For a quick primer on some Amazon marketing (SEO and PPC) you can go check out the episode What is Amazon SEO and Amazon Advertising? which we did with Ginny Marvin in the past.
There is also a video primer from Robyn that she did for SEMRush that can give you some quick bits too.
Still with us? On to the show!
Ways to Sell on Amazon
- Amazon Merch Seller
- Amazon Seller Central
- Amazon Vendor Central
- Kindle Platform
Amazon & Rules
One of the big points that Robyn talks about is how you really need to follow the rules. Whether you intend to have your mom or family review your products, that can get your product removed. If you “optimize” your backend to target some copyrighted terms can also get you in trouble.
In short, you need to keep a positive experience for users and Amazon or they will kick you off the platform.
Additional Resources
If after this you still have questions you can visit Robyn’s profile or go join her FB group.
Full Transcript:
Matt Siltala: [00:00:00] Welcome to another exciting episode of the business of digital podcast, featuring your host, Matt and Dave roar. Hey guys, excited. You’d have everybody join us on another one of these business of digital podcast episodes, and we’re just going to jump right into it today, Dave. We have special guest Robin Johnson with us, um, founder, CEO of marketplace blueprint, and besides being an Amazon expert and a listing optimization expert.
Central and all that good stuff. If I missed anything, uh, Robin, please feel free to jump in and correct me, but, uh, welcome, uh, to the, to the show. And thank you so much for joining
Robyn Johnson: [00:00:42] us today. Well, thank you for having me. I always love getting to like nerd out about marketing stuff and sharing a little bit about Amazon because it’s this backwards, upside down crazy place, but it’s a fun place to play
Matt Siltala: [00:00:54] indeed.
And, and yes, and I I’m actually, you know, I’m looking forward to hearing what you have to say. Um, you know, this is, this is stuff, obviously that’s super interesting. So I’m glad that our listeners are going to get a chance to, uh, to listen. And so again, thank you for joining us now, Dave, I’m just going to go ahead and let you, uh, uh, kick it off with, uh, where you want this to start and we’ll just, uh, we’ll go from there.
So
Dave Rohrer: [00:01:17] gracias. I think we decided we actually planned this time, which is. Um, shocking for us way to organize today. The, I think Robin, just the, what did you see in the last year, year and a half from just before COVID we were just talking about it to today. Like has Amazon and just what you’ve been seeing, gone crazy.
Is it finally settling down? Is it dealing even crazier now? Like what have you kind of seen from the number of people coming on? Yeah. You know, in general on Amazon.
Robyn Johnson: [00:01:51] Well, you know, COVID was a really good time to be an Amazon seller to be having your products on Amazon. We, of course, you know, as an agency that specializes in that we got really busy.
Uh, you know, there was a definite increase in the amount of people who were on Amazon, just because people were trying to get products. People were, you know, locked down for awhile. Uh, but we also saw. Team the way that brands were looking at Amazon. Um, before in fact there were several brands that we had talked to before and they said, uh, before COVID, they said, it’s just not a priority for us.
Amazon is not where we’re really focused. It’s not really important to us. We don’t really care what happens on there. And then just a couple months later, Amazon was for some company. Only real distribution channel, depending on what kinds of stores. So especially products that were made primarily in like specialty gift stores or, you know, me stores that weren’t deemed essential.
Uh, we kind of became their only a distribution point for a small period of time. And so we were really busy. A lot of our clients were all really busy as such. Uh, crease increases. We had an established brand that, uh, jumped over 300%, uh, you know, year over year. And, uh, they’ve been in while they, they, the growth has slowed down.
Um, they were able to maintain a lot of those gains. Uh, there are a lot of. Did start buying on Amazon that will continue to purchase on Amazon. And we’re still, always still are seeing that things are not ebbing as much as maybe we might have been con uh, might’ve been concerned that they would add back after everybody was kind of up and about and moving around the country again.
Um, but it’s been okay. And we’re seeing that brands are now seeing that there is lots of different ways to utilize Amazon in their overall marketing and distribution plans. Uh, in fact, we have a couple of companies that, uh, Because they put so much effort of last year because of COVID. They, they really thought that their product was very seasonal because brick and mortars would only carry their, their products during certain times.
And now they’re seeing that there is that demand all year round. And so it’s providing a little bit more, um, of, of leeway and ability to kind of flex a little bit, uh, during their off seasons to maintain those sales.
