Tag: brand visibility

  • 10 SEO Tactics to Help Retail Brands Win More Search Visibility on Amazon

    10 SEO Tactics to Help Retail Brands Win More Search Visibility on Amazon

    Today, the first name that comes to anybody’s mind when they hear about online shopping is Amazon. In the US alone, Amazon accounted for over 37.6 percent of total online retail sales in 2023 with the second place Walmart not even managing to win double-digit numbers on the same scale.

    Amazon leads retail eCommerce in the USA

    With such a phenomenal market share, it is not surprising that any retail brand would want to have their products listed on Amazon for sale. However, as enticing as the potential exposure could be, the overwhelming presence of brands selling similar products on Amazon is so huge that getting fair visibility for your products may require some heavy-lifting support.

    Will the Same SEO You Use for Google Work with Amazon?

    Unfortunately, no, as Google and Amazon have different objectives when it comes to search rankings on their respective customer platforms. Google makes the lion’s share of its revenue from search advertising, whereas Amazon makes money when customers buy products listed on its platform by sellers.

    Relying on traditional search engine optimization (SEO) techniques may not get the desired results as they are more optimized for search engines like Google. Amazon embraces its unique DNA when it comes to product display rankings on its search option.

    How Does SEO Work in Amazon?

    Over the years, Amazon amassed data about shopping experiences that billions of customers globally had on its platform. With this data, they developed their custom search algorithm named A9. Contrary to the gazillion objectives that Google has for its intelligent search algorithms, Amazon has tasked A9 with just a simple straightforward target—when a customer keys in a search query, provide the best choice of products that they will most probably purchase, as search results.

    A9 works to fulfill the mission of guiding shoppers to the right product without worrying about semantics, context, intent, mind mapping, etc. of the search query in contrast to what Google does. As with Google search, Amazon does have paid advertising and sponsored results options such as Amazon PPC, Headline ads, etc. but their SEO algorithms are aware of how to support and boost search rankings of genuine products and brands that have taken an effort to follow best practices in Amazon SEO as well as have a great offering with attractive prices.

    As additional knowledge, Amazon also has clear guidelines on what it prioritizes for search rankings. Known in the SEO world as Amazon ranking signals, these are core factors that influence how a product is ranked for search queries. Some of the top Amazon ranking signals that carry heavy influence on search rankings include on-page signals, off-page signals, sales rank, best sellers rank, etc.

    What Brands Need to Strategize to Master the Amazon SEO Algorithms

    From a broad perspective, we can classify the actions brands need to take in this regard in 3 core stages:

    Pre-Optimization

    This deals with getting first-hand knowledge about both customers who are likely to purchase your product and the competitors who are vying for sales from these very same customers. Filtering your target customer or audience is essential to ensure that you get the most ROI from marketing initiatives and that sales cycles are accelerated. For example, if your product is a premium scented candle, there is no point in wasting advertising dollars trying to win attention from customers who are not likely to ever spend on luxury home décor items.

    Knowing how your competitors are performing on Amazon search, the keywords, and SEO strategies they have adapted is critical to ensure that you stay one step ahead.

    Product Listing Page Optimization

    This includes strategies that a brand can adopt so that its product description page gets the much-needed content optimizations to sync with Amazon’s A9 algorithm. It has a mix of keyword-integrated content, relevant images, descriptions in easy-to-understand language, localized content flavors to resonate with target buyers, etc. For example, a kitchen tool like a grater might be used for different kinds of food preparation techniques in different regions of the same country.

    Product Listing Optimization For Amazon SEO

    The brand must ensure that the description adequately localizes the linguistic or usage preference representation of the target audience. If the grater is used for grating coconut shells to extract the fibrous pulp in the Midlands and for grating ginger skin in the Far East, both use cases should be part of the product description if the target customers are from both regions.

    Sales Optimization

    This deals with options that have more sales strategies integrated into their core. For example, blogs on popular websites with the Amazon purchase link embedded in the content, collaboration with social media influencers, paid advertising on Amazon itself as well as on search engines, video ads, banner and display ads, etc.

    The key intent here is to drive organic and inorganic traffic to the Amazon product listing page and ultimately win sales.

    How Can Your Products Rank High in Amazon Search Results? Top 10 Tactics

    Now that you have a clear understanding of the strategies that help in mastering Amazon’s ranking algorithms, here are some great tips to help achieve higher search rankings for your products on Amazon search:

    1. Target Relevant Keywords

    You need to figure out the best keywords that match what customers put as queries into the Amazon search bar. Your brand needs to clearly understand customer behavior when they arrive on Amazon to search for a product or category of products. The best place to begin looking for the same would be on competitor pages on Amazon. The keywords that helped them rank well on Amazon can help you as well. Manually investigating such a large pool of competitors is nearly impossible but with the right tools, you can easily embrace capabilities to know which keywords can help you in mimicking the success of your competitors.

