Keyword research is a fundamental part of running an Amazon business. Whether you do it yourself or whether you have a team of virtual assistants, keyword research done well provides a massive competitive advantage.
For those who are just starting out and aren’t sure what I mean, let me explain:
Apart from everything else that makes up the parts of an Amazon business, keywords are what connects you to your customers on multiple levels.
It starts in the product research phase when you’re trying to understand what sort of product you want to go with. No Amazon seller wants to choose a product, buy $1000++ amount of stock and have it sit there in a FBA warehouse for months on end. Then face the miserable fact of having to sell it as a significantly lower price simply to get rid of it (or trash it!).
The ideal product choice is one where you know exactly what the customers wants and whether there are enough people interested in justifying going into that market in the first place.
The reality is that any product research is guess work. But there is something to be said for doing the type of research that reduces the risk associated with choosing a product. This matters especially for the larger sellers who aren’t buying $1000 worth of stock. That are instead spending 10x that amount and taking out credit to do that.
The bigger you get, the risk only gets higher. So it pays, literally, to do your homework and choose the product with the best chance of sales.
Keywords will tell you not only which products people are interested in, but what they need, what matters to them, what sort of lifestyle they prefer, the types of problems they are trying to solve.
All of those aspects tell you WHO your client is. You’re not selling to a username or an email address. There is a person with wants, needs, fears and dreams. Your product needs to fit into that spectrum of emotional drivers. Which means that the better you are at keyword research, the better you will be at understanding your customer.
People prefer to buy from someone that they believe understands their needs. The seller that ‘gets it’.
If you can imagine an everyday conversation between two people, keywords are the part of the sentence after the customers says I want…
“I want paleo protein powder because I’ve been doing crossfit for a while and I hear it’s the right move.”
After the words “I want…”, you’re going to notice two things. The first is the product (i.e. paleo protein powder) and the second is where the demand comes in. When doing customers research, you’ll want to know whether this is a fad or a notable trend. You’ll also want to look for any intersections between lifestyle/problem/taste choices that re-enforce each other.
Paleo + Crossfit is a good example of this. Folks that do Crossfit (lots of products), tend to be very interested in paleo (lots of products). It’s not a blanket 1:1 relationship obviously, but there’s a trend there.
When you’re doing keyword research, it will give you hints about these sort of intersections.
Another great example is when discovering a product that solves a problem. This is especially notable in the supplements space. Take Vitamin D for example. The recommended amount is 600 UI per day.
But that’s not the same thing as taking a dosage that ensures health. It depends on where you live. If you’re in a country near the equator, taking vitamin D is not that much of an issue. However, if you lived in Canada, then it’s practically a requirement because of the lack of sunlight in winter.
So, 600 UI may not be the dosage your Canadian customers may want. It could be that they want 5000 UI a day. That would come to around 8 pills. People generally prefer to take less pills. Most especially if they are doing a supplement regime and taking Omega3, Vit4, etc. They are likely going to go with a competitor if that competitor offers a single pill of 5000 UI a day.
That sort of change will come up in the keyword search.The search term “vitamin D3 5000 UI” would start to appear.
Here’s what is key:
Even if you don’t know this, when the search term(s) comes up and you notice the numbers, you’ll be able to research why it’s coming up.
This information can empower you in all sorts of ways.
Another place where keywords make a huge difference is on your product listing. Taking a step beyond product research (for either a new product or a product update), the correct keywords can fundamentally change the selling power of your product listing.
While your ranking is determined by more things than just your keywords, they do play a big role in helping your customers find you and then want to buy from you. There are more technical tactics which apply (I’ll cover in another post) but I want to emphasis the need for similarity and trustworthy.
The more your listing appears as exactly what the customers wants, the more you benefit from seemingly trustworthy. What creates trust is for a customer to see something described in THEIR words.
Because that’s going to create a reaction for that says….
“THIS IS EXACTLY what I want.”
Followed by joy and pressing the BUY Button.
Anything that is different, creates the need for translation and then can create confusion and hesitation. Especially if there is, for example, a language barrier. Which is important to know if you’re going to sell in a market where the language spoken is not your first language.
A customer wants to know that it’s going to solve THEIR problem. They don’t care about other people’s problems. Only their own. The closer you can get to that 1 : 1 match, the better for you.
Finally, and importantly, is the impact of long-tail keywords.
If you haven’t run into that before, it’s worth getting to know. Long tail keywords are keywords or key phrases that are more specific (and usually longer) than more commonly searched for keywords.
This matters for everything I’ve mentioned about the benefits of solid keyword research for product research and/or product listing setup or updates.
It is much easier to rank for long tail keywords than for more common keywords. Another reason to focus on long tail keywords is that, although these keywords are used less in search, the customer that finds your product using them is more likely to buy your service or product.
Keyword research can be laborious if you do it manually. It can take hours to hunt down valuable long tail keyword searches using Amazon’s suggestion engine (it’s what offers the options when you enter something in the search bar).
While that may give you a few combinations, it won’t give you search volume. You could spend time estimating sales volume using a variety of services but it comes with the catch that it’s something you’d have to maintain and add to over time to make sure it’s accurate.
And that’s the very reason why we built DeepWords.
We realized how essential keyword research is and how there isn’t a good tool on the market right now that offers the depth and breath of search terms and their associated sales volume quickly.
In 2 minutes, with DeepWords, you can get all sorts of questions answered about whether to invest in a product, whether your customers have changed their mind on something or whether there’s a long tail keyword that deserves a second look.
We are running a Beta Launch for DeepWords and we have a few spots left! We’d love to have you onboard while we polish the edges.
The best way to join our Beta VIP Group is by clicking on the Get Started button below. It will take you to the DeepWords website, where you can signup.
