How to Do Amazon Keyword Research: Guide for Sellers

Amazon is the third most popular search engine in the world.

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63% of consumers begin their searches on Amazon when shopping online. 

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Millions of shoppers use the Amazon search feature to find products they want to buy quickly.

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How many millions?

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197 million people worldwide visit Amazon for their shopping needs every month. 

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This presents a massive opportunity for retailers who want to run a profitable e-commerce business on the Amazon marketplace platform.

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Just like ranking high in Google search engine result pages (SERPs) for a popular transactional term can bring in tons of organic traffic and conversions, similarly scoring a high position in Amazon search results can swiftly clear your inventory.

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Unlocking this potential is possible with a robust Amazon store SEO strategy.

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However, many sellers often struggle with driving organic traffic to their product listings and end up spending money on Amazon Ads as the only source of traffic and conversions.

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This is because they ignore a fundamental step in the Amazon SEO process, keyword research. While there are many different keyword research methods, such as local, national, and international, each has specific methods.

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This in-depth guide will teach you how to do keyword research for your Amazon store and supercharge your SEO strategy.

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Let us start learning about Amazon keyword research strategy.

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Benefits of doing keyword research for your Amazon listings

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Amazon keyword research is a critical step if you want to make money on Amazon organically.

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If you are still not convinced of the importance of keyword research, then let us show you some of the benefits of building your Amazon SEO strategy on a solid keyword research foundation.

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Optimize product listings for Amazon SEO

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Treat your product listing page on Amazon just like a webpage. You need to optimize

 for specific keywords to appear in Amazon's search results.

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Knowing what keywords to optimize for is crucial to ensure strong organic visibility and drive relevant traffic that will result in sales.

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You may drive a lot of traffic but struggle to get sales if you optimize your listings around the wrong keywords.

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You can also follow this guide on Amazon product listing SEO to complete this task efficiently.

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Generate new product ideas

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While you may already have some products you want to sell on the platform, you will be amazed to find many new and exciting product ideas based on keyword research.

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The popularity of a keyword on Amazon indicates that there is already interest in the product. 

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If you didn't consider the product initially but believe it can be a good addition to your existing product portfolio, you could give it a try.

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Many sellers use this strategy to plan their entire product catalog. By validating keyword demand in advance, they can focus on only those items with a high likelihood of selling.

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They then source the item and create an SEO-optimized listing for the product using the keywords they discovered.

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For example, assume you are an Amazon FBA seller specializing in dog training leashes. You decide to do keyword research to find new product opportunities.

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This activity shows that "dog shoes" and "dog paw pads" are popular search terms on the platform. The terms also align with your pet products portfolio strategy. You start selling the two products corresponding to the two search terms and quickly witness new sales, especially if you use paid Amazon advertising.

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Utilize keywords for Amazon Ads

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Amazon Ads in Amazon Seller Central is a powerful marketing channel for every seller on the platform. It often has much higher conversion rates than driving traffic from Google Ads to your listing.

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Coupling it with Amazon's SEO strategy can generate hyper-growth for sellers.

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One interesting way to integrate the two channels is to use your Amazon SEO keywords for Amazon Ads.

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For example, if you want to rank your product page for a competitive term like "fitness shoes for men," you may not be able to get a top organic ranking quickly.

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In that case, you can use the exact keywords for sponsored product ads and drive relevant traffic fast.

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If you maintain a high conversion rate from the paid traffic, Amazon's SEO algorithm could also use this high-conversion signal to boost your listing's organic ranking.

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Find keywords for your own e-commerce website

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As we mentioned, Amazon is one of the most used product search engines. This makes it a great source of product-focused keyword ideas for your e-commerce website's keyword research and SEO. 

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A new product type will often emerge on Amazon and make its way across the web. If you can capture such terms early on, you can get significant results from Google as the competition initially would be low.

