Amazon has their own voice-powered digital personal assistant: Alexa.
One of the most noticeable applications of Alexa, is Amazon Echo, the flagship smart home device that fully integrates into our lifestyle from playing song to ordering takeout, or from paying bills to doing groceries by voice command. With the inclusion of a particular smartphone app, Alexa is now expanding its reach to unconvinced users, introducing them to the advantages of task automation and voice-to-command interface.
With it merchants find a brand new way of selling goods. And if those goods can be sold all depends on Alexa’s own SEO ranking.
Amazon’s Choice
Amazon’s Choice, well-known for its logo displayed at products, is a product recommendation service in which users are only given high-quality products as results for their searches. To apply for this program, you need to take into consideration several selection factors such as product/store popularity, rating, reviews, and shipping speed.
A considerable amount of work is required to meet the selection standards to rank as high as possible.
While Amazon has not officially released any information on how those metrics apply for a product to rank within their Alexa’s rating system, some clues and hints have been leaked to journalists over time.
How To Improve Alexa’s SEO Score
As previously stated, Amazon’s Choice program is the internal ranking service that filters all products to offer just the highest quality ones for users surfing through Amazon’s site.
The reason we care about this is that Amazon’s Choice is the only way in which Alexa makes purchases for the users.
You cannot apply for this program; Amazon offers it after meeting a certain number of requirements that:
- Availability on Prime: The customer VIP service from Amazon is one of the core requirements by Amazon’s Choice to feature products within this program. Items ought to have the ‘Fulfilled By Amazon’ merchant status to be part of this program, which also translates in adapting your company’s production time and shipping guidelines to meet up with Amazon’s standards.
- First purchases and sale history: This point especially applies to merchants who sell consumables, as there are high stakes that Alexa can make your product the default purchase if the customer bought something from you in the past and your product is currently in Amazon’s Choice program. If for example, you happen to sell tea bags and a customer bought from you, Alexa will set your product as that customer’s default.
- Increase your conversion rate: If people come by your products but don’t buy them, then your conversion rate decreases. For Amazon’s SEO, that is a huge impact on the organic search rank of the mentioned products. In case you have a website, or if you promote your business with the help of social media, the best way to promote your goods is by leading potential customers to Amazon once they are convinced to purchase what you are selling rather than hopping from product to product among merchants.
- Keep an eye on pricing: Again, this speaks directly to conversion rate. Price differences among retailers are the primary cause why Amazon users keep looking and looking prior to buying a product. Try to make your offer attractive enough without risking to lose capital.
- Manage your Reviews: One key point when optimising your products for Alexa’s search engine is to have positive reviews. The good thing is that Amazon provides services like follow-up emails to encourage this process, or to solve potential issues your customers might be having. Customers can modify their negative reviews, so stay in touch with those who did not have the best experience with your store: a happy customer is everything.
- The thing with Shipping Time: Shipping is an entire issue of its own when we talk about Amazon purchases. Some products are only available via certain merchants but customers do not complete purchases as they take up to 1 month or so for shipping it, or shipping fees are insane for the value of the product itself. As a merchant part of Amazon’s Choice program, you may be instructed to send your products to multiple warehouses or directly to an Amazon distribution centre.
Amazon SEO Item Optimisation
Finally, the easiest way for ranking above your competitors is to set the product for Amazon SEO. The reason behind this is, as stated, the possibility of being selected for Amazon’s Choice program, and there are several elements to consider on this behalf.
- Images: Only use high-quality (150 DPI or more), 1000×1000 px (minimum) images that allow users to zoom in when needed. Primary photos of the products should be displayed as white background images – at least 2-3 images in this format – and then you can include lifestyle or scale photos, the one that benefits the most your product.
- Title: Like Google, a title is the most important factor for getting your product to rank. The best formula to follow is to include – in this order – product colour/brand name/model/size (if applies).
- Descriptions: Regarding this point, readability is a must. Avoid cheap marketing phrases that tend to drive prospects away. Instead, include vital information to show what your product is and does.
- Sponsored products: Another valid approach is to sign up for Amazon Sponsored Product program, in which your products can show up as ads right next to what people are looking for as suggestions, or at top/bottom of a search page result in Amazon. Merchants say that the impact of this service is noticeable, therefore is a good option to consider for quicker access to your products for purchase.
Conclusion
Overall, Amazon’s Alexa seems the path to follow if you happen to be a product merchant. Investing so much time and effort to get your product to rank at the top of every listing only translates into sales increase; therefore, the emphasis made on developing SEO rank for a product on its own.
Need some extra help? You can check Alexa’s guidelines for increasing traffic at this link.
* Adapted lead image: 
Public Domain, pixabay.com via getstencil.com