does it improve your rankings but also calls for greater sales.
Just as you are searching for a definitive Amazon SEO guide, your competitors are doing the same. So, it is high time that you start implementing the SEO strategies immediately.
Every Amazon seller knows the prominence of its search engine and how appearing higher on the results page is crucial for a successful business. Products that do not come on the first page of the search results will never be seen by potential buyers. Adding to this, some shoppers never see after the top three listings.
This literally means that a majority of trade is done via the first page, most of which is focused on the top three product listings.
This just proves how vital optimizing a product listing is for the latest Amazon’s A9 algorithm.
Now, you might wonder what A9 is. Here is a quick introduction if you are not aware.
What Is Amazon’s A9 Algorithm
A9 is Amazon’s product ranking algorithm which displays the results based on the queries or keywords or key terms entered in its search box. The results shown are fueled by customers’ past purchases, shopping preferences, and a few other factors.
How It Works?
The algorithm chooses what products to show in front of potential buyers and how higher those products can rank based on some criteria like:
Relevance to keywords or search queries
Previous customer preferences and behavior
The number of earlier purchases for a particular product
Apart from the above, there are a plethora of factors. Since A9 is Amazon’s corporate top-secret, its functionality cannot be precisely known. The algorithm’s intricacies could possibly be worth millions and millions of dollars. So, the confidentiality as to how it works is well maintained. But with a few experimentations, you can get an idea of how it works and that’s exactly what we are going to unveil here.
What Factors Influence The A9’s Search Rankings?
Talking about Amazon A9’s factors, they are classified into two important groups:
Explicit:
Price – A bigger price difference than your competitors can turn out to be a disadvantage for you.
Stock Supply – Any product of yours that runs “out of stock” can become a drawback too. Your listing might either be pushed far down or disappear.
Text Relevance – This denotes the way have you optimized your product listing with the right title and description.
2. Inexplicit:
Sales Velocity – When you start selling more products, the higher are the chances of rankings and becoming successful on Amazon.
Now, let’s look at Amazon product optimization in detail.
What You Need To Know About Amazon SEO?
To optimize a product listing on Amazon, a seller should comprehend the key ranking factors for the A9 algorithm. Since you now have a good understanding of the categorization of the products and the definition of the URL, we will now see how exactly the “optimization” part is done.
Besides learning about Amazon’s ON-Page SEO, you will also learn different factors that Amazon takes into account for displaying a product on the top results.
Keep in mind that Amazon wants to provide a good and satisfying buying experience for its customers. Only a happy user will keep coming back to Amazon to buy more and more products.
Hence, Amazon SEO includes optimizing for both the search engine and the users. These two aspects, in particular, take a good weight in its ranking algorithm.
Lets Separates these key factors into two distinct categories:
Desirability
Discover ability
What Factors Come Under “Desirability?”
The factors influencing “desirability” are primarily aimed at the user and the user experience. Therefore, this aims at how well a user converts once he/she is on the product page.
These mostly include on-page factors like:
Appealing product images
Optimized product title
Competitive product price
Good product reviews and ratings
Describing the product in clear, bullet points
Attractive product title that favors users’ click-through rates
Conveying the message as to how your product is different from the others
What Factors Come Under “Discoverability?”
When compared to the “desirability” factors, the factors featuring “discoverability” don’t aim at a user. Instead, they are primarily addressing the indicators that assess the way a product is displayed and the probability of its purchase.
It is apparent that Amazon places the most profitable product with a good conversion rate on the top, given that they include multiple factors like:
Fulfillment method (FBA)
Price
Stock availability
Shipping cost
Amazon keyword research and optimization.
Amazon SEO: How To Improve Product Rankings On Amazon?
Here are a few tips and tricks that tell how to tackle Amazon’s A9 ranking factors and improve the results systematically:
Step 1: Amazon Product Title
The foremost factor to focus on to boost the product’s visibility and rankings are your product title. Ensure that you incorporate all the relevant information in your title, keeping the product name first.
According to Amazon, a product title should include the following:
Brand
Product
Material
Quantity
Color
Note: A product title in the Amazon search is limited to 100 characters. This doesn’t have that mean that you can overstuff it with multiple keywords. Keep it appealing, clear, and yet optimized.
An optimized product title is one of the most crucial ranking factors for Amazon. Amazon is a search engine like any other, so keyword optimization is important here too. If you have never really cared about keyword research or keyword optimization for your product, you will never be able to go far.