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Understanding important Amazon keyword metrics and parameters

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To make the keyword research and selection process more data-driven, you can use several valuable metrics and parameters to evaluate each keyword for the best SEO performance.

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We cover many of these critical factors below with a simple explanation and how to interpret them.

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Keyword volume

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Keyword volume is an indicator of the popularity of a product on Amazon keyword search based on monthly volume. The higher the monthly search volume, the more shoppers are interested in buying the product.

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Keyword competition

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Keyword competition indicates difficulty ranking a listing for the keyword in Amazon SERPs. The lower the difficulty score, the easier it is to rank your product page for the keyword search term. Typically, the higher the search volume, the more competitive it will be to rank in the Amazon SERP.

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Keyword trend

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Keyword trends provide the change in the keyword's popularity over time. For example, seasonal keywords like "Christmas gifts" spike in popularity in December.

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Keyword ranking

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Keyword ranking specifies the position of a product listing in Amazon search results for a keyword. The higher the rankings, the higher the visibility.

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Average PPC bid rate

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This metric is connected to Amazon Ads and shows the average amount someone is ready to pay to get a click from a search query. A higher bid rate typically means more demand for the keyword.

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Standard Amazon keyword research process

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Let us look closely at the keyword research process one should follow for successful Amazon SEO results. The steps are conceptually similar to what one would do for Google search keyword research.

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Build a keyword list

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Start with a healthy list of keyword ideas for each product you want to sell on Amazon. 

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You can build your master keyword list using several techniques. We explore these in more detail in a dedicated section later.

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Review and prioritize keywords

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The next step is to review your keyword list to select suitable ones and prioritize them for SEO.

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To refine your base list, consider the metrics and parameters we explained in the above section.

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For example, you could eliminate all keywords with little search volume.

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There is no magic rule to picking the right keywords, but carefully considering the crucial parameters makes the process more data-driven and predictable.

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Once you have a list of keywords that qualify your selection criteria, you should prioritize them to optimize your product listings.

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For example, you can first aim for a keyword list containing numerous long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords are less competitive and more targeted than generic, short terms. A long-tail keyword will also offer a much higher conversion rate because they are closely related to the customer's search intent.

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Organize keywords into groups

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Like Google search, Amazon search algorithms are also getting smarter by focusing on keyword groups (topics) rather than single keywords for product rankings.

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This implies that you should group relevant keywords with very similar intent.

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A clever hack to group keywords is comparing the Amazon search results and looking for similar results. If more results are common between two keyword searches, this generally indicates that you can put them into groups or keyword clusters.

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For example, if your keyword list has the terms "shoes for small kids" and "shoes for young kids," they share similar product intent and can be grouped.

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Every group should have a primary keyword and its related keywords.

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The grouping practice will make your listings more comprehensive, reduce keyword cannibalization, and help create the right ad groups for Amazon Ads.

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Create and optimize Amazon product listings

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Now that you have a list of keyword groups with a clear primary term and related keywords, it's time to optimize your product listings. 

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You should follow all the Amazon listing SEO best practices, like using the primary keyword in the product title, bullet points, product description, etc.

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Track results and optimize

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Finally, you should track the search rankings of the keywords and draw actionable insights. Based on that, plan periodic changes to improve search performance across your listings. Most Amazon keyword research tools have a keyword tracker that monitors the rankings for your keywords. 

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How to find keyword ideas for your Amazon product listings?

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We will now go in-depth into the first step of the keyword research process, i.e., finding keyword ideas to create a master list. 

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There are many ways to complete this task, but we have documented below the most-effective techniques you can use to find profitable keywords for your Amazon store. 

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Let us learn about each of them one by one.

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Build a list of seed keywords

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Seed keywords are the most common terms that people search for when looking for products like yours on Amazon.

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Your seed keywords list will provide a solid foundation for the entire keyword research process.