Dave Rohrer: [00:04:07] That’s interesting. I wouldn’t even thought about the. You know, you’re a seasonal thing.
We only have so much shelf space, you know, like, like at a target, like you go in the back and it’s like, here’s all the camping gear and then it’ll disappear and they’ll put in something else or, you know, different toys. Is it just those kinds of things that normally just don’t have a lot of shelf space or, and then it just goes.
Robyn Johnson: [00:04:28] Yeah. So we, I was just having this conversation today with one of our gardening products. And they said, you know, the stores had always dictated when our season was, so unless we could convince them to carry the product longer, uh, they would just take our product out. But, you know, it’s, you know, I’m in Arizona and I know Matt is too, you know, there’s people in California that garden all year round, uh, and during the busy season for other areas, Know, that’s kind of when we’d garden less.
So, um, they’re, they’re now seeing that there can be more, uh, ability for them to sell at a higher volume, even off of their main season. When the brick and mortars were really interested in carrying their products,
Dave Rohrer: [00:05:06] they, we have the opposite problem up here, like when it comes to spring break, if you don’t cause I’m in Chicago and it does get cold up here on like you too, you know, if you’re going somewhere warm, For spring break, you have to plan way ahead and buy shorts for the children as they’ve probably outgrown stuff, but the stores tend to don’t care.
I mean, they know to carry some, but often we have to go online almost all the time for them because the options are so picked over. As soon as they come.
Robyn Johnson: [00:05:37] And especially if it’s a non digitally native brand, a lot of times they have VR season in their mind is so built up around what the brick and mortars have told them that they forget that there are so many of these different edge cases across the country for all sorts of different products.
And, um, so even something like a swimsuit. Your season is probably longer than you think it is. It’s just going to be a little bit in a different region perhaps, or, uh, you know, you might be, you’re not going to see your total sales volume that you do at your peak season, but there are still consistent sales available.
And online is where a lot of people are going to get those needs fat. And if your product is not available, they’ll go to a competitor,
Dave Rohrer: [00:06:16] which I think is a perfect segue into the common ways to sell on Amazon, because there’s more than I, I would have thought. Um, do you want to break down there’s I believe four.
Is that correct? Feel free to correct me. Cause I have some notes, but I’m sure some
Robyn Johnson: [00:06:30] of them are wrong, you know, and Amazon is always trying to rule things out and um, they’ll roll things out and pull them back. So they try to do something for, you know, service providers like plumbers and things like that.
And then they kind of have half pulled that back. Uh, and so, but the mean when people think about Amazon, they think of going to Amazon as one unified store, whether you’re buying a book or an audible, or you’re buying a physical product. They all look like it’s one big piece on the front. However, in the backend, it’s actually several different platforms and the platform platforms are very different from the way you input products to how much inventory is sent in to, um, and how payouts are done.
They’re all very separate. And the main ones are Kindle direct platform, uh, and that, uh, that is where CreateSpace used to be. And so it’s where you can write and publish your own. Soft cover books. Uh, it’s also where you can do Kindle books. And then there is, um, Amazon merch. These are the two smaller ones.
This is for things like promotional items like t-shirts and pop sockets. And they’ve, they’ve rolled out sweatshirts and different things throughout the time. So this is going to be print on demand items. Now the two main platforms that most people think of, uh, when the products that are provided for that, when most people think of Amazon are gonna be seller central and vendor center.
These are both where physical products are sold on Amazon, but they’re sold in two different ways. Seller central is I’m the merchant and I sell on Amazon. I determine the price. I determine how many descendants and I’m in charge. And I still own my image. Vendor central is where a lot of big brands think of Amazon.
And that’s where it’s an invite only program. Amazon buys your products from you. They determine how many they determine how much they’re going to sell those products for. And then they, and they are the seller of record for that product. So if you ever seen. Uh, ships and sold by Amazon, uh, where it says Amazon is the seller there.
That means that that, that particular brand is using the vendor central platform instead of the seller central platform. If that makes sense.
Dave Rohrer: [00:08:36] It does. And vendor central is invite only so only, you know, like the big Nike and the big manufacturers, usually I’m sure there’s other smaller ones they get asked to.
Um, the merge one is interesting.
Robyn Johnson: [00:08:52] Yeah. You know, if you’re interested in, there’s a guy named Chris green, that’s all about he, you know, he likes to talk about Marshall a lot. Um, but it, it it’s, it’s been interesting, you know, there’s a lot of people kind of went over there. Um, the print on demand has been a place for people who kind of want like close start entrepreneurial things.