Never overstuff your titles with keywords, as that’s never going to be appealing to potential buyers. Keep the title in a way that not only describes the product clearly but also has the keyword naturally inserted.
On the other hand, extremely short titles add to less area and therefore often have lower CTRs (Click-Through-Rate). The name of the brand appears on the product page, and should always be specified as many users search for specific brands on Amazon.
Make sure to use 2-3 keywords that not only have a high search volume but also explain the product. Besides increasing the search rankings, the right product title also influences a product’s conversion rates and click-through rates.
Hence, make sure that the initial 5-6 words of the title are clear, concise, and reader-friendly. These little things make the title enticing for the user to click as well as optimize it for the Amazon search.
Step 2: Amazon Keyword Research For Product Keywords
Select the best keywords for the product(s) that you are selling. An ideal way to do this is by looking at the top-selling products in your category. Analyze them and extract their keywords.
Pick the top 4 or 5 products that are highly ranked and the ones that have the maximum reviews. Go through the list and search for the most related keywords matching your product. Yes, this is time-consuming and takes good understanding. So, to save your energy and time, try using this Free Amazon Keyword Research tool instead.
However, once you compile your list, you can even cross-reference it with the above tool to know its search volume. Now, you have the perfect set of keywords to work on for your product listings.
So, looking at the bigger picture, practice Amazon SEO to step up your game and to drive qualified traffic to your listing. This typically includes optimizing for the keywords they are searching for.
With the keyword list, measure their traffic potential. Analyze the popularity of those keywords to assist you in gauging the overall size of the potential online market.
Write effective content revolving around those keywords. By incorporating keywords, you can connect instantly with potential customers and address their needs.
By evaluating the keywords that your customers use, you get an idea of their needs and how to service those needs.
Step 3: Amazon Product Price
Whenever you set a “price” for your product, make sure to check the competition for all the identical products. Bigger price gaps are never going to win. Always try to beat or match your competition’s price. Try to lower the prices to irrational amounts to chuck out the small fish.
Product price is indeed one of the vital performance factors, which helps in deciding a product purchase. When compared to what your competitors offer at the marketplace, you shouldn’t be highly expensive, as that can reduce your sales drastically.
Step 4: Amazon Product Images
They say that “a picture says a thousand words,” and that’s so true when we talk about attracting potential shoppers at a marketplace like Amazon.
Never underrate the strength of the images. It is one of the most essential sales arguments. Product pictures are key sales drivers. Although they don’t affect Amazon SEO directly, they do impact greatly in breaking the bounce rates.
Moreover, with Amazon’s zoom feature for images, customers can have a closer and better look at products. This means that sellers should be using HD (High Definition) and better-resolution images.
Amazon recommends using larger images – at least that are 1000 pixels in width or height to enable its “zoom” function.
Better quality images have been connected to higher sales. So, this literally means that the images have a great tendency to pull customers to see through your listing.
Keep in mind that images have a larger bearing on the velocity and hence, do a great deal in influencing the Amazon SERPs. Furthermore, you can try different image tricks to attract buyers.
Say, for instance, Medalia Art took their selling strategy to a whole new level by using distinct image tactics. They saw about 95% incline in their CTRs when they replaced their painting images with the corresponding artists’ pictures.
In e-commerce, pictures create a credible depiction of the product. People are generally visual and an appealing image of course powerfully conveys it. A great image has outstanding effects on a buyer.
Even after he or she sees a few other product listings, an incredible product image can get him or her back to your listing page. This magic is something you can easily create on a user.
Let’s look at 2 different layouts of pictures of a very simple product. Which one do you think you will purchase from? The top row or the bottom row? Share with us in the comments section.
Understand that every shopper who arrives at Amazon wants to make a concrete picture of the product before making a purchase.
If only a few pictures are available, which are tend to be in bad resolution, it might scare him or her from buying. Therefore, it is vital to offer pictures in high resolution (something between 1000 × 1000 pixels / 1500 × 1500 pixels).
If you desire to push your product to the top results of Amazon search results, build up a new image strategy.
Step 5: Amazon Product Description
Apart from the other key aspects, the product description serves to persuade the customer for a purchase. Therefore, it is important to highlight the positive characteristics of the product.
Though the product description is not as strong a ranking factor as the product title or bullet points, it still has a good relevance for the purchase decision.
Again, the right keywords should be placed here, as well as focus strongly on emotional and positive sales arguments.
