Search Engine Results Page (SERP) and its sister term Search Engine Optimization (SEO) often occur in the same sentence. SERP is the results you get based on what the search engine deems relevant, and SEO is the art of making sure your web page or product listing gets to the top of SERP.
Today, let’s take a look at what makes a search engine tick and how it affects all aspects of our online lives when it comes to searching for information. We’ll also discuss how to improve your results on the SERP and if it’s worth considering hiring an Amazon SEO service freelancer.
The Algorithm
The algorithm decides your fate as an Amazon seller and decides what you see when you perform a search on Google or similar sites. It is simultaneously your best friend and your worst enemy–like a good friend, it can help you out by putting your items at the top of the search results, but at a moment’s notice, it can change what it thinks is best and turn your product into yesterday’s news.
How Does the Algorithm Work?
Nobody knows exactly the inner workings of the algorithm, not even the people at the highest levels of Amazon or Google. This is because while Google and Amazon control basic features of the algorithm, the rest is done by Artificial Intelligence (AI).
That being said, publicly available information gives us an understanding of the basics of the algorithm. The first thing any good search engine does, whether it’s Google or Amazon’s product search, is keyword matching. If the right keywords are there, results are likely to appear higher in the search results. You might think this means someone could list the same keywords a thousand times to increase their ranking, but that doesn’t work. Google and Amazon are constantly evolving their detection methods for weeding out low-quality content. This is done in a variety of ways, but common methods include assessing click-through rates, looking for attempts at gaming the system, collecting sales data, and measuring how long a person spends at a site they’ve clicked on.
Let Google Help Your Amazon Results and Vice Versa
If you can get multiple websites to list and link to your Amazon listing on their website, Google will consider your products to be higher quality than other products whose web presence is minimal. For Google, the most important metric for SEO (after keywords) is how many other high-quality websites provide links to a website or product. Simply put, if high-quality, trusted sites are linking to your page or product repeatedly, you’re going to the top. All of this will then feed into your Amazon sales numbers and keep your rank increasing.
What to Do If You Suddenly Lose Rank
The AI behind the algorithms is mysterious and may begin to change on its own over time. Additionally, the developers at both Google and Amazon are constantly testing and tweaking the algorithms. In a kind of butterfly effect, the tiniest change to the algorithm can destroy your rankings and leave you scratching your head as to why.
Fortunately, there are things you can do to improve SEO on Amazon. Firstly make sure your product’s keywords are always up to date. There may be new slang for the product you are selling, and by including that in your keyword search, you may vastly improve your rankings. Furthermore, there may also be words that you can add to your product descriptions that will help your keyword matching. Finally, join Amazon seller Facebook groups and Discord channels and ask around. For every change to the algorithm, someone out there is trying to find out why, and they may have figured out a way to enhance your chances.
Increasing Sales to Improve SERP
It is well known that Amazon factors sales into its SERP, so the more sales you make, the higher you will rank. You can increase your sales by spending money on advertising, or you can lower your prices or offer free shipping to entice customers. If it works, this can create a positive feedback loop—the higher rank you achieve, the greater your sales tend to be.
If you’re looking to hire an Amazon SEO service freelancer, check out the thousands of professionals available on Guru. They can help take your Amazon store from average to amazing.