Um, you know, people do kind of, uh, you know, they’ll do like journals and things, uh, uh, KDP, and then they’ll do. You know, shirts and stuff on print on demand. Amazon is really particular about copyright, which, you know, of course they have to be. Um, so you have to be careful. You kind of need to know what you’re doing, uh, in Amazon as a whole, um, Amazon has a culture where they expect you to understand the rules.
So if you go on and you break the rules and you can’t say I didn’t. It’s not my fault. They’re going to say, well, what kind of bad business owner are you that you didn’t understand the rules of the platform you were selling on? And so you can get permanently banned for things, uh, and the things that can seem pretty benign if you don’t understand why Amazon finds these things so important.
Dave Rohrer: [00:09:57] Can you give an example? Cause I mean, SEO is we always talk about, you know, shades of gray and what is illegal versus what Google says is bad. Um, what would Amazon flag you for possibly?
Robyn Johnson: [00:10:13] So some things that get people a lot that are, you know, people who are well-meaning didn’t intend to do anything.
Black hat is, uh, you had your mom review your product that you just launched on. Amazon friends and family are not allowed to. Review products, uh, or you had all your employees review your product or your competitor’s product that can get you your product removed from the platform. Uh, maybe you’re selling kid’s shoes and you were like, man, I would really like some of those Nike customers.
So in the backend search terms, you put Nike that can get your listings, um, uh, taken off if, when Nike goes through and does, um, their copyright pieces. Now that’s not going to permanently ban you unless they see it happen a lot. Um, and you know, sometimes this little thing. You know, deleting shipments to try to get a better shipping rates, uh, over and over again.
Um, or it can be something like a negative customer experience can get your, um, product detail page removed. So if a lot of people, uh, are you, you have, if your listing isn’t really clear, really stating that your item runs small and a lot of people are having a negative customer experience, Amazon will make sure that that negative experience doesn’t happen anymore by removing that particular detail page from the, uh, from the catalog.
Dave Rohrer: [00:11:26] They will smack you down.
Robyn Johnson: [00:11:29] Yeah. And they won’t feel bad about it. And you know, so someone else will
Dave Rohrer: [00:11:32] be selling the exact same thing probably. And they’re fine.
Robyn Johnson: [00:11:36] And, you know, I think that’s fundamental to selling on Amazon. Um, sometimes, you know, I’ll get a big brand that comes to us because they have gotten in trouble.
Um, you know, there’s a lot of people who say they’re good at Amazon. Um, but they don’t really have the experience or, you know, it’s a, it’s, uh, somebody with only Google experience trying to run Amazon and they’ll say, 10 minutes. I’m a $20 million a year seller on Amazon. How could they do this? To me? $20 million to Amazon is pennies.
They don’t care about you, no matter how big you are, they don’t care about you. They just went through and suspended a bunch of eight figure sellers because of some manipulation that they caught. So, um, the, the most important thing to understand is especially if your business is all animals. Then you have one client that is very temperamental, very demanding and very moody.
And so you need to make sure that you have the cash runway for, if something does happen with your listings and you need to sort it out through Amazon, um, or, and you also need to make sure that you’re really watching what these new policies. What is Amazon trying to say, when they say they roll out something like the inventory performance index, which basically measures how good you are at managing your FBA storage.
And what they’re doing, they’re trying to say is, you know, we don’t want to be a storage locker. And so you need to look at what is their intent and try to keep your interests. And Amazon’s interests aligned as closely as possible. And that’s how you avoid getting stepped on when your, when you, what you want and what Amazon wants are at odds.
Yes,
Dave Rohrer: [00:13:11] this is one of those cases where, as an SEO and digital marketer, we always talk about how you really need, you know, and I just saw Eli was talking about product like to SEO the other day. Um, but when we talk about SEO reads really needs to be integral into the business. When you’re trying to sell an Amazon, you really need to have all functions.
Performing correctly and together and in sync and playing nice. Otherwise, anyone. Can get you knocked out.
Robyn Johnson: [00:13:43] Yes. So Amazon is, is so in some ways you could look at Amazon SEO and say, well, she’s not really an SEO. She doesn’t do any of this other stuff that I do. There’s a lot less of the technical stuff. We don’t have to worry about crawlability at all, because it’s all structured to get it.
