Amazon Backend Keywords: Secret to Rank Higher on Amazon

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In the ever-competitive landscape of Amazon, ranking high in organic search results is crucial for driving sales.

While you might be optimizing your product titles, descriptions, and bullet points with relevant keywords, there’s another powerful tool at your disposal: Amazon backend keywords.

These hidden gems, invisible to shoppers but crucial for the A9 search algorithm, can be the key to propelling your product to the top of search results and skyrocketing your sales.

In this blog post, we will delve deeply into what backend keywords are on Amazon, how they help your business, and how you can start leveraging them for your products.

What are Amazon Backend Keywords?

Backend keywords are essentially hidden keywords that act as signals to the platform’s algorithm. These keywords, unlike those in the product title, description, or features, are invisible to customers browsing the product detail page. However, they play a crucial role in influencing how Amazon’s search engine interprets and indexes your product.

By incorporating relevant backend keywords, you essentially provide the algorithm with a richer understanding of your product’s characteristics and target audience. This, in turn, allows Amazon to effectively match your product with searches that use those same keywords, even if they aren’t explicitly mentioned in the customer-facing sections of your listing. T

his behind-the-scenes communication with the algorithm enhances the discoverability of your product, potentially leading to increased traffic and sales.

Why are Backend Keywords Important?

Here’s why backend keywords deserve a prominent spot in your Amazon optimization toolbox:

Increase Product Relevancy

Imagine a customer searching for an “insulated travel mug with leakproof lid and coffee grounds container.” While your product title might mention “travel mug” and “leakproof,” it might be challenging to squeeze in a “coffee grounds container” naturally.

This is where backend keywords come in. By including that specific term, you silently tell Amazon’s algorithm, “Hey, this mug is perfect for people who want to carry coffee grounds too!” When that customer types in their specific search, your product is much more likely to appear in the results because you’ve signaled its precise relevance.

Freedom From Stuffing Keywords in Listing

As you know, keyword stuffing in product descriptions or titles is a big no-no. It looks unnatural and discourages customers from buying.

Backend keywords solve this by giving you a separate space to target important search terms. You can craft compelling product descriptions that are easy to read while simultaneously optimizing your listing for search by including those same terms in the backend.

Get Indexed for the Right Keywords

Amazon’s search engine crawls your listing to understand what it’s about. Backend keywords ensure you can include important keywords that might not fit naturally into the product title or description due to character limits or readability.

This way, even if a customer doesn’t use the exact keyword you targeted in the title, your product can still be surfaced in relevant searches.

Get More Organic Traffic

The ultimate goal of a good Amazon listing is to attract organic traffic – customers who find your product through natural searches, not paid advertising. By implementing a well-researched backend keyword strategy, you’ll increase your product’s ranking for relevant searches.

This translates into more organic traffic, more product views, and ultimately, more sales. It’s a win-win scenario where you leverage Amazon’s search engine to bring qualified buyers to your product.

How to Find Relevant Backend Keywords?

Now that you know why backend keywords are important, let’s discover some sources that you can use to find the right backend keywords for your product listing.

1. Dissect your Own Product

Your product itself is an open book. Dissect it in all possible pieces of information. It includes its features, benefits, color, size, structure, nature, uniqueness, design, and applications.

A thorough understanding of the tiniest details of products gives out enough relevant keywords to add. Don’t take any detail of your product for granted. Try to use as much information as the product has to offer you.

2. Leverage Keyword Research Tools

The internet offers a plethora of free tools, and incorporating a keyword research tool into your work can be highly beneficial. Options like SemrushAhrefs, Helium 10, among others, stand out as excellent choices.

Utilizing these tools enables you to delve into various aspects such as search volume, competition level, and related keywords. This analysis provides you with a comprehensive understanding of the keyword landscape relevant to your product or service.

3. Look out for Competitors and Low-competition Keywords

Look for products similar to yours that are ranking well on Amazon. Check their titles, descriptions, and any customer reviews to see what keywords they might be using. This can give you valuable insights into what terms are converting for similar products.

Some tools allow you to analyze competitor listings and extract all the keywords their product ranks for. they’re using. However, be cautious – avoid copying competitor listings verbatim. Use this information as a springboard for your own unique keyword research.

4. Observe Amazon’s Search Terms Suggestions

When you search for a product in the Amazon search bar, you probably have noticed autocompleted suggestions related to your search term. Assume that you search for “Bluetooth earbuds”, and you will notice a list of search terms like “Bluetooth earbuds under $500.” or “wireless earbuds” and similar terms.

These are terms real customers are searching for, and they’re a great starting point for your backend keyword list.

5. Think Like Your Customers

Put yourself in your ideal customer’s shoes. What words or phrases would they use to search for a product like yours? Consider common problems your product solves and the benefits it offers. Include these terms and variations in your backend keywords.