Step 6: Amazon Product Features In Bullet Points
Since Amazon offers a lot of space to write for your product, there is a lot you can play out here.
When it comes to “product description,” buyers or shoppers are never going to like it if it has huge chunks of information in paragraphs rather than in neat, clear bullet points describing every feature of the product.
While writing a product description, presenting them in paragraphs can have two drawbacks, which include:
Potential searchers or buyers dislike them because they are unclear, unapproachable, and confounding – meaning that practicing them will only lower your conversion rates or sales and so does your visibility and velocity in the Amazon search results.
The Amazon’s A9 algorithm hates walls or chunks of text in one go. Instead, rather prefers it to be in bullets with a better, easier, and more organized look to decipher and categorize.
So, the bottom line is – use bullet points to write describe your product precisely.
Again, you should be cautious not to fill the bullet points indiscriminately with keywords but to emphasize specific product features such as size, weight, and color, given that the keywords are naturally inserted. It shouldn’t make it awkward to read.
All in all, the bullet points have more space than the title. The position of the keywords is not relevant. It is more important to meet the seekers, to influence them to make a purchase. Non-responsive bullet points can quickly make the user jump off. This affects the “bounce rate,” which in turn, can have a negative impact on the rankings.
Step 7: Product Stock Availability
It is significant to ensure that your product never runs “out of stock,” as this can lose you a huge amount of rankings.
If you happen to use Fulfillment Method or Amazon FBA, you can set reminders automatically to notify you whenever your product inventory hits a particular level where you have to restock.
On the other hand, if you are selling your product on various websites, utilize multichannel sync platforms to assist you to synchronize your inventory so that they never fall at zero. However, if Amazon is your only marketplace, you can use standalone stock management platforms.
Nevertheless, if you are selling independently – sourcing, stocking, and shipping – everything
by yourself, ensure to be on top of the inventory by staying in contact with the suppliers constantly. This will help you prevent future deficits.
Step 8: Product’s Backend Search Keywords
Now, these search terms are hidden from shoppers but usually are indexed by Amazon’s A9 algorithm. Therefore, they can have an immensely positive impact on a product’s search. The important things to incorporate in your backend include the following:
Keywords or search terms that you were not able to fit in your description or title.
A product’s misspellings (which still customers tend to search highly on Amazon) or related keywords for your product.
Translation words of your product into Spanish or French, as there is a bigger Spanish-speaking populace in the United States.
Other synonyms that shoppers might look for.
You don’t have to repeat your keywords too much in your listing, as a higher frequency of a keyword has no effect on ranking. It only has a negative impact.
Step 9: Product Reviews And Ratings
When it comes to Amazon SEO, a product’s ratings and reviews are yet another pertinent components, which are evaluated and considered for better rankings. Simultaneously, they make sure that there is an indirect improvement in the rankings
This, in turn, influences the click-through rates and conversions. The higher the positive reviews, the better is the product’s value. This is also reflected by the ratings of other users and buyers, who can consider the customer reviews helpful or unhelpful.
Like reviews, those little yellow stars play a key role in enhancing the click-through rates. These lead to some higher click incentives with an appropriate figure and some tremendous average ratings overall.
Step 10: Use FBA For Your Product
A Professional Seller Account charges you $39.99 per month. Though this might seem a little high initially, it is totally worth it. It exempts you from paying that $1 fee per product, which you pay while holding an Individual Seller Account.
If you are a newbie and looking to build a successful Amazon business, you can take a glimpse of the list of the best Amazon FBA courses here.
With FBA, a pro seller will not only have a greater probability of visibility on the Amazon SERPs but also helps you win the “Buy Box.”
Conclusion: Amazon SEO and Its Algorithm A9
Optimizing your product listing correctly will get your product’s desirability and discoverability close to 80%. But the process doesn’t end there. Keeping up with the trends, algorithm updates, and ongoing optimization is equally necessary to remain in the top results.
With this article, you now have a strong knowledge of how the Amazon A9 algorithm works and how to optimize so that your listing gains visibility in the marketplace. Even after a detailed post, if you are still finding it difficult, do not fret, as we have the right tools to keep your listings be on track and thereby, increasing your sales to something you haven’t imagined.
Follow these suggestions to improve your search engine optimization (SEO) and watch your website rise the ranks to the top of search-engine results.