    2. Focus on Product Titles

    Every single part of the content in your brand’s Amazon storefront or product page needs dedicated focus. Beginning with the product titles, effort needs to be made to ensure that they include the brand name, key product category or features, and other relevant keyword information.

    Product Title Optimized for Amazon SEO

    In other words, product titles must be optimized for searchability. This searchability for product titles needs to be optimized for both mobile and desktop screens.

    3. Create Product Descriptions that Resonate with the Audience

    For product descriptions on your Amazon webpage, you need to figure out the optimal quality levels needed for the intended audience. Effective content can help achieve better search ranking visibility and convince the incoming traffic of shoppers to make a purchase. It is important to periodically review and modify your page content to suit the interests of visitors from both web and mobile devices.

    Product Description Optimized for Amazon SEO

    Leveraging solutions like DataWeave can help with regular content audits to ensure you are putting out the best product content that will delight shoppers and deliver on sales conversion targets.

    4. Use High-Quality Media Assets like Images and Videos

    Promoting your product doesn’t have to be restricted to just textual content in Amazon product description sections. You can use other multimedia assets of high quality. These include images, videos, brochure images, etc. Every content asset must aim to educate shoppers on why your product should be their number one choice. For example, look at this detailed product description for the viral K-Beauty product COSRX Mucin Essence.

    Product Description with Images Optimized for Amazon SEO

    Moreover, images can help attract more attention span from visitors, thereby increasing the probability of purchases.

    5. Strengthen the Backend Keywords As Well

    Amazon also supports hidden backend keywords that sellers add to their product listings. They help add more relevance to products similar to meta descriptions and titles in traditional SEO for search engines like Google. A typical backend keyword may comprise synonyms, misspelled keywords, textual variations, etc. However, knowing how to pick the right ones is crucial. By analyzing your keyword rankings against competitors and higher-ranking product results in search, the platform can help you consistently optimize your content backend to help grow visibility.

    6. Focus on Reviews and Ratings

    Reviews and ratings on product pages are key insights that help customers with their purchasing decisions. So, it is natural for brands to keep a close eye on how their products are faring in this regard. Reviews and ratings are a direct indication of the trustworthiness of your product. When previous buyers rate you high and leave favorable reviews on your product, it will directly promote trust and help you secure a better rapport with new customers.

    Reviews with Videos and Images Optimized for Amazon SEO
    Requesting reviews or leveraging user generated reviews and ratings to optimize Amazon SEO

    This upfront advantage can help boost sales conversions better. Leveraging solutions like DataWeave can help you understand the sentiments that customers have for your products by intelligently analyzing reviews and ratings.

    7. Implement Competitive Pricing Strategies

    The goal of most customers when shopping online is to get their desired product at the most affordable prices. The eCommerce price wars every year are growing in scale today and getting your product pricing right is crucial for sales. However, there is a need to gain comprehensive insights into how your competitors are pricing their offerings and how the market responds to specific price ranges. Solutions like DataWeave help your brand access specific insights into pricing. By analyzing competitor pricing, you can create a winning price model that is sustainable for your brand and favorable for target customers.

    8. Track Share of Search

    Content and other SEO activities will help improve your search rankings on Amazon. However, it is equally important to know how well your products are performing periodically against your competitors for the same set of specific keyword searches. You need to understand the share of search that your products are achieving to formulate improvement strategies. DataWeave’s Digital Shelf Analytics solution provides share of search insights helping you uncover deep knowledge on your discoverability on Amazon (and other marketplaces) for your vital search keywords.

    9. Ensure Stock Availability

    To achieve better ranking results, brands need to ensure that the relevant products matching the search keywords are available for quick delivery at the desired ZIP codes where users are more likely to search and order them. Out-of-stock items seldom show up high on search results. Certain products, especially if they’re popular, can get stocked out frequently in certain locations. Keeping a close eye on your stock availability across the map can help minimize these scenarios.

    10. Optimize Your Brand Presence

    While optimizing content and other key areas within the Amazon webpage for your product is critical, there are other avenues to help boost search rankings. One such option includes registering in the Amazon Brand Registry, which provides more beneficial features like protection against counterfeits and ensuring that your brand page is optimized according to Amazon storefront standards.

