Amazon listing optimization checklist for sellers

A product listing has two jobs: help Amazon understand what you sell so it shows the listing for the right searches, and convince the shoppers who land on it to buy. This checklist walks through each part of a listing in the order most specialists work. Use it to improve a listing yourself, or to check the work of someone you hire.

Before you change anything

• Record a baseline. Note the current sessions, unit session percentage (your conversion rate), units sold, and where you rank for your main search terms. Business Reports in Seller Central has most of these numbers.
• Change one main thing at a time where you can, and keep a dated log of every change. Without one, you cannot tell what made a difference.
• Read the style guide for your category. Requirements for titles, bullet points, and attributes vary by category and marketplace, and Amazon updates them.

Research the words shoppers use

Good listings use the language customers use, not internal product names. Useful sources:

• Amazon’s search bar suggestions for your main terms.
• The search term report from your advertising, which shows real searches that led to sales.
• Brand Analytics, if you are enrolled in Brand Registry, including the search query performance data.
• Your reviews and customer questions, and those of competing products, for the words people use to describe benefits and problems.

Group the terms by meaning and intent. Relevance matters more than search volume: a smaller term that describes your product exactly is worth more than a large one that does not.

Title

• Say clearly what the product is, in the order your category’s style guide sets out. The brand usually comes first.
• Include the most important search term naturally, once.
• Follow the title rules. Amazon limits title length (lower in some categories) and restricts promotional phrases, some special characters, and repeating the same word. Check the current title requirements in Seller Central Help before you publish.
• Check it on a phone. Mobile search results cut titles short, so the first few words need to identify the product on their own.

Bullet points

Use the bullet points to answer the questions that stop people from buying: what it does, who it is for, what size it is, what it is made of, and what comes in the box. Lead each bullet with a benefit and back it up with a fact. Our guide on writing Amazon bullet points covers this in detail, with examples.

Product description and A+ Content

• Complete the product description with useful detail. It still appears in places where A+ Content does not.
• If you own the brand and are enrolled in Brand Registry, A+ Content lets you show images, comparison charts, and your brand story in the description area. See our guide to A+ Content.

Backend search terms

The search terms field lets you add words that shoppers use but that do not fit naturally in your visible text.

• Add synonyms, alternative spellings, and abbreviations that are relevant and not already in your title or bullet points.
• Stay within the size limit. Amazon measures this field in bytes, not characters, and in many marketplaces the limit is under 250 bytes. Terms over the limit may be ignored.
• Separate words with spaces. You do not need commas, and repeating words adds nothing.
• Leave out brand names (yours or anyone else’s), ASINs, subjective claims such as “best”, temporary words such as “new” or “on sale”, and anything offensive.

Images

Images often decide the sale before a shopper reads any text. The main image must meet Amazon’s rules, and the secondary images should show scale, use, features, and what is included. Our guide to Amazon product images sets out the rules and a shot list.

Attributes and item details

Fill in every structured attribute that applies, such as size, material, colour, compatibility, and quantity. Amazon uses these for search filters, so a missing attribute can keep your product out of filtered results even when the listing text is excellent.

Measure the result

• Compare like with like. Look at two to four weeks before and after a change, and allow for seasonality.
• Watch the conversion rate first. Listing changes usually show up there before they show up in ranking.
• Check what else changed. Price changes, stock-outs, new reviews, and advertising changes all affect results, which is why the change log matters.

Get help from a reviewed specialist

If you have many products, or you want a second pair of eyes, you can compare reviewed listing optimization specialists, or describe what you need and we will suggest suitable specialists. Our guide to hiring an Amazon listing copywriter explains what to put in a brief.