And Amazon that the algorithm is running. Everything knows exactly where each of those data pieces are. So in that sense, it’s a lot easier in the other sense, um, you know, Organic rank is impacted by advertising sales and by conversion. So if you run out of stock, if your advertising is off, if your, if you do something that is going to get a policy violation, which could suspend the seller or suspend the product, then you can end up taking 10 steps back on your overall SEO plan them.
So you do need to understand the platform as a whole. And there are pieces of traditional SEO that you’re not going to need. And there’s a lot of pieces that look the same. But our upside down. So, you know, it looks like we’re doing keyword research. Yes. We’re doing that keyword research. But on Amazon, we look at individual keywords for organic, organic, and then for paid, we’re looking at the keyword phrases.
So if I want to rank for kids tool toolbelts I can write this kids. Leather belt set is great for tools and it is a perfect kit. Obviously we went, that would be a horrible way to write it, but as long as it’s in there, W we’ll put them together. Uh, and then what it determines. So there’s indexing, uh, which, you know, we want to have each of the words in there, and then it looks at how well does something convert for that phrase to determine where you end up in the SERP.
And that’s kind of an simplification, but you know, there’s lots of other factors too. But if we want, I don’t want to take an over glancing thing. That would be where we would.
Dave Rohrer: [00:15:29] It’s almost like if you’ve ever done Google ads, it’s like what Google does with products. Yes. Except Amazon does it for their SEO.
It’s like, oh, well you mentioned two words that are very similar. Therefore we’re going to put you into the next, you know, we’re going to actually qualify, possibly qualify you to be on that page one. But then I think you just, you knew listed off a number of things. Um, what. Before we scare off everyone from going, holy cow, this isn’t at all.
SEO, Robin and Dave and Matt, what are you guys talking about? What are the similar, yeah, you did mention the keyword research, but are there any normal similar? No, we don’t have to worry about, you know, can it crawl it because we’re, we’re basically giving it a data feed. So it’s almost like Google shopping or an RSS feed of just here’s our products, you know, just like you’re kind of doing a thing now.
It’s like being here. Here’s my site list of my site, you know, a site map, uh, What other similar things can someone that’s done SEO traditionally, you know, at least know that that’s going to be the same in Amazon.
Robyn Johnson: [00:16:37] So it is going to be a little bit kind of a mix of that feed. Uh, so there are certain area that most of the areas in the feed are indexable, but there’s some areas there’s, uh, additional areas outside of that, um, that are, um, Indexable.
So, um, one of the things that traditional SEOs have an advantage over, uh, maybe somebody who’s just coming and listing their product is they understand the importance of structured data. Uh, and there, there is a lot of structured data that is available when you go and you download those inventory loader templates, if you go into the advanced section and by making sure that’s completely filled out, then it increases the total number of index, uh, indexing opportunities that you have.
So, um, when you, some of the other things that are also the same is, you know, trying to balance incorporating as many keywords as possible with making the, the, the text where it’s, uh, going to be something that’s actually converts. Um, when it’s. Um, and, um, the other, and then there are some things that are still different.
So, um, Amazon renamed all of the files as you upload them. So you don’t have to worry about naming your images, uh, as it stands right now, they’ve, they’ve kind of played with maybe having that have some impact, um, kind of the way that you title your products will, uh, Impact the way that the, each the, the URL will come up at the top.
So, um, you know, people who have it, you know, so that, and that, so that’s kind of similar in that you do have some control over the way that certain aspects of your listing do show up.
Dave Rohrer: [00:18:11] I think there, there is the, the other similarity, which you kind of mentioned is just the user intent and. Your product match up with what they’re actually shopping for.
So you kind of mentioned that you can, you can write whatever you want and use, you know, keywords and you can keyword stuff it a little bit, you know, you can do certain things like that, but if you try to cover everything, you know, and almost, you know, it’s like some people are like, well, if you just write this 5,000 word article and just cover everything about the topic, you know, you’ll rank for 5,000 long tail search.
But, you know, for some of us that if you were to look in your Google search console, you’ll also see a hundred thousand impressions and very few clicks, or maybe a couple of clips or no clicks with Amazon. That’s actually just going to tank your entire account. If you’re not.
Robyn Johnson: [00:19:04] Yeah, cause conversion is the most important thing.
