Amazon Sales Growth: 55 Essential Tips to Boost Your Business

Fifty-five percent of all online product searches begin on Amazon. Last year, the retail giant surpassed $107 billion in total sales.

That is over $12,000,000 in sales every hour on average.

Amazon Prime alone boasts over 54 million members and counting.

If Prime were a country, it would have 8,000,000 more people than Spain and be the 27th most populous in the world.

Those are just Amazon Prime members.

These mind-blowing stats are indicative of an undeniable fact: Amazon isn’t going anywhere.

Many online sellers fear that Amazon is going to cut into their profit margins and inhibit — or outright squash — growth.

And let’s be honest: depending on your business model, those fears can be justified.

But Amazon’s dominance offers an upside that is proving lucrative for savvy ecommerce pros who have figured out how to make Amazon work for, not against them.

Amazon’s control of market and mindshare isn’t a closed ecosystem.

They make it quite possible to leverage their advantages for your own business.

You simply have to know how to play the game.

That’s why we rounded up these 55 experts who know how to win on Amazon and have been doing so for years.

Expedite your learning on selling on Amazon by tapping into their expertise below.

Get more reviews (and then more after that!)

David Tendrich, CEO & Co-Founder, Reliable PSD

Get. More. Reviews.

I don’t care how many you have. Get more.

People buy the product on Amazon that has the most positive reviews.

When we’re scared about making a decision, our brain falls back to certain factors and uses that limited information to make a decision.

That first factor we fall back on is social proof.

We look around at everyone else and see what they think is a good idea.

If a product has 10x more reviews than other products – we literally have to resist our biology to buy a different one that has less reviews and therefore more risk.

So get reviews.

Give away as many of your product as you have to in exchange for fair and honest reviews.

Kaleigh Moore, Freelance Writer

Build up positive reviews – and incentivize customer ratings if you have to.

These are so important and can make or break a sale, not to mention the impact they have on ranking within the platform.

David Feng, Co-Founder and Head of Product, Reamaze

Amazon is a reviews-driven ecosystem.

It’s vitally important to solicit for reviews effectively and reward customers post-purchase for contributing.

Brands should also invest in SEO optimization, especially for Amazon, as it’s a highly competitive environment for pricing, descriptions, reviews and alternative products.

Finally, you need to understand Amazon’s pricing structure and adjust your pricing with it.

For example, offering a significant discount from time to time or running a daily deal can get you enough brand exposure and attract repeat buyers.

That, combined with great reviews and optimized SEO, can make for a winning strategy.

Sweta Patel, Director of Demand Generation, Cognoa

Nothing is more effective than reviews on other platforms.

When we were selling mobile device products on Amazon we created an ubiquitous effect by promoting our reviews on all of our other channels.

These channels include:

• Facebook.
• Twitter.
• Touch of Modern.
• Ebay.
• Other publications through the display network.

Annie Cushing, Founder, Annielytics

Engage with reviewers in a helpful, non-defensive manner.

Reviews play a significant role in ranking on Amazon.

Jordan Brannon, President and COO, Coalition Technologies

There are a million review generation tips out there. Most of them will work at some level.

Beyond that, really consider promoting Amazon through marketing channels typically reserved for your own website.

Amazon listings can be SEO’d. They can be advertised using PPC. They can be promoted via email and social.

Also make sure you’re planning ways to segment Amazon sales away from other sales channels to avoid creating your own competition.

Emil Kristensen, co-founder & CMO, Sleeknote

The most important thing on Amazon is ratings.

Make sure to have an automated process for gathering ratings from your customers.

The Amazon algorithm that determines search rankings is highly influenced by product ratings, which is why ratings should be of high priority for your brand.

Another way is to think of your Amazon product site as an SEO site.

This means you should include relevant keywords in your copy but be careful of keyword stuffing because search engines penalize this.

Brett Curry, CEO, OMG Commerce

Get reviews! Quality and quantity are necessary.

It’s also better to have a few not-so-great reviews mixed in as long as your overall rating is strong.

It makes your listing look real.

If all you have is a few 5-star reviews, customers will assume it was you or your mom who reviewed your product.

Several studies show that products with more reviews outperform products with fewer reviews, even if the product with fewer reviews has a slightly higher average rating.

More reviews = more confidence.

Jacob Firuta, Content Manager, LiveChat

Reviews from past customers give you the credibility you wouldn’t otherwise get.

It’s an extra portion of word-of-mouth that boosts your offer.

