Successful Amazon sellers know that optimized listings with strategic keywords are essential to drive conversions and boost revenue.
The right keyword strategy attracts the right audience and places your products in front of eager buyers searching for your type of product.
Whether you’re a seasoned seller or just starting out, understanding and leveraging keyword research tools can transform your Amazon business.
Let’s explore the importance of Amazon keyword research, why ranking in the search results matters, and the best keyword research tools to help you find profitable keywords for your listings and Amazon advertising.
Why is Amazon keyword research important?
Amazon keyword research is the foundation of a successful listing. The platform operates as both an online marketplace and a search engine, making keyword optimization vital for visibility.
Here’s why keyword research matters:
- Increased conversions: By using the right keywords, you attract buyers who are actively searching for your product. This means higher conversion rates and improved rankings within the search results.
- Competitive edge: With millions of sellers competing in the marketplace, standing out requires a strategic keyword approach. Use Jungle Scout’s Competitive Intelligence to see what keywords you’re winning on and missing compared to your competitors.
- Revenue growth: Optimized listings directly impact your bottom line. Keywords drive discoverability, leading to more sales and better performance metrics.
In such a crowded marketplace like Amazon, effective keyword use isn’t just helpful—it’s essential.
So, just how big of a deal is it to rank highly on Amazon?
Jungle Scout asked over 1,000 consumers about their online shopping behaviors and discovered the following:
- 73% of shoppers click on the top listing in search results
- 14% of shoppers click on the second listing
- 5% of shoppers click on the third listing
That accounts for 92% of all clicks on the search page. The remaining 8% of clicks are spread throughout the remaining product listings.
What does that mean in dollars and cents?
Imagine that $100,000 worth of monthly sales are tied to a particular keyword. The seller with the top product will earn $73,000 of the sales. Second place will take $14,000, and third will take $5,000.
That leaves $8,000 to be shared among the rest of the listings. (Imagine there are another 100 listings for that keyword; that’s only $80 in sales per seller per month.) It’s crucial that your Amazon product ranks high!
It is recommended that you regularly update your Amazon product listing keywords. Conduct frequent keyword and competitor research every two months or so to ensure that your listings stay relevant and competitive.
What do you need to know about Amazon keyword research?
Many sellers struggle to get traction because they overlook the importance of keyword research. If you’ve been running an Amazon store without seeing positive results, it’s time to dig into the nuances of how keywords work on the platform.
Amazon is a search engine
Amazon functions as a search engine designed to connect buyers with products. This means its search algorithm prioritizes relevance and conversion potential.
By strategically placing keywords in your product title, bullet points, and description, you can increase your product’s discoverability.
66% of U.S. consumers start their product searches on Amazon. For that reason, Amazon users are extremely purchase-focused. They enter the search term for what they want to buy, find it, and check out. And since they aren’t there to search randomly, they want maximum speed and efficiency.
Putting a big focus on Amazon SEO is very important for your product to be a success.
Learn how to improve your product listings with Amazon SEO.
Amazon uses its internal advertising system: Amazon PPC
As an Amazon seller, you can use Amazon PPC to promote your products by placing bids on clicks for your product listings. If your bid is higher than your competitors, your product will appear higher in the search results with the “sponsored product” badge on it.
So, if your new product does not yet appear at the top of the search results organically, you can spend money on ads to fight for a top spot and increase sales and brand awareness.
As you convert specific keyword searches into sales, your organic rank for that specific keyword will also improve.
Amazon uses multiple keyword ranking factors
While Amazon does not specifically say what influences its search algorithm, we have discovered that several factors help a product position high in Amazon’s search results, including:
- Relevance: The keywords used throughout your listing must accurately align with the product and buyer intent. This is based on the keywords used in your title, bullet points, and description.
- Performance metrics: Higher conversion rates and sales velocity improve keyword rankings. The higher your conversion rate (or unit session percentage, as Amazon calls it), the higher your product will rank organically.
- Search volume: Targeting relevant, high-traffic keywords boosts visibility and brand awareness.
By understanding these factors, sellers can prioritize keywords that deliver results.
The 3 best keyword research tools to invest in for Amazon search
To succeed on Amazon, investing in the right tools can streamline your keyword research process to ensure your Amazon listings are properly optimized for search and conversions.
- Jungle Scout
The best keyword research tool for Amazon sellers by far is Jungle Scout. While we have a full suite of tools to help sellers start, run, and grow their businesses, our Keyword Scout tool will help you find profitable keywords to add to your listings and PPC campaigns.
Keyword Scout identifies high-performing keywords and provides metrics like search volume, PPC costs, and competition level, enabling sellers to make informed decisions.
What it does
With Keyword Scout, you can instantly generate thousands of high-converting, top-ranking keywords to use to help boost your product visibility on Amazon.
Keyword Scout pulls actual advertising data directly from Amazon, and once you enter a keyword phrase or ASIN, it displays information related to that keyword.
In addition, it generates other keywords related to your search.