How To Add Backend Keywords To Your Product on Amazon?

Once you have a comprehensive list of relevant backend keywords, it’s time to add them to your listing. Here is the step-by-step process to add backend keywords to your product listing.

Step 1 – Head to your Amazon Seller Central account and locate the Inventory tab.

Step 2 – Choose Manage All Inventory from the drop-down menu.

Manage all inventory on Amazon (1)

Step 3 – When the “Manage Inventory” page appears, select the product listing where you intend to add backend keywords. Then, click on the “Edit” option located on the far right.

amazon product variation existing listing (1)

Step 4 – Navigate to the product details tab and find the search terms section.

amazon backend keywords in seller central (1)

Step 5 – Add desired backend keywords in the search terms box and click save and finish.

Common Mistakes to Avoid While Adding Relevant Keywords

Here are some common mistakes you should avoid while adding backend keywords:

1. Keyword Stuffing

Keyword stuffing is common when sellers only tend to add words to fill space. But stuffing excessive words doesn’t work for Amazon algorithms.

There should not be a repetition of keywords in the backend when they are already present in the product title, description, and bullet points as unnecessary stuffing can manipulate search rankings and somehow degrade your product’s authority.

2. Copy- Paste

As discussed above, new sellers can always take ideas and inspiration from competitors, but they should not just copy-paste their things. Scroll through their product details and descriptions to inspire ideas and patterns.

3. Crossing the Character Limit

It’s important to grasp this concept thoroughly as the character limit significantly impacts how backend keywords are added. Amazon imposes a limit of 500 characters on sellers, which has recently been doubled from 250 bytes. 

This expansion offers sellers more flexibility in utilizing backend keywords. It’s crucial to understand that bytes refer to the size of each character, and various characters occupy different amounts of bytes. Therefore, when adding keywords, it’s essential to be mindful of character byte sizes, consider the impact of symbols, and ensure not to surpass the designated limit.

4. Including Punctuation, Stop marks, and ASIN’s

Amazon’s algorithm ignores punctuation marks in keywords, so adding them, like commas, periods, and stop words such as “and” or “or”, serves no purpose and only wastes space. Similarly, including ASINs in the backend search terms is redundant since they are already present in the product description.

Moreover, plurals are disregarded by Amazon’s system, meaning that both singular and plural keywords yield the same results. For instance, a search for “Blue shirt” and “Blue shirts” will produce identical outcomes. Thus, there’s no necessity to include both variations as keywords; either one suffices.

This translates into more organic traffic, more product views, and ultimately, more sales. It’s a win-win scenario where you leverage Amazon’s search engine to bring qualified buyers to your product.

5. Emphasizing

When we say emphasizing, we’re referring to the use of subjective statements like “best notebook” or “cheapest phone covers” before product names. These emphasizing words, while attention-grabbing, aren’t SEO-friendly. It’s best to refrain from using them in the backend because this space should be used strategically and with relevant information.

6. Not Using Long Tail Keywords

Many sellers overlook long-tail keywords, assuming that few potential shoppers are searching for them. However, it’s crucial to recognize that as keywords become longer and more specific, competition decreases, increasing your chances of ranking for these terms.

How Can You Optimize Backend Keywords for Better Search Rankings?

Here are some common mistakes you should avoid while adding backend keywords:

Amazon backend keywords

1. Use Full Space

Utilize the full 500-character space allocated for backend keywords. Amazon has extended this limit to enhance search result relevance. Therefore, ensure every character is used effectively to optimize your product’s ranking.

2. Consider Logical Order

Logical order matters if you are serious about ranking. Use phrases in a proper order. For example, “diary journal girls” is in illogical order. You can write it as “Girls Journal diary”. This makes it more relevant to what people may search for.

3. Use the Amazon Search Query Performance and Brand Analytics Report

These two reports are crucial as they detail popular search terms and the performance of your brands in relation to those terms. It’s important to review them carefully and identify any missed opportunities where you can incorporate relevant terms.

4. Keep Updating Your Backend Keywords List

Over time, the way people search for products within your category can evolve. They may use different search phrases to find the same product. Therefore, it’s crucial to continually update the backend keyword list to reflect current consumer trends. Additionally, you should incorporate holiday-specific search terms into the backend keywords during popular holidays such as Mother’s Day, Black Friday, Prime Day, and so on.

Conclusion

By incorporating relevant backend keywords, you’ve equipped your product with a powerful voice to attract the right shoppers. Remember, Amazon’s algorithm prioritizes products that closely match customer searches. So, keep your backend keywords current, relevant, and targeted to watch your product ranking climb the ladder and reach new heights of success on Amazon!

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