The Secret Truth About Amazon Reviews and Product Rankings

When it comes to ranking a product in Amazon — the bar has been raised. Significantly.

Launching a product on Amazon is a whole different ballgame since the Amazon T.O.S. change in October of last year. With the banning of incentivized reviews, sellers are forced to rely on alternative methods for getting initial sales.

And it’s a catch 22:
To rank higher, you need sales. But to make more sales, you need to rank higher.

Confused? Don’t worry. This quick guide will teach how to successfully rank your new product on Amazon — and how to boost your initial sales without incentivized reviews.

But first, let’s clear something up — there seems to be this myth that you need to cultivate tons of reviews to improve your product rankings. This is just not true. 

The truth is: Reviews are not directly related to your product ranking. Reviews do, however, impact your conversions. And conversions, in turn, boost sales — which is a ranking factor.

Did you follow that? This is important so let’s look at it again:

Reviews do NOT directly increase your producing ranking — increased sales do.

It works like this: On page conversion rate + Daily sales velocity = Ranking

This guide will outline a formula for boosting sales velocity and conversion rate that is tried and tested. So the real truth is — you should stop worrying so much about getting tons of reviews. Instead focus on increasing your sales velocity.

Simply put, it works. It’s only a matter of following the steps.

Step 1: Optimize Your Listing

First, make sure your listing is conversion and keyword optimized. If you don’t have these bases covered you’ll be wasting a lot of the effort down the road.

Start by looking at your competitors’ listings. Make note of what they seem to be doing right, and what you can improve upon. Pay close attention to:

• Pricing: Stay on the low end initially 
• Copy: Use all 5 bullet points
• Images: Use quality, full resolution images

PRO TIP: Check the On Page Analyzer tool in AMZ Tracker to instantly learn if you’ve optimized your listing. If not, you’ll see what you need to take care of immediately.

It looks like this:

 

Go ahead and log in to your AMZ Tracker account and check out the listing optimization tool now.

If you DON’T have an AMZ Tracker account, take advantage of the free trial here.

Step 2: Run Promotions to Increase Sales Velocity

When you’ve optimized your listing for conversions, it’s time to accelerate your sales velocity. That’s a fancy word for sales frequency —  the speed at which you sell products. And remember — sales velocity directly impacts your rankings. 

The best way to increase sales velocity is to run promotions.

Through sites like AMZ Tracker’s Vipon — with over 300,000 shoppers — you can distribute promotions and quickly improve your sales (and product rank).

Your goal is to maximize sales from the beginning to get your product ranked as quickly as possible.

Why You Should Treat Your Business Like a Restaurant

Think about it like this: An opening day sale at your restaurant. You need to get customers in the door to drum up as much interest as possible.

Once word gets out that your food is great, it will create a snowball effect of new customers. People who were skeptical to try your restaurant will be more likely to do so based on lower price.

Treat your Amazon product the same way. Lower your price point to get as many buyers as possible to your listing, and it will increase the likelihood of feedback.

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to run promotions:

• STEP 1: Set sales velocity. Use a tool like Unicorn Smasher to get an idea of your main competitor’s sales. Type in your competitor’s BSR to get an estimate on the amount they’re selling per month. Divide that by 30 to get daily sales. If your competitor sells 20 units per day, you’ll want to replicate that speed for 5 days. Be aggressive here to get results.
• STEP 2: Create one-time coupon codes. Click here to learn how.
• STEP 3: Set pricing. Aim for at least $1.95 depending on product.
• STEP 4: Set max order quantity. Do this in your backend to protect your inventory.
• STEP 5: Set up a Vipon promotion. Click here to learn how.
• STEP 6: Approve coupons. Create a promotion that runs equally over 4 days and stagger them out instead of approving them all at once. Click here to learn how.
• STEP 7: Add major keywords into the keyword tool. Do this to monitor organic rankings. It will help you determine the effectiveness of your promotional campaign.

The Bottom Line: Focus less on reviews. Instead increase conversions and sales velocity to rank higher in Amazon.

Remember: Conversions + Sales velocity = High rank. By optimizing your conversions and your sales speed with these steps, you’ll be sure to skyrocket your sales.

First, make sure you lay the groundwork for your conversions by perfecting your listing. Then start accelerating your sales rate through promotions.

This combination will make your products climb to the top.

Ready to run your first promotion? Set it up in AMZ Tracker now.

Or if you DON’T have an account, take advantage of our 7 day free trial here!