    The Bottom Line

    Winning the top spot in Amazon search ranking is crucial for brands that aim to capitalize on online sales revenue to grow their business. Knowing your workaround for Amazon’s proprietary SEO frameworks and algorithms is the first step to succeeding. The key element of success is your ability to gain granular insights into the areas we covered in this blog post such as competitor prices, sentiments of customers, market preferences, and content optimization requirements.

    This is where DataWeave’s Digital Shelf Analytics solution becomes the biggest asset for your eCommerce business. Contact us to explore how we can empower your business to build the most visible and discoverable Amazon storefront that guarantees higher search rankings and ultimately increased sales. Talk to us for a demo today.

  • 5 Ways to Manage and Improve Stock Availability

    5 Ways to Manage and Improve Stock Availability

    Stock availability is the degree to which a brand or retailer has inventory of all their listed items to meet customer demand. Product availability becomes even more critical when they have to respond to unforeseen changes in demand and supply. To maintain the ideal stock availability levels for all items, they need robust inventory management tools to ensure real-time updates on current stock and accurate insights into upcoming demand.

    However, managing stock availability is not a clear-cut science. Retailers must balance the change in demand and keep stock availability in check

    Why Stock Availability Matters

    One of the challenges of running a retail business is to optimize inventory and associated costs. Maintaining stock availability in stores is critical for offline retail businesses. And when selling online, making sure products are available across different retailers and marketplaces can have a huge impact on sales and conversions. 

    1. Understocking: It’s when a brand’s product fails to meet consumer demand. If this happens often enough, customers may not return to the brand’s website or app because of the initial experience. Understocking is not a brand’s fault entirely since they might not always be able to anticipate a change in demand. However, it’s about a their ability to adapt to a quick change in the market trends through historical analysis and accurate forecasting. 
    2. Overstocking: It’s when a company orders too much inventory. Holding too much stock will lead to higher storage costs, shrinkage, and obsolescence losses. Another loss occurs if the brand can’t quickly sell the items — diminishing the value of the products. 

    We gathered data to see the impact of a short-term stockout on Amazon for one of our customers. Read more about what we uncovered & how deep the damage was, here.

    7 Ways to improve stock availability 

    1. Collect Accurate Data

    Availability across Brands and Categories

    When multiple items are moving through a supply chain, companies can easily run into inventory inaccuracies. Discrepancies between the values of your system and the actual inventory of products can lead to understocking or overstocking. The best way to avoid discrepancies in inventory is to invest in an inventory management tool that gives you real-time updates on your stock. This is applicable for offline retail businesses. 

    2. Managing eCommerce inventory

    Availability at Individual Product Level
    Availability at Individual Product level by regions

    Effective eCommerce inventory management is as important as making sure products are available in stores. Keeping track of your inventory levels and ensuring that you’re always well-stocked can avoid lost sales and keep your company running smoothly. Brands must ensure their stock is available across all the online platforms they sell. Access to real-time inventory data can help to keep a close eye on stock status across all marketplaces & retailers the product is available. Retailers also need to keep track of market trends to ensure they have the right inventory assortment to match customers’ demands. 

    3. Understand Consumer Demand

    The only way to accurately predict future demand is to rely on historical data about your customer purchase trends. What do your customers purchase during holiday seasons? What are the upcoming trends in your category? Having data-backed answers to such questions will help brands and retailers properly stock up their inventory.

    4. Adequate forecasting 

    Anticipating demand will help determine which products should be stocked during which seasons. Tracking past sales and metrics such as economic conditions, seasonality, peak buying months, and promotions will help brands predict demand. Analyzing such statistics will also help you get insights into the target market.

    Availability across regions

    5. Improve supplier relationships

    It’s important to rely on a supply chain that delivers your shipment promptly. In fact, you should foster close relationships with your suppliers to trim costs and improve stock availability. You should be able to share key details such as future demands, so suppliers can ensure timely delivery. 

    Availability Analysis
    Availability Analysis across Retailers and Categories

    Consequences of Inefficient Inventory Management

    What are the effects of overstocking?

    Tied-up cash: Money spent on overstocking is tied-up money that your company could have put to better use. You can use it to pay off debts, wages, and rent. Inventory often has a limited shelf life due to material degradation, changing consumer trends, spoilage, and obsolescence.

    Product expiration: If your brand offers time-sensitive goods or perishable items, overstocking can lead to product obsolescence and expiry. eCommerce platforms that also sell time-sensitive goods or grocery delivery apps are forced to sell products at below-margin prices to free up resources, leading to losses. 