How to use it
Let’s quickly go over how easy it is to use Keyword Scout and how you can generate tons of relevant new keywords in seconds.
In this example, we’re using the term “winter gloves.”
As you can see, Keyword Scout generated 1,715 keywords for “winter gloves.” This shows us that the 30-day broad search volume for this keyword is 591,751 searches on Amazon.
Use the advanced filters Keyword Scout offers to narrow down your keyword search. For example, I set a minimum of 1,000 broad match searches, which narrowed down my results to 794 keywords. Now, I’ll only see relevant keywords that receive at least 1,000 searches per month.
Within Keyword Scout, you can create a keyword list to easily keep track of all the keywords you’d like to use for your product. You can also import your keyword lists into Jungle Scout’s AI Listing Builder tool to ensure you use each keyword in your listing.
You can learn more about each keyword by viewing the data in Keyword Scout’s various columns, such as category and estimated PPC bid cost.
If you click on a specific keyword, a new window appears where you can view additional insights about the keyword performance.
Our top tips for this tool
As we mentioned above, Keyword Scout shows you the estimated cost per click for each keyword. For example, the keyword phrase “winter gloves” has an exact match PPC bid of $0.78, and the broad match has an estimated PPC bid of $0.94.
Let’s assume that it takes an average of 10 ad clicks to make a sale on Amazon for a product that sells for $30. That means the total ad cost per sale will be $7.80 for exact terms and $9.40 for broad terms (10 x $0.78 and 10 x $0.94, respectively).
When conducting product research and keyword research for a new product, consider the estimated PPC costs. If the cost is very high, say over $1.00 per click, that keyword and/or product may be too competitive.
You want to focus on the high-search-volume keywords, but do not neglect the low-volume keywords either, as they can still generate considerable sales over time. Plus, lower-volume keywords have less PPC competition, and you can add them in the backend of your listing.
Use Keyword Scout to find profitable keywords for your Amazon product.
Google Keyword Planner
Google’s Keyword Planner is a free tool that shows you estimated keyword search volumes for any word or phrase. It can also help you find other related phrases.
With troves of data available via Google’s search engine, you can also segment the information by geography. This is extremely helpful if you are selling on Amazon UK or another non-US Amazon site.
To get to the Google Keyword Planner, you have to create a free AdWords account. But you won’t need to create any active campaigns or spend any money.
As for pulling relevant keywords from the Planner, there are several helpful methods you can use.
What it does
Google Keyword Planner offers insights into search trends and related keywords. While designed for Google, it can provide useful data for identifying broader market trends.
How to use it
- Enter a primary keyword to generate related terms.
- Use filters to narrow down results by location, language, or search network.
- Identify opportunities to target niche or trending keywords.
Top tips for using Google Keyword Planner
- Start with your product’s main keywords to establish a foundation.
- Analyze competitors’ websites to uncover overlooked opportunities.
- Pair Google data with Amazon insights for a well-rounded strategy.
Ahrefs Site Explorer
Ahrefs Site Explorer is a robust SEO tool that can also be used for ecommerce and Amazon keyword research. It provides competitor analysis, keyword rankings, and backlink data.
How to use it
- Analyze competitors’ Amazon listings to see which keywords they rank for.
- Use the keyword explorer to find long-tail keywords with lower competition.
- Track keyword performance over time to refine your strategy.
Top tips for using Ahrefs Site Explorer
- Focus on keywords with high traffic potential and low competition.
- Use the “Content Gap” feature to identify untapped keyword opportunities.
- Monitor your listing performance to ensure continuous improvement.
Additional sources for Amazon keyword research
If your business is already live on Amazon, you can download a list of search queries that make sales from your manual and automatic campaigns. By viewing this list, you may come across keywords that you may never think of but customers are searching for.
When you choose broad keyword targeting, Amazon will show your ads when customers search for something similar to your target keyword — that’s why you may see different keywords within the search terms report.
However, since the targeting can be fairly broad, we don’t want to pay for clicks targeting the wrong traffic.
Regardless, you may come across some good keywords that you didn’t identify when initially creating your product listing.
You can access your search term reports in Seller Central by going to Reports > Advertising reports and clicking Create report.
Discover the Best Amazon Keywords with Jungle Scout’s Data-Driven Tools
Keyword research is a cornerstone of success for selling on Amazon. By optimizing your listings with the right keywords, you can improve visibility, attract more buyers, and ultimately boost revenue.
Tools like Keyword Scout by Jungle Scout simplify this process by providing actionable insights tailored for Amazon sellers.
Ready to take your Amazon business to the next level? Explore Jungle Scout’s data-driven keyword research tools today and stay ahead of the competition.
Brian Connolly is an Amazon seller, ecommerce expert, and writer for Jungle Scout. He lives in the New Jersey Shore area with his wife and cat. When he isn’t writing advice online for aspiring and experienced Amazon sellers for Jungle Scout, he spends his free time boating, fishing, and selling boating-themed items on his Amazon business.
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