How to Rank on Page One of Amazon with Products

"How does Amazon product ranking work, and more importantly, how do I rank my product on page one?" is a question that every Amazon seller undoubtedly asks themselves at least once, if not constantly, throughout their seller journey.

According to studies, the top three listings on page one receive at least 60% of all clicks, and products on the first page receive at least 80% of all clicks.

Furthermore, most consumers only look through the first page of search results. With Amazon accounting for nearly 38% of all U.S. online retail revenue topping $316 billion in 2022, you certainly don’t want to miss out on any of those sales by not having your product on the first page.

Let us examine the various aspects that influence Amazon product ranking and the things that sellers need to be aware of.

How is the algorithm used by Amazon to rank products?

Let us attempt to first imagine ourselves in Amazon's position. Amazon.com brings in over 300 million Prime shoppers a month. Here, shoppers is the crucial word. Because Amazon is a marketplace as opposed to Google, where people look for product reviews, relationship advice, videos of cats, etc. Therefore, you can assume that anyone searching for a product on Amazon is probably prepared to buy.

In fact, only 42% of consumers begin their product search on Google, compared to 56% of customers who begin on Amazon, per an anonymous Consumer Trends Report.

Considering that Amazon is the biggest online retailer in the world, how can we make sure our product ranks highly on Amazon?

The explanation of the Amazon A9

You have already dealt with A9, Amazon's product ranking algorithm, if you have ever done an Amazon search. Given that the focus of this guide is Amazon product ranking, it is appropriate to examine the inner workings of the company's product search algorithm and how it aligns with the company's overarching strategic goals.

What A9 says on their website is as follows:

“Our work starts long before a customer types a query. We’ve been analyzing data, observing past traffic patterns, and indexing the text describing every product in our catalog before the customer has even decided to search.”

“One of A9’s tenets is that relevance is in the eye of the customer and we strive to get the best results for our users. Once we determine which items are good matches to the customer’s query, our ranking algorithms score them to present the most relevant results to the user.”

Serving the most relevant products for each customer search query is the primary objective of the A9 product algorithm. They achieve this by thoroughly indexing and examining every product listing. After learning more about the product, they examine prior sales data and other performance indicators. All of this is done to provide the customer with the most pertinent results. The most insane aspect? All of this occurs in nanoseconds!

What elements influence a product's ranking on Amazon?

When it comes to ranking, Amazon appears to use two strategies:

1. Elements of Performance and Conversion Ranking
2. Relevance Elements

What impact do conversion and performance have on an Amazon SEO ranking?

Sales

The most crucial element for Amazon SEO is sales.

It is easy. Amazon gains revenue proportionately to the quantity of goods sold. That’s why they created the Best Seller’s Rank. Products that sell well on Amazon are given a number known as the Best Seller's Rank (BSR). On Amazon, every category (and subcategory) has a unique BSR taxonomy. A product's recent sales are positively correlated with its BSR in that particular category. Thus, in a given month, a product that has the #1 Best Seller Ranking may sell up to 10,000 units. In contrast, a product with a $1,000,000 BSR might only sell one or two units during that same time frame.

Ways to get ranked #1 on Amazon

Recall that the main focus is on increasing sales. We move up the page in proportion to the number of sales we receive. It all comes full circle: the higher we go on the page, the more sales we generate!

Consider Amazon's first page to be prime real estate. Regretfully, unless your product matches the volume of sales of the sellers who are presently on page one, Amazon will not rank your product there. Okay, so fair enough?

Fortunately, there are steps you can take to boost your Amazon sales.

Amazon Promotion

It is highly unlikely that your product will appear on page one right away when you first launch it on Amazon because you will not have any sales history or reviews.

Using Amazon PPC campaigns is one way to get your product on page one from the start. Sponsored Products Ads are available to all professional Amazon sellers, and brand-registered sellers can also access Sponsored Display and Sponsored Brands Ads.

By running advertising campaigns and targeting relevant high-volume keywords, you will be able to reach customers on page one, even if your product is brand new.

Social media marketing

If your brand is not active on social media these days, you might be losing ground to competitors. Social media is now widely used in e-commerce.

Many Gen Z and Millennials begin their product searches on social media sites like Instagram and TikTok, even though Amazon will probably rank #1 for product searches and sales.

Product listing optimization

Having an optimized product listing is a very important step in ensuring your product performs at its best. To improve your chances of appearing on page one, you should concentrate on the following aspects of listing optimization.

Keywords and Relevancy

A product search is where most Amazon sales of products start. When a consumer enters the product they are looking for, search results appear. After that, they decide which product best suits their needs and desires and buy it. Thus, you must manage the search if you wish to manage your Amazon product ranking. And you accomplish this by using relevant keywords.

