It’s hard to overstate the importance of your Amazon product detail page. It’s the biggest stage to showcase your items on the marketplace. When you optimize your Amazon product listing well, it has the power to turn a visitor into a customer.

However, getting people to click on your Amazon product listing is no easy feat. With more than 350 million products now sold on Amazon, competition is fierce, and Amazon’s ranking algorithm is becoming pickier about who gets first-page status.

As a seller, you not only need to make a good first impression that encourages a click — it also has to be a lasting one to yield a sale. In this blog, we’ll cover strategies for earning the top spot in Amazon’s search results, as well as using your real estate on the marketplace to your advantage.

Keep reading for tips on how to create high-ranking, high-converting product listings that give your brand the greatest exposure on Amazon.

Amazon’s A10 algorithm: A quick overview

A10 (formally called A9) is the ranking engine behind Amazon. Just like Google’s algorithm, which ranks web pages according to a user’s query, A10 is designed to match product listings to the right search terms.

A10 is known to evaluate relevance and accuracy more deeply than A9, which prioritized the most profitable products first. It does so by looking at signals like product reviews and seller feedback to determine which items are better according to their buyers.

For this reason, seller authority is of utmost importance. Aside from feedback, Amazon tends to favor sellers with more available inventory, larger catalogs, and strong sales histories. A10 looks at dozens of other factors outside of these, but the key takeaway is that, to rank high on Amazon, you need to deliver a positive customer experience from start to finish.

When crafting your product listing, you need to be as detailed and accurate as possible so customers aren’t surprised by their purchases.

6 tips for creating a high-ranking Amazon listing

1) Compose click-worthy titles

Your product title is one of the most prominent lines of text on your listing. As A10 crawls it for keywords, consumers scan it for key information.

Amazon has strict requirements for titles, as well as some suggested formulas for each product category. These formulas reflect how buyers typically search for certain types of products. For instance, if you sell home appliances, you’ll want to include the brand and model number in your titles. However, if you sell clothing, a model number isn’t necessary — but material is.

Aside from following Amazon’s suggestions, think from the perspective of your target users. What details do they care about most? What questions do they usually have about your product? How do they filter their searches?

Try to include one or two of these details in your title, such as “lotion for sensitive skin.” The goal here is to balance necessary facts with enticing copy. A higher click-through rate (CTR) is also beneficial, as A10 will factor this into its calculation when determining how to rank your product listing.

2) Don’t underestimate the power of images

You’ve heard the saying, “A picture’s worth a thousand words” and are probably sick of it. But nothing is truer when it comes to your Amazon listing.

Images help customers visualize themselves using your product, especially when they can’t physically see or touch it while they shop. Your images are also likely the first things  buyers will see when they land on Amazon’s category and product pages. So, be meticulous and critical here.

As you create your images, follow Amazon’s image requirements, which give instructions on proper backdrops, use of human models, and more. Provide as many images as you can (Amazon allows up to 10) and use professionally shot photos.

Take advantage of alternate images to display the true dimensions of your product, close-ups of features, and other essential details like size charts. Alternate images also provide an opportunity to showcase your products in different environments and situations.

However you decide to use your images, always follow product photography best practices — like using natural lighting — for best results.

3) Give your copy some TLC

Two other prominent areas of content on your listing are your product features (aka, bullet points) and description. Both need to blend keyword optimization with compelling, creative copy.

Start by thinking about what your customer needs to know or already values about your products. For instance, if your target customer is environmentally conscious, highlight up front how your products are vegan or cruelty free.

List your top five advantages in your bullet points. Keep these uniform in length so they’re visually appealing and easy to scan. Stick to the facts, too, as opposed to using biased statements like “best seller” (which Amazon strictly prohibits).

When writing your product description, elaborate on the benefits you mentioned in your bullet points, and pay attention to the details your customers have an emotional stake in. Address things like: how can your product better their everyday lives? What pain points does your brand help resolve? What does your product offer that customers can’t find anywhere else?

Although you want to keep your descriptions concise, use the space thoughtfully to build trust in your brand.

In both your bullet points and descriptions, use keywords naturally. Focus less on stuffing them wherever possible, and more on demonstrating your industry expertise. By doing so, you’ll intuitively tick off all the necessary boxes for an optimized listing, such as including synonyms and semantically related words that resonate with your audience.