1. Publish Relevant, Authoritative Content
Quality, authoritative content is the number one driver of your search engine rankings and there is no substitute for great content—this is especially true when doing SEO marketing. Quality content created specifically for your intended user increases site traffic, which improves your site’s authority and relevance. Fine-tune your web writing skills and present yourself as an authority on the topic you are writing about.
Keywords
Identify and target a specific keyword phrase for each authoritative content page on your website. Think about how your reader might search for that specific page with search terms like:
online masters in engineering management
what is biomedical engineering?
title IX education resources
photographing northern lights
how to apply for scholarships?
when is the FAFSA deadline?
what is the difference between engineering and engineering technology?
Multiple Keyword Phrases
It is very difficult for a webpage to achieve search engine rankings for multiple keyword phrases—unless those phrases are very similar. A single page may be able to rank for both “biomedical engineering jobs” and “biomedical engineering careers”. Ranking for “student affairs” and “dean of students” or “gender discrimination” and “violence reporting procedures” with a single page is unlikely.
If you want to rank for multiple keywords phrases with your website, you will need to make a separate webpage for each keyword phrase you are targeting.
Placing Keywords
Once your keyword phrase is chosen for a given page, consider these questions:
Can I use part or all of the keyword phrase in the page URL (by using keywords in folders)?
Can I use part or all of the keyword phrase in the page title?
Can I use part or all of the keyword phrase in page headings and subheadings?
Answering yes to these questions can improve your search engine ranking. Be natural and user-friendly, though. For instance, you do not want the word “engineering” to show up three or more times in the URL or have the phrase Northern Lights repeated in the page title and also every heading. Readability and usability still trump search engine optimization.
Content
Beyond page URL, title, and headings, content is most influential on search engine rankings. Repeat your keyword phrase several times throughout the page—once or twice in the opening and closing paragraphs, and two to four more times throughout the remaining content. Be authoritative. Strategically link to relevant sources and additional information—both within your organizations broad website and even to other websites which are useful.
Don’t forget to use bold, italics, heading tags (especially an H1), and other emphasis tags to highlight these keyword phrases—but don’t overdo it. You still want your language and writing style to read naturally. Never sacrifice good writing for SEO. The best pages are written for the user, not for the search engine. Read more about SEO marketing to help you find new content opportunities.
2. Update Your Content Regularly
You’ve probably noticed that we feel pretty strongly about content. Search engines do, too. Regularly updated content is viewed as one of the best indicators of a site’s relevancy, so be sure to keep it fresh. Audit your content on a set schedule (semester for example) and make updates as needed.
Blogging
Writing additional content, rich with keyword phrases, on your departmental news blog can also boost your search engine rankings. Blog posts can even be shorter updates about the specific topics you are targeting. Interlink your related CMS webpages and blog posts when it helps give the reader a better picture or additional information about the topic.
3. Metadata
When designing your website, each page contains a space between the <head> tags to insert metadata, or information about the contents of your page. If you have a CMS site originally produced by the UMC web team will have pre-populated this data for you. However, it is important for you to review and update metadata as your site changes over time.
Title Metadata
Title metadata is responsible for the page titles displayed at the top of a browser window and as the headline within search engine results. It is the most important metadata on your page.
For those with a CMS website, the web team has developed an automated system for creating the meta title for each webpage based on your page title. This adds to the importance of using well-thought-out page titles rich with keyword phrases.
Description Metadata
Description metadata is the textual description that a browser may use in your page search return. Think of it as your site’s window display—a concise and appealing description of what is contained within, with the goal of encouraging people to enter. A good meta description will typically contain two full sentences. Search engines may not always use your meta description, but it is important to give them the option.
Keyword Metadata
Keyword metadata is rarely if ever used to tabulate search engine rankings. However, you should already know your keyword phrases, so it doesn’t hurt to add them into your keyword metadata. You’ll want to include a variety of phrases. As a general rule, try to keep it to about 3-7 phrases with each phrase consisting of 1-4 words. A great example would be “computer science degree.”
4. Have a link-worthy site
A webpage which is content-rich, authoritative, unbiased, and helps visitors learn more about what they are interested in is most likely to attract links from other websites, which improves your search engine optimization.
Improve your authority and credibility by adding relevant links within the text. Instead of having “click here” links, try writing out the name of the destination. “Click here” has no search engine value beyond the attached URL, whereas “Michigan Tech Enterprise Program” is rich with keywords and will improve your search engine rankings as well as the ranking of the page you are linking to. Always use descriptive links by linking keywords—it not only improves search engine optimization, but also adds value to your readers, including those with disabilities or who are using screen readers.