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Here are some excellent tips to come up with seed keyword ideas for your Amazon store products:

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• List down all the terms that come to your mind when you think about your product
• Describe product benefits in a few words
• Describe product features in a few words
• Try word variations to expand your seed list further

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As a good practice, you should have 4-10 seed keywords for each product you plan to sell.

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Pro Tip: CopyAI's AI-powered "Keyword Generator tool" can generate some relevant seed keywords for your products in a matter of seconds. Give it a free trial here.

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Scrape Amazon's autocomplete suggestions

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Amazon's search autocomplete is a feature that allows customers to find products without having to type out long searches quickly.

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Shoppers can simply type in a few letters and discover what they are looking for by clicking on one of the suggestions.

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It's similar to Google's autocomplete but focuses primarily on product searches.

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The autocomplete feature is a unique way to find the right keywords for Amazon SEO.

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The suggestions are usually popular searches customers use on Amazon to find the desired product quickly. This makes it a credible source of new keyword ideas.

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Enter your seed term, copy the autocomplete suggestions, and add them to your master list, or you can purchase an auto-suggest keyword scraper.

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Use the Google keyword research process

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Google itself is a widely popular search engine for finding products. This makes it a goldmine to find new keywords that can be used to optimize your product listings.

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While the keyword metrics would be different compared to Amazon search, it still captures the intent of audiences who may use both search engines to discover products.

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You can choose to remove keywords that will not get traction on Amazon during your list review process.

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The bottom line is that the Google search keyword research process can constructively support your Amazon keyword research process.

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Use dedicated Amazon keyword research tools

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Amazon keyword research tools are dedicated software to research keywords specific to Amazon search. They also offer several additional metrics, like the number of competing products and more, to help you pick the best keywords.

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Examples of some popular Amazon keyword research tools include:

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• Helium 10
• Jungle Scout
• SellerApp
• Keyword Tool
• Ahrefs
• Keyword Tool Dominator

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Many of these tools have a free trial or freemium plan. However, to do deep research, you may need to subscribe to a paid plan from the best keyword research tools to get the best data for your product research.

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Other keyword search tools like Google Keyword Planner, Google Trends, and Semrush will help you find relevant keywords for your listings, but remember that their search metrics will be based on Google searches.

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Analyze competitor product listings

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Competitor keyword research on Amazon is the process of identifying the keywords that your top product competitors use in their listings. 

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This is a powerful technique as it allows you to reuse keywords already working well for someone else.

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Here are some tips for finding keyword ideas through competitor analysis:

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• Identify 2-5 top-performing competitor products. Pro Tip: You can make use of Amazon's category-wise product rankings
• Check for keywords used in listing titles
• Check for keywords used in listing descriptions and bullet points

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Use the Amazon Ads campaign manager's “Suggested” keywords feature

Like Google Ads, Amazon Ads also provides keyword-based ad targeting options to sellers. These keywords are more profitable as sellers are willing to pay to rank for the terms.

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You can run and manage Amazon Ads through the dedicated Campaign Manager tool. One helpful feature of the application is "Suggested" keywords.

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Here is how it works and can help provide some good keywords for your list:

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If you have ad groups already set up with keywords, you need to click on "Add keywords." You will see an interface to either upload or manually enter more keywords or pick from the tool's suggestions. You can copy these keyword suggestions and add them to your master list.

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Final thoughts on Amazon keyword research strategy

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It is no secret that organic traffic is the key driver of success for sellers on Amazon.

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You can expect a significant spike in your organic traffic and conversions by implementing a robust SEO strategy backed by a comprehensive keyword research process.

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This also means that your Amazon marketing will rely less on PPC advertising for revenue growth.

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Overall, SEO is the best way to build a sustainable, long-term Amazon business, and knowing how to find the right keywords is a critical step in putting this strategy in motion.

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By the way, if you need help turning your listing traffic into conversions, CopyAI's suite of AI-powered copywriting tools can help write persuasive product descriptions for you.

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