So when I’m talking to new clients, I tell them that Amazon is the most capitalistic search engine out there. All it really cares about is making it sale. It doesn’t care how long you dwell it doesn’t care. You know, it, it doesn’t care if you found it just wants you to buy the thing that you want. Uh, and it’s sticky.
And for that to be a positive experience for you as a customer, So, um, you know, it, and kind of on to build off of what you said. The other thing that I see that people with marketing digital marketing experience is they understand that balance between trying to make sure we’re getting the right keywords, but also not focusing so much on overly broad keywords.
Um, you know, w we, in the beginning, you know, five, even 10 years ago to try to rank for. Garlic press was really easy. Uh, so there wasn’t as much, uh, you know, people didn’t really think about the, how broad a term was. Um, but as advertising and the, the number of listings on Amazon has just skyrocketed over the years.
You know, one area that I see some experienced sellers struggle with, they want to be number one for phone system while, you know, if you have. If you have a PBX phone system ranking for phone system altogether might not be the most important keyword phrase, even though it is relevant.
Dave Rohrer: [00:20:25] So it’s almost, you almost have to put an, a PPC hat on and really think exact match for your SEO.
Robyn Johnson: [00:20:33] Yes. So that’s, what’s weird about Amazon SEO. Is that a lot of what we do? You know, there’s the indexing step, right? Where we’re trying to write the content, uh, make sure it will be. You know, for the customer, then the customer will convert. But a lot of the things that we’re going to do to try to get it to rank, you know, we don’t need to worry about link building at all because Amazon doesn’t care where the links are.
Uh, if they’re creating all the links within the ecosystem and they don’t care about outside of the ecosystem. So what we’re trying to do then is we’re, we’re using clippable coupons, we’re using advertising in order to cause the conversions for the organic.
Dave Rohrer: [00:21:18] And since those different things don’t matter. What does matter? What, what, what things that you can impact on the page? I assume reviews the, how often things are purchased and you know, some of the keyword stuff. Is there anything else or is there an order that you look at things? Yeah.
Robyn Johnson: [00:21:37] So first we look at making sure we’ve maximized.
As many keywords as we can in the title bullets, um, structured data. That includes like the backend keywords, of course, which, and a lot of people who are familiar with Amazon are familiar with, but also things like fabric type in John rhe and uh, age ranges. And, uh, there’s a lot of little things that are in that backend structure data.
And if you don’t do that, the little filters that are on the left-hand side, uh, your product won’t be filtered. By those things on the side there. So it’s important that you go back in and fill out in that, all of that structured data. Um, after we look about, look at, um, indexing and we’ve made sure we’ve got the copy rate down, we’re going to start looking at things like special programs.
So, you know, if you have a shampoo, can we get you in subscribe and save? If you have, uh, you know, if, if you are selling PBX phone systems, we want to make sure that you’re, uh, you know, correctly set up on Amazon business, provide a business discount for people who want to buy multiples all at the same time.
Uh, you know, using things like eight plus content and really great images to help make sure that people can convert and then we’re gonna use the last layer is going to be a combination of PPC, uh, coupons discounts, something to help drive that initial traffic. Now that we’re, we’ve got everything set up.
So my listing is we reduced as much friction as possible so that people will convert us at the highest rate possible. Then we’re going to. Kind of jumpstart that with advertising. Uh, then what we do is we take a look at the advertising data and we look if there’s any, um, re optimization that needs to be done.
So, uh, you know, there’s always alternate use cases that sometimes people don’t pick up right away. Um, so you know, there’s a lot of. Um, there’s a lot of kind of redoing listings on a regular basis to kind of adjust for different keywords that are starting to gain popularity for that particular product set or, uh, even, you know, changes in the way that the brand wants to be known or we, as we get better, get to know the product overall.
Dave Rohrer: [00:23:36] And what about not, I know this could probably be its own entire episode, but review. Like, uh, you know, I’m sure Matt, who is not feeling good today probably could talk about things he’s bought. And it’s like, you know, if I see a thousand five-star reviews okay. And kind of scratch my head versus a new exact point, you know, is, is there, I don’t want to say a sweet spot, but is there a goal to at least have it a minimum or like number of reviews, if you’re brand new product.
Do, should you at least try to get so many by first month or a week or three months or something? Or.
Robyn Johnson: [00:24:15] Yeah. So, you know, Amazon will tell you to be retail ready. They want you to have 25 reviews. Now, this really depends. If you are a autistic toy for left-handed children only, you probably don’t need any reviews because you’re going to be the only result for that syrup.