5. Use alt tags
Always describe your image and video media using alt tags, or alternative text descriptions. They allow search engines to locate your page, which is crucial—especially for those who use text-only browsers or screen readers.
If you run an online-only business or have a brick and mortar business with a sales website—you may be weighing whether or not adding a blog to your e-commerce website is valuable. Even though the primary goal of your website is to drive traffic to your products, there are a multitude of reasons why adding a blog to your e-commerce site is beneficial—10 of which are highlighted below.
#1 Search Engine Optimization
You are sure to be investing both your time and resources into driving more traffic to your e-commerce website—and a blog is one of the most effective free methods of doing so. Adding a blog to your e-commerce site will drastically increase the amount of content your website contains. The more content you have, the more your website will index—and the more prospective clients will organically find their way to your website. For best results, infuse your blog posts with both trending keywords.
As you share your new blog posts on your social media profiles, you will create more backlinks to your website, which will further boost your SEO.
#2 Brands You As An Industry Experts
Many e-commerce websites utilize their blogs as a method of branding themselves as industry experts. Your blog posts can contain tips and tricks that your target audience is searching for, tutorials, and the latest breaking industry news. While you can add blog posts that contain sales information, for branding purposes—focus more on adding value to your customers.
#3 Engages Your Customers
Instead of beginning a website your customers only visit when shopping, you can utilize your blog as a method of engaging your customers on an ongoing basis. This can be achieved a variety of ways, and below are a couple of ideas to get you heading in the right direction.
For example, if you sell weight-loss products you could share client success stories.
Tell A Story—The story you tell could be anything from inspirational stories relevant to your industry, inspiring stories your clients have shared, or the story of how your business came to be.
Post Photos And Videos—While your e-commerce site certainly contains images of the products you are selling, your blog is an additional place in which you can utilize visuals to engage your clients. This could be a quick video of how to assemble a product, different methods of using a product, or photos and videos of that are non-product related—yet relevant to your target audience.
For example, if you sell pet supplies you can share funny pet videos and images.
#4 It’s The Perfect Place To Make Announcements
Even if you utilize opt-in email marketing for your announcements, or have an area on your e-commerce website where you share announcements—your new blog will be an excellent place for your customers to learn your latest news and updates. This could be anything from new products, answer to your most Frequently Asked Questions, seasonal promotions, or anything new about your company you would like to share.
#5 Boosts Your Conversion Rates
Your e-commerce blog will not only drive more traffic to your website—but it will increase your conversions too. Your blog will make you feel more credible and relatable, which will provide new clients with a greater sense of confidence in their purchases.
#6 Creates An Online Community
Many blogs allow customers to comment on their posts, which makes your customers feel as if they are part of a larger online community. Just as with social media, ensure you actively respond to all comments and private messages.
No worries of questionable comments or spam being added, because you can set up your blog in a manner in which you can approve all outside comments before they go live.
#7 Builds Brand Loyalty
You can have the best products or services in the world, but if you do not build brand loyalty, your number of repeat customers is likely to be low. As an online-only business or a business who sells online to clients from around the nation or around the globe—you must find a way to build brand loyalty.
While your blog alone will not build brand loyalty, it plays a key role in the process. As long as your posts are an appropriate balance of professional, fun, relevant, and informative—they will help to build loyalty. Don’t forget to highlight your community and charity involvement in your blog posts, as customers like to support businesses who are connected to something larger than themselves.
#8 Provides The Potential To Go Viral
Your blog posts must have buttons that allow readers to quickly and easily share your posts on social media and/or email them to friends. Whether you post a blog with an inspirational story, or engaging video—the ability to share it with the masses, provides the potential for it to “go viral.”
Even if you do not achieve millions of shares, you can reach a much larger portion of your target audience by consistently posting engaging and relevant blogs.
#9 Supports Your Social Media Marketing Efforts
Each blog post you create has a unique URL, that can be added to your social media posts—and linked back to in your other online marketing efforts. You can add buttons to “like” or “share” your blogs posts, which is an essential part of expanding your reach on social media.
Don’t forget to have buttons on your website and blog that also link back to your social media profiles, which will further help you achieve more fans and followers.
