How to use Amazon Keywords

Amazon Keywords

The use and importance of the right keywords has been one of the most important tools for E-commerce sellers and advertisers alike. That being said the exact definition of keywords can be hard to define. A quick Google search of “what are keywords” will yield multiple definitions with conflicting answers. It can be confusing as different platforms use keywords in different ways, and in some cases have keywords in multiple places. To clear the jungle of definitions let us first define what keywords are and then understand how to use them with Amazon.

What Are Amazon Keywords?

Keywords are a word or words used to perform a search in a search engine to help find the word the searcher is looking for. For advertisers keywords are very important and should be the core of any copy written as they will help lead the searcher to their page or product. For Amazon sellers keywords are extremely important because if shoppers can’t find your Amazon product listing with the keywords they are using, a sale can be lost as you have not used the right keywords. To make sure you don’t lose the opportunity of a potential sale you must first understand the type of keywords available to use with Amazon and how to optimize to reach their maximum potential.

Amazon’s 2 Categories of Keywords

• Primary (title) & Secondary (bullets, description, features, etc)
• Hidden Keywords & Search Terms

Primary & Secondary Keywords

As shown above, the primary keyword is something that you are going to target for the product title whereas the secondary keywords (can be multiple) will be included in the description, bullet points, features, etc. These are the keywords that the users will see and the ones that most are familiar with. For primary keywords, these will be your most important words that customers will use to search for. These will go in your product title. An example of a primary keyword is if you were selling toothbrushes, your primary keyword would be toothbrush as it is the main driving word to your product. For secondary keywords, these are words that are slightly different versions of your primary. Going back to our example of the primary keyword being toothbrush, secondary keywords could be:

• professional toothbrush
• ultra whitening toothbrush
• toothbrush for bad breathe 
• blue toothbrush

Secondary keywords help narrow down the search and provide specifics to the search of the user and help give it an added boost. These keywords can be used in the bullets, description, features, and anywhere else within the product page. 

Hidden Keywords

We now understand the user facing keywords that are used on product pages for titles, bullets, and descriptions, but Amazon provides another type of keywords that are hidden and used on the backend. These keywords aren’t visible on Amazon and they don’t appear within the product listing on Amazon search. Hidden keywords can include different variations of your keywords or keyword phrases for searches. These are words that you want Amazon users to use to search for your product – hence the name search terms.  Going back to our example of toothbrushes, search terms for toothbrushes could be:

• teeth whitening 
• yellow teeth 
• bad breath
• mouth
• tongue 
• dentist
• dental brush
• tooth brush
• teeth

A good way to think of search terms is to consider the game Charades. The aim is to try to describe an object or place without using actual word itself. They have to use words that are associated with it and that describe. Search terms in a sense are very similar to charades as you are trying to guess words that would be used to search for that specific word or words.

Where Are Hidden Keywords?

Hidden keywords can be added within the product edit section of seller central. Simply go to your inventory, click on the edit button for one of your products on the right side. Click on the tab “keywords” to add in your search terms.

When inputting search terms you want to make sure:

• Keywords used only once
• using only words related to the product’s search
• No repetition
• Don’t use filler words
• Don’t go over the maximum of 250 characters
• Don’t use irrelevant keywords

For selling on Amazon keywords are essential to be successful. However, in order to accomplish this one must understand the kind of keywords Amazon uses and how best to utilize them. Now with an understanding of the keywords available, you will now be able to dive into product research and finding the best keywords to use to drive traffic.