Or maybe you’re one of six, right? So it’s, it’s, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a non-competitive. Uh, if it’s a non-competitive, then you don’t need very many reviews at all. If you want to sell a blue iPhone case, you’re going to need like 3000 reviews. Now you’ll start converting. After you get know your conversion rate will start to get a little bit better.
Your ads will perform anywhere from 25 to 50, but people look at those. Those reviews as proof of concept. Now, uh, I, I agree with you. Uh, sometimes brands will get, especially young brands, small brands. They can take every negative review, very personally, some negative reviews and critical reviews are actually a good thing because they show that the PR the reviews are real when every review.
So this is the best product I’ve ever used ever. Uh, then, you know, people are a little skeptical and they’re going to, you know, they might even go off Amazon to verify that. So, uh, I’m the first time we do.
Matt Siltala: [00:25:32] And it’s not even us just as marketers. I mean, my wife tells me all the time, like, she’ll be this sounds too good to be true.
She’ll be like, she’ll be looking up her product. She’s like, oh, I didn’t go with that one because everybody had nothing but good stuff to say about it. There wasn’t like anything bad about it. And so, like I knew something was.
Dave Rohrer: [00:25:49] Yeah. If you, if you’re a seller and you have a bad review and you literally step back, read the review there’s times where I’ll be like, I’ll look at a bad review about Yelp on Yelp or on Amazon or on w you know, target or Macy’s or whatever.
And I’ll be like, really? That’s what you’re nitpicking. That’s that’s. That was your problem with it, whatever. But
Matt Siltala: [00:26:09] also could, you know, if they don’t take offense to it, they can also learn and grow from it as well. I’ve seen that a lot of times with clients. And, uh, you know, getting some of that, that feedback that they don’t like if they, if they take a step back and don’t get offended, they could learn from a lot of it.
But I understand what you’re saying too. Like some of it’s like that was petty, but some of it they
Dave Rohrer: [00:26:28] can learn from there’s also, I was going to buy something at, um, down the street here and it’s like a standing rocker thing that was going to help me, you know, kind of strengthen my legs and my back, but also make me kind of adjust while I stand all day.
Every single review. Just about said I had it for three days and it fell apart. So clearly there’s a problem. And it’s these reviews go back two years. I’m like, how old is this review? This one’s two years. Okay. Well, did they fix it recently one month ago? Same problem. One week ago. Same problem. Nope. Don’t want it.
So they’re not using those, those reviews to improve. That’s what they should
Robyn Johnson: [00:27:12] be doing. And, you know, there’ve been times when the brand will say it, but it’s because they’re using it incorrectly. Well, you know, especially if we’re taking on a new client, they’ll be like, oh, well, those reviews are done because they, you know, they’re using it the wrong way.
And so that’s why it’s breaking well, nowhere in the last two years has that brand said, Hey, we need to rewrite our listing or we need to use, have an image, you know, pretty early on in that carousel that says, Hey, you can’t lean on it this way or not to use it. Yeah. You know, it, you
Dave Rohrer: [00:27:40] can, you can use a video example of how, how to properly use it.
Matt Siltala: [00:27:43] That’s what they missed out on that opportunity for some new content.
Robyn Johnson: [00:27:47] And, you know, a lot of times people will get frustrated with Amazon because they’ll remove their, their product listing. Cause people will say, you know, on my, uh, on, especially on apparel, uh, well, you know, they w he was removed for people saying it was too small.
That’s not my fault. Well, the first two. The seven for the, you know, the last 47 of them. Yes. Because we needed a size chart. We needed an image, you know, with little arrows showing that it’s snug in the waist, something is happening in the listing that you’re not giving people what they need in order to determine whether or not this product is a good fit for them.
Yeah.
Dave Rohrer: [00:28:25] And if you take nothing else from this and, you know, Episode, just think that Al Amazon wants to do is sell stuff, help them sell your stuff. So, um,
Matt Siltala: [00:28:38] that’s, that’s it. Before we, before we, uh, wrap up, uh, any final questions that you have Dave or any final thoughts, Robin,
Dave Rohrer: [00:28:47] I think, um, we kind of talked about some stuff around the SEO for the keyword research and the copywriting.
How would you put it more in line with, um, like writing a PPC ad, but doing, you know, basic keyword research or like, how would you compare it for people and just kind of.