#10 Free Marketing Platform
Regardless of your marketing budget, your blog is a highly effective form of free marketing. While you may choose to pay to promote some of your blog posts, each post will garner an ongoing stream of organic traffic. Some posts will be relevant for months, and others will be relevant for years—but the traffic they draw takes nothing other than an investment of your time to create and post.
If you’ve ever written a blog post before, you know how much time it can take.
From topic selection and gathering research to writing the post and pressing “Publish,” the process often demands hours. That’s why, if your post doesn’t earn the traffic you expected, it can be a major letdown.
Fortunately, there’s a way to combat low traffic: search engine optimization. As marketers, we’re always aiming to write content that’ll rank highly on Google, and SEO is the bridge that’ll help you get there. That begs the question: How do you incorporate that into your content?
12 ways to master SEO writing.
What is SEO writing?
SEO writing is the process of writing content to rank on the first page of search engines like Google. This involves researching keywords, writing high-quality content that matches user intent, and optimizing your headers for easy page crawling.
A 2020 Search Engine Journal study found that the clickthrough rate for websites in position one on the search engine results page (SERP)is 25%. This number drops drastically to 15% for websites in position two and then down to 2.5% for websites in position 10. When you get to page two of Google, that number gets even lower.
This means that if your website is not on the first page, there’s a small chance consumers will find your website organically. Fewer visits to your site mean fewer opportunities to generate leads, and ultimately, revenue.
Your next best option is investing in advertising to get those users to your site. But that costs money, and if you’re on a tight budget, why not invest time in SEO writing? It’s free and will likely bring you traffic for much longer than a campaign would.
12 Tips on How To Incorporate SEO in Your Writing
1. Use headings to your benefit.
Headers help Google’s web crawlers understand your blog post and the sections within it.
Think of the crawlers as readers who are skimming your blog. They want an overview of what your article will cover, that’s your H1. Then your H2s, H3s, H4s break down the subtopics within the piece.
So, your sub headers should reflect the content in the body and include high-intent keywords. When you use the right keywords, meaning the ones your target audience is using, you have a much higher chance of ranking on the SERP.
2. Optimize your content for featured snippets.
Featured snippets on Google are the most direct answers to search queries. For instance, if I were to search, “How do you write a blog post?” Google might use a featured snippet to show the best answer.
Featured snippet example on SERP
To earn a featured snippet on Google, you’ll need to answer the question thoroughly and succinctly.
For instance, if the search term is “How to screenshot on mac,” you can put “How to Take a Screenshot on a MacBook Computer” as your H1 or H2, followed by the steps in a numbered or bulleted list.
Once you’ve done that, be sure to include part of the question in your answer. Using the example above, you would start the paragraph with the following: “To take a screenshot on your MacBook, here are the steps…”
Additionally, start each sentence with an actionable verb, like “click” and “select.”
If the keyword for which you want to capture the featured snippet requires a definition, write an answer that’s no more than 58 words.
3. Write for humans, not search engines.
With all these SEO guidelines, it can be easy to forget that when a user searches on Google, they are looking for an answer. The best way for you to improve your chances of ranking is by writing high-quality blog posts.
What does that look like? Thorough answers, scannable sections, organized sub headers, and visual aids.
Keep your buyer personas, their motivations, challenges, and interests in mind. It’s also important to choose topics that will resonate with your potential customers and address their pain points.
4. Include keywords in your meta description.
Are you adding meta descriptions to your post? If your answer is “no,” then you’re probably not giving your post the most exposure possible. Let’s get into why they’re important.
By now, we’ve talked about a couple of the ways a blog post can communicate with Google: subheaders, keywords, and snippets. However, that’s not an exhaustive list.
Meta descriptions are another area Google crawls to determine search rankings. Meta descriptions are the one- to three-sentence descriptions, you’ll find underneath the title of a result.
Meta description example for the HubSpot Marketing Blog
Use meta descriptions to sum up what your post is about, and remember to:
♣ Keep it short.
♣ Use one to two keywords.
Make it compelling. After all, there are going to be other posts similar to yours so you’ll want your description to stand out above the rest.
Most content management systems (CMS) have meta description boxes built-in, so you likely won’t have to look far to use the function.
5. Add alt text to images.
With any image you add to your post – featured or body images – you’ll want to add alt text.
Alt text describes what’s happening in the photo and it helps Google (as well as those who are visually impaired) understand why the photo is in your post.
6. Start with keyword research.
It’s estimated that Google processes over 70,000 search queries a second. Staggering, right?