Read: How to write compelling product descriptions on Amazon

4) Leverage A+ content

A+ content is currently only available to sellers enrolled in Amazon’s Brand Registry or programs like Launchpad and Amazon Exclusives. If you do have access, you should definitely take advantage of it.

A+ content can increase product sales by an average of 3%–10%, according to Amazon, and is entirely free to use. It opens the door to more dynamic graphics, videos, charts, FAQs, and other media that showcase your brand in a more professional light.

Using A+ content, you can drill into special features, specs, and uses for your product. Some brands take advantage of this space to share their brand story or to offer more detailed instructions on how to determine the right size for the product.

When used strategically, A+ content helps not only to increase sales, but also to prevent returns due to “item not as described” or “wrong size.” Though it takes extra time to create, A+ content is well worth the investment, as it can capture attention, convert visitors, and set the right expectations from the get-go.

Read: What is Amazon A+ Content (previously Amazon Enhanced Brand Content) and how to use it

5) Beef up your reviews

Many top-ranking listings have hundreds, if not thousands, of positive reviews. Reviews offer the social proof that customers and A10 look for when evaluating your products — but, of course, Amazon has strict guidelines about how you can collect reviews.

You can’t, for instance, incentivize people to leave a review by offering a monetary reward. Similarly, you can’t campaign for positive reviews. You can only ask for honest opinions, no matter if they’re positive or negative.

To help out, Amazon offers a “Request a Review” button that you can leverage for each buyer order. It triggers an email asking for your buyer’s feedback and can be automated, if desired.

Another option is Amazon’s Vine program, which invites the most trusted reviewers on Amazon to share their opinion on new or pre-released products. You can enroll products with fewer than 30 reviews for feedback, which is typically detailed and high quality. The program is free of charge, but is only available to brand-registered sellers.

If nothing else, ads and cross-channel promotion can help drive the initial sales you need to build up your reviews. It goes without saying your listings first need to be in tip-top shape to avoid negative reviews. Make sure they’re accurate and reflect the right service levels to avoid misaligned expectations about your product and/or shipping speeds, for example.

6) Use Amazon ads strategically

As noted above, Amazon PPC ads can help gain traction for items that are seldom seen on the marketplace. They can boost your chances of ranking for specific keywords, even if your product has yet to collect enough reviews or sales to stand on its own two feet.

You can choose from a few types of ads on Amazon: sponsored products, sponsored brands, or product display. Each of these appear on different areas of the site and are targeted slightly differently.

The key for any Amazon ad campaign is to structure them properly. Similar to Google Ads, you should have a deliberate, consistent method for organizing your ads. For example, sellers will often create high-level campaigns based on product categories, brands, or product lines. From there, they form more specific ad groups based on subcategory or ASIN.

Beyond this, there are various ways to manage your campaign. We recommend starting with automatic campaigns, which don’t require as much hands-on management to test your theories. Manual campaigns can then come in handy when you want to dedicate more attention to, and stretch the impact of, search terms and ads that worked well in your automatic campaigns. View more Amazon advertising tips here.

Read: Amazon advertising guide: Best sellers, ads, and pushing slow-moving stock

7) Find the right price for your product

Amazon is an enormously competitive marketplace, and there will always be another seller trying to undercut you. So, how do you find the right price for your products to meet customer expectations while satisfying your profit margins?

You could go back to basics and manually crawl similar listings to determine how your competitors are pricing their products. Are they pricing low to attract attention and get the sale, or going in high to maximize profits? Either way, this old-school approach to research isn’t the best use of your time—especially if you have multiple listings to review (the average Amazon seller has more than 100 products for sale). And even your best guesstimates won’t beat an automated data-driven approach.

You can consider using a repricing tool or price analysis tool instead. For example, Profasee is a dynamic pricing tool that uses AI to analyze hundreds of real-time data points about buyer behavior, preferences, and searches. It calculates the optimal pricing (not just the cheapest) for your listings, so you don’t have to.

Wrapping up — Don’t leave your Amazon product listings to chance

Landing on the first page of Amazon’s SERPs is a hard-earned honor. To secure your position, you’ll need to optimize your product detail pages and actively drive customers to your ASINs. Use the tips above to get started and convince Amazon you’re worthy of a first-page position.

Tip: Once your sales have gone through the roof, look into outsourcing your fulfillment to continue scaling.