It’s in your best interest to get as many of them as possible.

Have a customer that’s raving about a particular product? Ask them to provide a review. Happy customers won’t mind and it can significantly increase the number of reviews you get.

Dennis Yu, CTO, BlitzMetrics

You can go with paid options, of course…

But nothing beats working toward getting tons of legitimate 5-star reviews.

Justin Mares, Founder, FOMO

Focus on reviews.

Positive reviews drive higher conversion rates and drive rankings.

Email your customers after they purchase asking for Amazon reviews and watch your rankings go up!

Optimize your Amazon product page for Amazon SEO

Casey Armstrong, CMO, ShipBob

Understand how Amazon SEO works.

Their algorithm is much simpler, yet different than Google’s and they utilize different factors.

Understand that, then do you keyword research accordingly.

Maddy Osman, SEO Content Strategist, The Blogsmith

The principles of onpage SEO can be applied to many mediums: websites, Pinterest, and Amazon (to name just a few).

So take the time to do your keyword research, as well as competitor research.

Both of these activities can provide a useful new perspective of what “success” looks like on Amazon.

Lon Safko, CEO, LonSafko.com

Keywords are critical.

You have to anticipate the most important words your prospects will search.

Then, good images, and especially good copy with a strong what’s in it for me, and a call to action.

Ryan Bemiller, Founder, Shopping Signals

Understand that reviews and SEO play a large part in getting your product listings in front of more people.

Amazon is a search engine as much as it is a marketplace.

People search for products on Amazon.

And Amazon has ranking factors to help it determine which products to show, in which order, when someone performs a search.

So do some research on Amazon’s SEO factors.

Things like title, subtitle, description, questions and answers, and even pictures all factor in on how a product will rank.

Pay attention to keywords that people will use to find your products, and look at what keywords your competitors are using.

Reviews also play a big part in your ranking on Amazon.

The frequency and overall number of reviews you get will help Amazon determine your rank.

Be careful not to break Amazon’s terms of service with respect to soliciting reviews, but do try to solicit reviews.

You’ll need them. Especially early on when you’re trying to get some traction for a new product.

Bill Widmer, Ecommerce SEO & Content Marketing Consultant

Write long, detailed product descriptions. At least 1,000 words.

Not just fluff, either – add LSI keywords. Again, keyword research is CRITICAL here.

Also, have a presence off of Amazon.

Build a brand, start a blog or YouTube channel, and help people see you as more than just “Amazon.”

It’s the best way to grow, besides the obvious things like great pictures/description and competitive pricing.

Josh Mendelsohn, VP Marketing, Privy

Product content is the key to success.

Following their best practices around descriptions, categories, titles, and A+ content will help you dominate search results.

Ross Simmonds, Founder, Foundation Marketing

Invest in quality product shots.

While it’s always important to understand the value of optimizing for search rankings and getting positive reviews – first impressions matter on Amazon.

The number of new entrants into every category is through the roof.

If you want to stand out, it’s time to invest in not only building your own brand to help support an increased amount of search, but also time to invest in high-quality visuals to give a quality first impression.

James Thomson, Partner, Buy Box Experts

Optimize your listings with proper images and content.

Those will help customers make better decisions….only then should you be spending any money on advertising.

Otherwise, you are spending money to drive traffic to poor listings…yikes!

Chris Van Dusen, CEO, Parcon Media

Use Amazon’s Keyword Tool to optimize your copy around long-tail keywords that are less competitive.

Sell more through Amazon on your own site by using the Pay With Amazon button.

Consumers trust Amazon more than you and they have their credit card details already stored for easy checkout.

Jason Dea, Director of Product Marketing, Intelex

Try as best as you can to focus on your customer experience and conversion rates.

Although you’re limited in what you can do on Amazon, anything you can do to optimize your marketplace listings for conversion will catch the eye of the Amazon search algorithms.

Kevin Rizer, Host, Private Label Podcast

Optimize your listing!

Proper title, bullet points, description and great images can drastically improve your sales.

Danna Crawford, Owner, PowerSellingMom.com

Include quality, accurate, detailed descriptions.

Buyers appreciate more than just the “pre-filled” descriptions of items.

Erik Qualman, #1 Best Selling Author, Equalman.com

The key to success on Amazon is optimizing for their search algorithm.

Also, influence buyers by having good ratings and reviews around your product.

There are many ways to accomplish this, but one critical thing to do is to comment/reply to all your current reviews.