If you want to cut through SERP clutter and outrank your competitors, you need to target the specific keywords and phrases your potential customers are searching for. Otherwise, how else will they find your content and website?
Start with a keyword research tool. Sites like Ahrefs and Google Keyword Planner give you details on what users are searching for and how popular those queries are.
For an inside look into how Ahrefs can aid you in your SEO keyword research and beyond, check out our case study and exclusive interview here.
Google Trends can also give you a feel for what keywords are popular at any given time. If you see searches are steadily declining over time for a specific keyword, you know that’s probably not the right keyword to target for your marketing. The opposite is true for rising trends.
If you’re ever running low on keyword ideas, get inspiration from your competition. Use competitive intelligence tools to see what keywords their domains currently rank for. If these keywords are relevant to your business, consider using them too.
However, keep in mind that the most obvious keywords don’t always align with your strategy. Additionally, your focus keywords will evolve over time as trends shift, terminology changes or your product/service line grows.
Be sure to conduct keyword research periodically to ensure you’re still focusing on the right keywords for your target audience and not missing out on vital ranking opportunities.
7. Resist the urge to keyword stuff.
The goal is to make your page fully optimized, not overbearing. Find natural fits for keyword additions, but don’t force them to the point where your content is illegible.
For example, if your keywords are “account-based marketing,” “startups,” and “sales,” avoid a meta description like this: “Sales for account-based marketing startups.”
Instead, try focusing on one or two keywords to make the description more natural: “Are you looking for killer strategies to boost your account-based marketing game? Discover our research-backed techniques in this post.”
With this approach, you’re still using keywords, but you’re not oversaturating the post. Remember, your goal is to solve for your audience. If your users have a poor reading experience, that will signal to Google that your post may not be meeting their needs.
8. Link to high-authority websites.
As you build out your blog post, don’t be afraid to link externally.
Linking to reputable websites not only offers blog readers additional reading material to expand their knowledge, but it also shows search engines that you’ve done your research.
Nothing strengthens a blog post like research-backed statistics from influential websites. Compelling stats help you build a more convincing and concrete argument that will help you gain trust from your readers.
9. Aim for scannable, longer posts.
In an age of short attention spans, you would think shorter blog posts are the way to go. But in fact, search engines like Google actually prefer longer, in-depth blog posts.
Think about it: the more content on the page, the more clues search engines have to figure out what your blog is about. At HubSpot, we’ve found that the ideal length is between 2,100 and 2,400 words.
The downside to longer blogs is that they may overwhelm your readers. One way to combat that is by breaking down your content into bite-size, scannable chunks.
Turn a long-winded sentence into two and keep your paragraphs to three sentences or less.
Don’t forget about bullet points – they’re great attention grabbers and easily digestible, especially on mobile devices.
10. Link to other posts on your site.
Linking to other pages or blog posts on your website helps search engines create an accurate sitemap. It also helps your audience discover more of your content and get to know you as a trustworthy, credible source of information.
On the user side, Internal links to other valuable content keep readers on your site longer, reducing bounce rate and increasing your potential for a conversion. Isn’t that what it’s all about?
When linking to any pages on your website, or even outside sources, use natural language for your anchor text. Avoid using spammy or generic calls to action, such as “top-rated cheap laptops” or “click here.”
Instead, use descriptive keywords that give readers a sense of what they will find when they click on the hyperlink, like “Download your SEO guide.”
Never force-feed links to your top webpages, featured products, or discounted items. Include links that enhance the points made in your posts and naturally tie in with the subject matter.
11. Compress images for fast page load speed.
Google rewards pages with fast loading speeds, as it improves the user experience.
One of the leading culprits of page lag is large, heavy images. If you have several images in your post and each one is over 100KB, that can drastically impact your page speed.
Luckily, there are free apps, like Squoosh.app, that compress images without sacrificing quality.
If you suspect that your low ranking is due to slow page speeds, head over to Google’s PageSpeed site for a free analysis and recommendations.
12. Design a link-building strategy.
Link building is crucial to your search ranking.
Why? Think of search results like a competition where the winners get the most votes. Each webpage that links back to you is considered a vote for your website, which makes your content more trustworthy in the eyes of Google. In turn, this will make you rise further up in ranking.
So, it’s good to write posts that other websites or publications will want to hyperlink within their own posts. To make your website’s blog post more linkable, include high-value assets in your posts, such as original data and thought leadership.
Autumn 