Local SEO Case Study Client

A large Midwestern furniture and flooring retailer conducted business online and in physical stores. With consumers reluctant to buy online without having seen and touched big-ticket products in person, the retailer needed to get more shoppers in stores.

Client Challenges

Heavy competition against major players with big budgets and major brand recognition
Retail store foot traffic is key to conversion and brand is not ranking organically when stores are nearby

EXCLUSIVE Solution: Creating the Right SEO Strategy

Given that retail drives the majority of this merchant’s sales and consumers still have a strong propensity to buy offline, our SEO services team saw the best opportunity to create an effective local strategy by focusing on optimized content, store pages, and improvements to the brand’s local organic business listings.

We started by constructing store location pages that were tailored to the target markets. We provided locally optimized content for each location that would live on a dedicated store page on the site. Once these were built out and fully optimized, we turned to the Google My Business listings.

We knew that focusing on small customer segments and critical stages of the customer journey can significantly move the needle.

Local SEO Strategy Delivers Outstanding Near-Term Results

Within six months of our local optimizations, the merchant saw traffic to some of its most important locations increase upwards of 600% YoY. Our SEO strategy allowed the retailer to reach and exceed its goals of positioning local SEO as a key channel for success by driving increased store traffic and impressions, as well as markedly improving keyword performance for local searches. Local SEO Case Study Impressions

Scalable, Proven Solutions

Unlike many other SEO agencies, our team uses a scalable, repeatable approach to achieve measured results from organic marketing efforts. We achieve success regardless of the size of the competitors you are up against. For this client, the EXCLUSIVE team knew that in order to compete against big industry players with much larger budgets, we needed to take a targeted approach to win in key markets. For all EXCLUSIVE SEO clients, we develop custom strategies with technical site health audits and sample content for baseline analyses. We then tackle on-site content and mark-up. Most importantly, we’re able to accurately predict the measurable impact of the work that we do.

Want Results Like Those Delivered in This Local SEO Case Study?

SEO is just one of the many components of the EXCLUSIVE eCommerce holistic strategy. We’ve been delivering success to merchants for 24 years and we’re always adding to our playbook. Contact us for your free eCommerce analysis or use our free Content Scorecard for SEO to see how your SEO is performing. We’ll help you understand the results and make changes that lead to massive improvements and revenue increases.

Amazon is unquestionably the go-to place for online shopping. If you’re selling on Amazon, you know that you need to get your product rankings as high as possible on the website’s search engine results pages (SERPs) to nab those click-throughs and conversions.

But how do you do that? This post breaks down the definition of Amazon SEO, the key elements, and best practices for optimization on the Amazon platform. It also delivers resources and strategies for making the most of your Amazon marketing plan.

What is Amazon SEO?

Most online sellers are familiar with optimizing online content for the Google algorithm to get good SERPs for their products or services. Amazon SEO is a similar process in that it seeks to optimize your Amazon listings to rank higher on searches on Amazon.com. The big difference is that Google is about serving up the best match for information and Amazon is about serving up the products that the shopper is most likely to buy.

Amazon SEO involves six major components:

Amazon keyword optimization
Product title optimization
Product image optimization
Backend keywords
Pricing strategy
The Amazon A10 Algorithm

If you want to make it easier for Amazon to find your listings and show them to potential buyers who are shopping for the types of products you sell, you need to dig into Amazon SEO best practices. Read on for the strategies that can help improve your Amazon SEO by maximizing click-throughs, conversions, and overall sales.

Keywords Are the Key: Speaking the A10 Algorithm Language

The Amazon A10 Algorithm is the ranking system that influences where listings appear on an Amazon SERP. The first element this algorithm looks to are keywords in a searcher’s query (user search terms), making keyword optimization of primary importance to every Amazon SEO strategy.

If all the keywords in a search query are not in your product listing — including specifics like size and color — your listing will not appear at the top of the search. Identifying and optimizing for keywords is the starting point for driving Amazon sales. It’s also a never-ending process that requires consistent fine-tuning and finding opportunities your competitors miss.

Build Your Brand on Amazon

Another solid method for taking control of your Amazon listings is to enroll in the Amazon Brand Registry. By submitting your trademark documents, you prove ownership of your brand and unlock protections as well as deeper content and advertising tools, including:

Sponsored Brands Ads
Sponsored Display Ads
Amazon Stores (formerly Amazon Storefronts)
A+ Content (formerly Enhanced Brand Content)
Brand Analytics

Beyond protecting your brand from listing hijackers and counterfeiters, the most-important perks of Amazon Brand Registry are Amazon Stores and A+ Content. Your Amazon Store is basically your custom Amazon landing page that showcases everything your brand has to offer, from product descriptions to videos — which are increasingly necessary to enhance the all-important user experience. Showcase additional value, product comparisons, and other valuable details with A+ Content that can capture more conversions and better tell your brand story.

Amazon Product Listing SEO Best Practices

Use these guidelines to launch your foray into A+ Content by adding optimized titles, richer visuals, and effective product descriptions:

Required: Titles and Images

- Optimized Titles: 60 to 250 characters that include as many of these as possible:
  - Brand
  - Product Line/Collection
  - Material/Key Feature
  - Product Type
  - Color
  - Size
  - Packaging/Quantity

- Effective Images: Five to nine recognizable images that match the product’s color, size, and other features, and are well-lit and include the entire product on a clean white background.
  - Conversion-drivers include these extras:
    - 1000×1000 size that can be zoomed
    - Images of products from different angles and in use
    - Infographic or overlay text that highlights product features

Recommended: Bullets and Descriptions

- Bullet points are not required but are highly recommended on Amazon listings. Bullets are stand-out listed descriptors. Do not use them for promotions or pricing info. Best practices for Amazon bullet points:
  - Use up to five points, each with a maximum of 100 characters
  - Highlight key product features like age appropriateness, skill level, country of origin, etc.
  - Begin each bullet with a capital letter
  - Write in sentence fragments without final punctuation
  - Order consistently across product pages (e.g., if material is the first bullet, make it first for all of your products)

- Product Descriptions are the last place shoppers look for product information, but they can add valuable details left out of the title and bullet points. The best product descriptions:
  - Contain 2,000 characters or fewer
  - Expand on product features or uses
  - Include additional relevant keywords that will help shoppers and the A10 Algorithm recognize relevance

Hey, Exclusive Concepts! How Will You Improve My Amazon SEO?

Amazon is the first (and last) stop for many consumers who are searching, researching, and purchasing. If you want your products to show up strong in those searches, you’ve got to do more than rely on automation to see the success you want. As in any business venture, you’ll only get out of Amazon SEO what you put into it.

Rather than burning through resources and trying to manually optimize each of your product listings, developing a focused SEO strategy that maximizes your brand’s unique assets can put you in a winning position.

The team at EXCLUSIVE is committed to helping merchants optimize their entire eCommerce funnel to grow faster and maximize profits. Improving your Amazon performance is an important part of our holistic approach to integrated solutions for attracting traffic to your Amazon Store, converting shoppers to buyers, and retaining customers for exponential sustained growth.

Reach out today to get your free eCommerce analysis so we can find you profitable growth-focused strategic opportunities on Amazon and additional channels. And grab your free copy of 8 Easy Ways to Maximize ROI on Amazon.