Basically, keywords tell Amazon what our products are, what they are about, and where to put them. Gaining an advantage in the search and relevancy game on Amazon requires you to understand why a particular customer searches for a product, why they want that product, and what relevant keywords or similar words they will use when they conduct a search.

The best tool to start your keyword research with is EcomStal’s Amazon Keyword Research Tool. The simplicity of this tool should not be mistaken for its power; with just a single button click, it can generate thousands of keywords for your product.

Title

For keyword relevancy, the title is the most important element of your Amazon product listing. This is because each individual word within the title is searchable on its own, meaning if you want to show up for a product using a broad range of search terms, you want to try to capture as many of those search terms as possible in your title.

Amazon gives you a 200-character limit on your title. So use this real estate. Make sure that every term you want your product to rank for is found within those parameters.

Remember that crafting your product’s title is both an art and a science. Your aim is to create product titles that are not only relevant but also ensure shoppers click on your product.

Product Features

The information contained in your product feature bullet points are also indexed and searchable by customers. This is another area of your listing where you want to include the keywords that you want to rank for.

Each bullet field has a 500-character limit. However, I recommend having no more than 250 characters on your bullets. Too much text can intimidate shoppers.

Remember to make your bullet points as keyword- and detail-rich as you can. It’s a great place to include features, benefits or attributes about the product as you put yourself in the customer’s shoes and think of any information you’ll have before being able to make an informative purchasing decision.

Description

Another area you can expand keyword targeting is in your listing’s description. Sellers have 2,000 characters to enter relevant information about their products in this area. So the description field is the best place to provide in-depth details about your products and sneak in a few extra keywords.

A+ Content

If your brand is enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry, you will also have access to A+ Content, which allows you to create beautiful descriptions featuring images, infographics, and customizable modules.

The use of A+ content may help increase your conversion rate as they stands out much more than a typical product description, plus they's easier and more engaging to read

Search Terms

On the back end of your product listing, the search terms contained on the detail page of your listing bear a lot of weight when it comes to keyword relevancy.

Sellers are provided 5 fields of 50 characters each, or 250 characters total worth of search terms. Technically, each field can take up to 1,000 characters but throughout the tests that the Jungle Scout team have done, anything above 250 doesn’t get indexed on your listing.

These backend search terms could be a great place to drop synonyms or other long-form versions of your main keyword.

Subject Matter

Also in the back end are the subject matter boxes. Many sellers overlook these fields. Similar to the Search Terms, there are a total of 5 fields of 50 characters each, for a total of 250 characters. Again, this is a great place to sneak in those last relevant bits of keywords to help improve your Amazon product ranking.

Conversion Rate

A conversion rate is a sales metric that helps digital marketers and Amazon sellers understand how effective their product is at making sales. It is calculated by dividing the total number of visitors (also called sessions) to a page listing into the total number of sales.

For example, if 10 customers out of 100 purchase a product (or products) from you, that makes your conversion rate 10%.

Additionally, Amazon Seller Central’s business reports offer a metric called “Unit Session Percentage.” This metric is similar to the conversion rate, with one small exception. Instead of dividing the sessions into orders, it divides the sessions into the actual units ordered.

For example, if 3 out of 10 customers land on your listing and make an order for one unit each, the conversion ends up being 30%, while the unit session percentage also ends up being 30%. However, if 2 of those 3 customers decide to order 2 units each, the conversion rate still sits at 30%, but the unit session percentage has now jumped to 50%.

Amazon favors unit session percentage over conversion rate. Therefore, you’ll want to make sure you can sell as many units as possible to keep your product “top of mind” with the Amazon product ranking algorithm.

For example, increasing the average order value (AOV) through orders of multiple units can be achieved through promotions like Buy One, Get One Free (BOGOF) and multiple unit discounts (e.g., buy 2 and get 10% off).

Amazon uses this data about your unit session percentage, conversion rate, and other performance metrics to determine ranking as it relates to the likelihood of a customer buying your product.

Here are some other factors that affect the conversion rate:

• Price. Listings with a lower price relative to the competition typically see a higher conversion rate. However, it is not a feasible long-term strategy since competing on price alone will lead to pricing wars and a race to the bottom.
• Coupons. Try to experiment with the new clip-on coupon feature that Amazon recently released. Our experiments show that having a dollar-off coupon works better than having a percentage-off coupon.

Fulfillment method. Who doesn’t love free 2-day shipping? Amazon is constantly trying to push sellers onto FBA (Fulfilled By Amazon), so you’ll instantly get a competitive advantage if you fulfill by Amazon versus someone who fulfills on their own.

Conclusion

There you have it! That’s everything you need to know about how to rank your product on page one on Amazon. Hopefully this guide to Amazon’s A9 search engine and the Amazon product ranking algorithm has armed you with the necessary weapons to ensure maximum private label success.