    What are the effects of understocking?

    Poor customer experience: Poor product availability will lead to low customer satisfaction & dropping customer loyalty. 

    Missed sales: Customers could gravitate towards the competition to make their current purchase if a product is unavailable at your online store. The more freequent the stockouts, the more lost sales. 

    Conclusion

    To avoid the knock-on effects of overstocking and understocking, companies need a real-time view of their inventory, both online & offline. At DataWeave, we help companies decrease their latency period between stock replenishment and efficiently plan their supply chain. If you need help tracking your eCommerce product availability, reach out to the experts at DataWeave to know how we can help!

  • Share of Keyword Search Cinco de Mayo 2022

    Share of Keyword Search Cinco de Mayo 2022

    As inflation continues to hike costs for consumers and supply chains challenge them to maintain loyalty, there is still an active audience willing to pay the ultimate price for the convenience of food and alcohol delivery. That being said, we analyzed 8 popular Retail and Delivery Intermediary websites and 11 popular ‘Cinco de Mayo’ keywords to see which Brands are predicted to win the battle of Digital Shelf Share of Search this holiday.

    2022 Cinco de Mayo Share of Search Insights - Top Brands for 'Cinco de Mayo'
    2022 Cinco de Mayo Share of Search Insights – Top Brands for ‘Cinco de Mayo’

    Opportunities for Food & Bev on Cinco de Mayo

    While most of our analysis focused on popular Cinco de Mayo food and beverage products, none of these brands populated on either Target (pictured on left below) or Walmart (pictured on right below) page 1 search results for the term ‘Cinco de Mayo’. Keyword search results for this term are dominated primarily by décor brands as indicated below.

    Brands Achieving Top Share of Search for Food and Beverage Categories on Cinco de Mayo 2022
    Brands Achieving Top Share of Search for Food and Beverage Categories on Cinco de Mayo 2022

    Share of Keyword Search Results – Alcohol Category

    Three of the most popular alcohol types sought out during Cinco de Mayo are ‘Mexican Beer’, ‘Mezcal’, and ‘Tequila’. Below are the brands dominating Share of Keyword Search results on each of the major retail websites we researched.

    AmazonFresh, Meijer, Kroger, and Sam's Club Share of Search - Beer, Mezcal, and Tequila Keywords on Cinco de Mayo 2022
    AmazonFresh, Meijer, Kroger, and Sam’s Club Share of Search – Beer, Mezcal, and Tequila Keywords on Cinco de Mayo 2022

    We also reviewed the same keyword performance across popular delivery intermediaries to see how Share of Keyword Search altered for ‘Mexican Beer’, ‘Mezcal’, and ‘Tequila’. The results are below for TotalWine, Instacart, Drizly and GoPuff:

    TotalWine, Instacart, Drizly, and GoPuff of Search - Beer, Mezcal, and Tequila Keywords on Cinco de Mayo 2022
    TotalWine, Instacart, Drizly, and GoPuff of Search – Beer, Mezcal, and Tequila Keywords on Cinco de Mayo 2022

    The keyword ‘Agave’ is also a popular search term within the alcohol category during the time leading up to Cinco de Mayo. We reviewed keyword search performance at various zip codes to see how price points that populated on page 1 search results varied given the change in median income. Below are the results:

    Share of Search for Alcohol by Price Point and Zip Code on AmazonFresh
    Share of Search for Alcohol by Price Point and Zip Code on AmazonFresh

    Share of Keyword Search Results – Grocery Categories

    We also reviewed some of the most popular grocery items purchased during Cinco de Mayo by Keyword Share of Search results to see which brands are primed to win the Digital Shelf this year. Below are the results for Target.com and Walmart.com.

    Walmart and Target Share of Search - Food and Beverage Keywords on Cinco de Mayo 2022
    Walmart and Target Share of Search – Food and Beverage Keywords on Cinco de Mayo 2022

    Below are the results for the same popular grocery items and alcohol keywords related to Cinco de Mayo and the page 1 results seen for Brand Share of Search on Safeway.com.

    Safeway Share of Search - Food and Beverage Keywords on Cinco de Mayo 2022
    Safeway Share of Search – Food and Beverage Keywords on Cinco de Mayo 2022

    Access to these types of real-time digital marketplace insights can enable retailers and brands to make strategic decisions and help drive profitable growth in an intensifying competitive environment. Be sure to reach out to our Retail Analytics experts for access to more details regarding the above analysis, and let us know what other holiday insights you’d be interested in seeing this year. Happy Cinco de Mayo!