Robyn Johnson: [00:29:12] I think if you had to say like, I’m going to go with one methodology, Jerry and other, I think the PPC is probably going to be yield.
You better results as long as you can separate in your head that you don’t mean. So if you, you know, white chocolate fudge will also index for chocolate fudge. Chocolate. So you don’t need to repeat things. Um, that’s, you know, it’s a way a lot of you have very finite amount of space on Amazon. And so a lot of it really comes down to trying to best utilize that finite space because, uh, most of the fields have character limits on them.
So you only have so much, uh, so in that way, I think it’s a little bit more like PPC. You have the certain things you need to put in. You’re trying to optimize for conversion while including as many keywords, um, Keyword repeating words is not a ranking factor on Amazon. So by saying olive oil, 600 times that doesn’t make your item, doesn’t do anything to the ranking for on an on Amazon.
So you’re better off using lots of synonyms. And then that creates more doors that, uh, you know, that he pill can come in and find your products.
Dave Rohrer: [00:30:18] Unless you’re selling a what’s the character for Muppets as pork, pork, pork. Oh, the chef. Unless you’re selling the book about the Swedish chef and you just have the entire thing, say pork, pork, pork, I would buy it.
Okay. How entire destruction just says pork, pork, pork, or, you know, Uh, I am Groot. Like that would be, you know, that would be a good description too. It’s like, what is this book? I am, I am. I’m like, perfect. That’s what I want. You
Robyn Johnson: [00:30:48] got me. But I also,
Dave Rohrer: [00:30:51] so it goes to the point of what someone, you know, it goes to that user intent.
What problem do they have? You know, how to get in front of the right people. And it’s a lot of what I try to do with us. We just don’t want traffic for the sake of traffic. And I think that’s what biggest thing with Amazon. Amazon doesn’t want to send someone to a page that’s not going to convert and SEO should be thinking like that.
I don’t want to rank this page for this keyword, unless it’s right. Going to move them down the funnel, um, you know, is the business reason behind it. And I think maybe that’s the thing to take away. If when you’re doing Amazon SEO or just advertising on Amazon, you need to be thinking like the business.
Like con looking and thinking about nothing else other than how can I make Amazon money so that I can make money and get the.
Robyn Johnson: [00:31:40] And the other thing you want to remember is Amazon is very bottom of funnel. By the time people go to Amazon and type something in, they probably already have Barbies, Malibu, dream house in mind.
Uh, so you want to make sure that you’re thinking about, you know, your, your content in that terms of those bottom end funnels. And if you’re, you know, an e-commerce director, that’s doing Amazon as well as a bunch of other things, Amazon can be a really good place to looking at that advertising to help you identify.
Uh, keywords that are converting well for your product mix that you can integrate into your, um, your website’s SEO, um, overall plan. So it can be a good place to kind of IVIG things can work together. They don’t always have to be one or the other. I know that, um, there can be a fear of the Amazon can cannibalize your e-commerce sales and it 100% can, if you don’t do it, uh, carefully.
Um, but there is, there are ways to kind of develop synergy. Working with your own platform and Amazon’s together.
Matt Siltala: [00:32:39] Well, Robin, we really appreciate you taking the time to, uh, to join us and share this information with us. So, um, thank you.
Dave Rohrer: [00:32:47] What was the I’m looking, I’m looking back in the notes. Um, I don’t think we mentioned it on air.
If you do have additional questions or you’re curious about getting into selling on Amazon. Robin does have a group it’s a facebook.com/groups will also support. And I will put it of course, yes. In the notes.
Robyn Johnson: [00:33:08] Yeah. Me and my husband in there. We’re always happy to answer questions. If I don’t answer, I, you know, tag me, you know, at Robin Johnson in that group.
And then I will, I will be more than happy to answer any questions that you had
Dave Rohrer: [00:33:20] also been. Thank you very much. For this is what, two days after prime. When did it finish? Yeah. So she’s had a busy week or two.
Robyn Johnson: [00:33:29] My eyes are almost done bleeding from working so much, but yeah,
Dave Rohrer: [00:33:34] I want to go talk about it. Yeah.
Amazon now after M prying day could idea day.
Matt Siltala: [00:33:41] Well, that was for Robin with marketplace blueprint and Dave roar with Northside metrics. I met a little with avalanche. And we’re signing off for now. Thanks guys for joining us later.
Robyn Johnson: [00:33:52] Thanks.