Amazon Product Posts – The Quick SEO Tweaks
Any basic Amazon product post can stand on its own and sell products. However, to rank well at search engines, it’s smart to make some minor tweaks to at least some of your Amazon product posts.
For on-page SEO, I use (and recommend) one of two methods:
1) Use SEO Scorer (a paid plugin included with all of my websites) plus All-In-One SEO plugin, a free plugin.
2) Or, use Yoast’s WordPress SEO, a free plugin. (You’ll find it at WordPress.org, and Yoast’s own site offers tutorials for more in-depth use of that plugin.)
Either way, here are the absolute basics to make your Amazon product post look better to search engines. These are the exact steps I take, before I do anything else:
1. Change the time of the post. If you’re using a plugin that automatically creates your Amazon product posts — such as Amaz-One, included with many of my websites — you’ll want to change the time the post is scheduled to appear.
It’s reasonable that, every Monday, you might post a new product at your Amazon affiliate website. Some people maintain a posting routine like that.
However, it’s going to look automated (or more than a little OCD) if every new product post appears at exactly 3:17 p.m.
You’ll edit that in the “Publish on” section at the right side of your New Posts screen, in your WordPress dashboard.
After you’ve changed the time (and possibly the date), be sure to click OK to save that new date or time. (The OK button appears only while you’re editing the publish date and time.)
2. Add a page description. You’ll do that in the Description section (in All-In-One SEO plugin) or in the Meta Description (in Yoast’s WordPress SEO plugin).
Do your best to keep the description under 160 characters. Also, it can help to include a call to action, such as “Read what our reviewers said.” Or, especially for a critical review, you can ask a question such as “Do you know the truth about this product?”
Though classic lines such as “Don’t buy [product name] until you read this review,” etc., still work… well, they’ve been overused. If you like that approach, try to come up with an original line.
Note: You do not have to enter the title of your article in the SEO plugin form. It will default to the existing post title.
3. Add keywords or keyword phrases.
Finally, add four to six keywords (or keyword phrases) in the keywords section of your SEO plugin. Four is ideal.
Avoid repeating any words. So, for this cookbook review and product post, I didn’t say “cookbook” or “Moosewood” more than once, although I could have. (In other words, I could have said, “Moosebook cookbook, cookbook reviews, Moosewood reviews, New Classics.” But, I didn’t. That could look like something called keywords stuffing.)
Note: If you’re using Yoast’s excellent WordPress SEO plugin — as I do on many of my sites, even if I’m also using SEO Scorer — you may need to manually add the keywords option to your post panel.
To do that, in your WordPress Dashboard, go to the foot of the left column and click where you see a wrench (spanner) shape on a yellow background, and the letters “SEO” next to them. Then, click on “Dashboard” in the drop-down menu.
Be sure to check the box next to the meta keywords option, and save the changes.
4. (Optional) Double-check your Categories and Tags.
Sometimes, auto-posting plugins like WP-Dollar and Amaz-One generate categories and tags from the titles of the Amazon products.
If your post is better suited to a different Category, now is the time to change that.
You can double-check Tags as your posts appear, or go through the entire list in the Tags section of your Dashboard. (It’s under Posts.)
I like to go through the list right after I’ve added a new Amazon product posts campaign.
I start at the end of the list, and work my way to the front. That’s so the list doesn’t readjust itself as I work, making it possible to skip Tags without realizing it.
I look for punctuation, as well as words like from, and, the, and new, and anything else that doesn’t really make sense in a Tags list.
Remember: You don’t have to change anything on your Amazon product posts. If your sales are good, don’t fix what isn’t broken!
However, if you’d like to improve your traffic, your search engine rankings, and your sales, it’s smart to improve at least some of your posts. You don’t have to tweak every one of them. You don’t even need to tweak the majority of them.
Work with the time you have. Avoid trading one tedious job (your 9-to-5 job) for a different tedious job you do at home.
As soon as you can outsource this work, do. The simple tasks, like the ones on this page, are the easiest and least expensive to outsource.
These simple tweaks are the ones I add to my own Amazon product posts. Sometimes, I don’t have time for them, or I forget about them for awhile. (I’m busy, too.) So far, my websites and Amazon sales are doing fine.
However, attention to the simple, little SEO details can make a big difference in your online success. So, try to find time (or hire outsourcers) to handle these tweaks.
For additional SEO tips to improve your Amazon affiliate sites, see:
