Amazon Marketing .

Amazon Marketing .

Increasing the character limit for backend keywords from 249 bytes to 500 characters has caused a wave of enthusiasm among Amazon retailers and their advisor community. The innovation is celebrated everywhere, as if one had found the golden ticket to endless traffic and sales.

This euphoria is driven by the idea that more keywords automatically lead to better visibility. Dealers and consultants exchange ideas extensively about how to take advantage of this new freedom to reach the top of the search results. The impression is that you can now manipulate Amazon's ranking system in your favor with an expanded range of keywords. The strategy seems clear: the more keywords, the greater the chance of being discovered by potential buyers.

The temptation to fill every available space can be counterproductive and cause more harm than good. Andreas Frank, SELR But while retailers and their consultants bathe in keyword confetti, the dark side of this innovation becomes apparent. Customers expect to find what they are looking for quickly and specifically on Amazon. Instead, they are faced with a flood of even more completely irrelevant search results. Frustration grows when a search for a “blue pen” throws up results ranging from green crayons to blue sneaker socks - everything but what you're looking for.

Amazon, the silent observer of this chaos, displays itself inexplicably.

Products that generate clicks but do not engage in competition see a free fall in the rankings. The irony of history? Many merchants have lost sight of their true objective in their quest to make the most of the new opportunities: the customer and his requirements. The result is a missed opportunity to establish genuine connections with potential buyers. Instead, the business suffers from a growing customer aversion to its products, which is only exacerbated by irrelevant keywords.

The opportunities of the new freedom:
Advanced indexing options:
Doubling the available characters offers the opportunity to describe products more comprehensively and thus increase visibility in search results.

More targeted product placement:
By using more specific and diverse keywords, products can be more accurately tailored to customer needs and searches.

Use user fails:
Potential customers often do not know the exact spelling of products and features. These can be better covered with more characters available.

Competitive advantage:
Effective use of the expanded character count can provide an advantage over competitors who do not meaningfully customize their listings.

Niche market development:
More keywords mean more opportunities to place products in niche markets and thus achieve unique positioning.

Improving customer experience:
More precise keywords make it easier for customers to find what they are looking for, which can lead to higher satisfaction.

The risks:
Over-optimization:
The temptation to take advantage of the extra characters by adding irrelevant keywords can lead to a flood of untargeted visitors.

Customer frustration:
When customers are shown products that don't match their search intent due to over-optimized keywords, this leads to frustration and loss of trust.

Product devaluation:
Amazon devalues ​​and penalizes products that have high traffic but low conversion rates. This can be an indicator of irrelevant keywords.

How do smart Amazon retailers deal with the additional characters? To make the most of the benefits of the new character limit and minimize the risks, as a smart online retailer you should pursue a customer-centric strategy: Prioritize relevance: Only focus on keywords that have direct relevance to your product. Avoid including irrelevant terms that might increase short-term visibility but won't result in real conversions. Diversify smartly: Use the extended character count to describe your product from different perspectives, keeping a balance between general and specific keywords. Keywords must primarily be chosen from the customer’s perspective. Avoid keyword stuffing: Even with more space available, it's important that you resist the temptation to simply add more keywords. Focus on the quality and relevance of keywords rather than quantity.

Consider the customer's needs: Perhaps the most significant point is this one. You need to spend a lot of time thinking about your product from the customer's point of view in order to locate keywords that are truly relevant to your listings. Think about it: What issue is addressed by my product? How would a customer who is looking for a solution to a problem look for it? The keywords you should put first are determined by your responses to these questions.