Sell More Books with an Optimized Amazon Listing

 When you type something into the search box on Amazon (like on Google or any other search engine), you get pages of results. What items show up on those pages—and in what order—is determined by an algorithm (a set of problem-solving rules). A proprietary algorithm on Amazon, like the ones on Google, decides how prominently to feature certain search results. Google bases its results on links, while Amazon’s A9 algorithm responds to the number of product sales. Basically, the more books you sell on Amazon, the more likely your book is to show up in lists of recommended titles. 

 Metadata (when we’re talking about SEO) is information added to a product’s web page that is not visible to readers but is easy for computers and search engines to scan. Book metadata typically falls into certain defined product categories: title, subtitle, series title, author, book description, categories, and keywords. This is one reason subtitles are so useful when you’re marketing a book—and why choosing the perfect categories and keywords helps increase your book’s ranking on Amazon. 

 SEO stands for "search engine optimization." Amazon SEO is all about making sure that interested readers—readers specifically searching for products or books just like yours actually find your book. The Amazon search engine is quite a complex labyrinth of connections, but we figure out how to optimize your book description to make it easy for Amazon’s algorithm to index your title. 

 About halfway down a product’s page on Amazon are usually two or three little lines that let you know how well a particular product is selling within a specific category. A product’s sales ranking on Amazon is a reflection of the number of times it has sold—and in particular how well it has sold recently. That is, recent sales are weighted slightly more heavily than older sales. Here’s a screenshot of one product’s sales rank: 

 Keywords are words—or, more often, phrases—that are part of a web page’s metadata (see the question on metadata for a definition of the term). Search engines use them as a quick way to identify what a particular web page is about, and they’re also the best way to ensure that those searching for books like yours find your book. You can incorporate keywords into product listings, book descriptions, bullet points, titles, subtitles—even your chosen KDP categories include keywords. .

 You can increase book sales on Amazon in a number of ways, some of which are more efficient than others. Giveaways and other promotions can give your book a short-term spike in sales, but for long-term sales growth, you want to make sure your product’s Amazon page is optimized to work with Amazon’s search terms and algorithm. We want to make it easy for readers to find your book, because every time your book shows up in a set of search results, its ranking creeps up just a little bit—and every little bit helps! We also offer something that will help way more than “a little bit”: a consultation with our book marketing experts will show you how to home in on exactly what might be holding you back—and what will help you leap forward. .