Understanding search engine optimization (SEO) is key to geting visibility on anything you post online, from web pages on search engines like Google to products on eCommerce platforms with their own search engines like Amazon, Etsy, eBay.
The primary factor for increasing the visibility of your "online real estate" (as I like to call it) is to tailor your primary keywords to queries that the masses are typing into these search engines.
Let me elaborate. Yesterday, I wrote an article about Efficient Era, an Amazon FBA tool that I love.
If I want to increase the odds of people finding that article, then I want to tailor my primary keywords to match searches that people are typing into the primary search engine that will be sending traffic to the page (in this case, Google).
In this article, I'll show you a few of my keywords strategies based on publicly available information that help boost my web page & product listing visibility.
SEO Free Keyword Tool #1
This is my go-to for starting the keyword research process for any web page or eCommerce listing: Google!!
No joke - Google has more data on what people are searching for than any other company on Earth, and it willingly shares some of those insights with us for FREE!
Wondering how I came up with this article title? Or this subheading? look no further - here's exactly what I did:
- I seeded Google with primary keywords "SEO keywords"
- I scrolled to the bottom of the search engine results page (SERP) for the "Searches related to SEO keywords" section
- I borrowed suggestions from Google! Simple, right?
And we didn't even need to spend money on a paid tool :)
The best part is, you can use this exact strategy for creating your product listings too.
Think about it -
Knowing that tons of people are typing "keyword research tips" into Google, which article title is more optimized to rank high on a search engine:
- My eCommerce Keyword Approach
or - Simple SEO Keyword Research Tips
Both titles sound find & I could've used either one, but if want people to find it organically, I'm better off tailoring the primary keywords to what I know they're searching for.
SEO Free Keyword Tool #2
Sonar Tool is Amazon-only & analyzes a seed keyword or ASIN and provides insights into which keywords are driving the most traffic to those listings.
It's pretty nifty - it also provides a keyword volume indicator under the "Search Volume" column that can be used to help hone in on primary keywords for your product listing.
When I searched for "Garlic Press", here are some of the keywords it yielded:
And when I searched for the #1 organic product listing on Amazon when you search for "garlic press", it yielded this:
If I were entering the market selling garlic presses, I'd be off to a great start with regards to what keywords to target in my title/bullets/description.
SEO Free Keyword Tool #3
AMZ Suggestion Expander is a free Chrome extension that expands suggestions based on your seed keyword(s) when you perform a search on Amazon.com.
It's a great way to find long tail keywords for your products, as it functions similar to Google's "Searches related to [keywords]" function
It's FREE - you've got nothing to lose trying it out!
Here's a few other keyword research tools:
- https://trends.google.com/trends/?geo=US
- https://app.scientificseller.com/#/
- https://www.keywordtooldominator.com/k/amazon-keyword-tool
- https://www.merchantwords.com/
- https://www.keywordinspector.com/simple/index.php
- https://scope.sellerlabs.com/
- https://keywordtool.io/
- https://moz.com/explorer
High Level Keyword Strategy By Platform
Providing different eCommerce platforms with information what what you're selling is imperative. We have to assist them in helping customers find us.
I prefer the high-volume approach to selling dropshipped print on demand products, meaning I would rather focus the bulk of my time on designing & uploading products, over spending time optimizing & advertising fewer listings.
Not to infer that I don't optimize or advertise my listings, but I certainly don't do both on every listing, but it depends on the product.
Here's a high-level look at my keyword optimization strategy by platform:
When I use the Printful or Gearbubble integrations to push fulfilled by merchant (FBM) products to Amazon, I typically do all of my listing optimization in the product title.
If a particular design is selling well, sometimes I'll go the extra mile to optimize the listing(s) a bit with additional templated bullets, keywords, and description.
Otherwise, do your best to target high-traffic, relevant primary keywords in the title (including long tail keywords).
The current state of Amazon Merch has lead me to the belief that at least for now, it's only worth putting primary keywords in the brand & title, and skipping the bullet points / descriptions.
I go more in-depth about why in my article dealing with Avoiding Amazon Merch design rejections.
Stick to simple/short primary keywords for your redbubble title, and I typically copy+paste the title into the description as well.
Don't skip the tags, as they're used to help rank you both on Redbubble's search results page but also when Redbubble occasionally advertises your products on Google.
Speaking of not skipping tags - Etsy allows you to provide 13 tags per listing and they're your chance (in addition to the title) of helping Etsy associate & rank you with relevant searches.
If you enable Google Shopping ads through your Etsy Marketing tab, it will target the 13 tags you provided in Google search.
Your title will also get you indexed on the keywords provided.
I'm far from an expert when it comes to eBay, and I haven't had much luck at all with selling there.
Even when I had my $10,000 design in August of 2018, it barely sold on eBay & when it did, people would try and low ball me so I had to make up a compelling reason why I couldn't offer them a discount.
I digress. For eBay SEO, I always write a good title & try to use all 80 characters allowed. You can read about the importance of a good title in eBays best practices guide here.
Beyond that, I usually replicate a product image in the description along with the basic text, just to make the listing look more professional, and then I make it live. Don't over think eBay, the general public still thinks of it as an auction style website for second hand items unfortunately.
How To Choose Keywords For SEO
There's no simple all-inclusive answer here.
When you choose keywords for a product listing on any eCommerce platform, the hierarchy of importance tends to look like this:
Title > Bullets / Description > Back-end Keywords / Tags
Understanding the concept of ranking well organically on primary keywords vs simply being indexed for specific keywords is important.
The long-term goal for any product is to rank well organically on the primary keywords.
Being indexed for certain keywords just means that you show up somewhere in the search results when those keywords are queried.
Placing primary keywords in your product title can assist the algorithms that drive the eCommerce platforms in identifying what your primary keywords are, and you can bet they track if a customer searched for those keywords ? click your listings ? buys your product.
But it all starts with optimizing your listing to assist the machine learning algorithms to "learn" the most relevant keywords to your listing, and from there, convert the traffic into customers by having a quality product/listing.
