How to Optimize Your Amazon Listings for Mobile

As of July 2018, the Amazon mobile app was the most popular shopping app in the United States when ranked by monthly mobile users. During the month, about 140 million mobile users accessed the Amazon app, with Walmart coming in second with a monthly mobile app audience of about 82 million monthly users. Other lifestyle and shopping mobile apps included in the report were eBay, Target, Groupon, Wish, The Home Depot, and Etsy, among others.

Last holiday season, Amazon reported that customers shopped on the Amazon mobile app nearly 70% more than the previous year, and that number is likely to increase even more this year given the growing trend of people shifting to mobile for both media consumption and to make purchases. Both sets of statistics reveal that although you should not abandon your best practices and optimization tools for desktop, you need to simultaneously appeal to mobile users by providing content that still allows your items to rank in the results page.

2. Fine-tune your product titles.

The title of your listing is what will catch the attention of a prospective buyer once they land on the search results page on their mobile device. It should be no more than 50 characters according to Amazon’s recommendation, so you need to ensure that it encapsulates all of the information that you want a shopper to see. You should capitalize the first letter of each word, avoid using all caps, avoid using symbols such as exclamation marks or dollar signs, spell out measurements (6 inches instead of 6”), stay away from including pricing or promotional messages such as “sale” or “free shipping,” and avoid subjective commentary such as “Hot Item” or “Best Seller.”

The title should contain key information such as brand, product line, color, size, material, and packaging or quantity and these words should be ordered in a fashion that places the most relevant keywords first. However, it is important not to keyword-stuff the product titles. If the title feels unnatural or awkward when reading it, a customer might stray away from your listing because it’s confusing or doesn’t make sense. Use commas or dashes to break up titles so they are scannable and aesthetically pleasing to the shopper.

4. Incorporate Enhanced Brand Content into your listings.

Available to sellers who have been approved as brand owners through Amazon’s Brand Registry, Enhanced Brand Content allows modifications to the product descriptions of brand-registered ASINs. The non-traditional advertising method provides additional real estate for enhanced images and text placements, which better differentiate your brand and drive engagement from both new prospects browsing or returning customers. Participants can range from brands or manufacturers selling directly to consumers to resellers or distributors who have permission to sell on behalf of another brand.

A key advantage of EBC is that it displays exceptionally well on mobile. Typically, when a shopper searches Amazon products from his or her mobile device, the description of the item populates on the first page, allowing the buyer to see only the first 200 characters of the product description. To learn more about the item, the shopper would need to click on the item to open a new page with more information. With the EBC option on mobile, the potential buyer can see everything from the title to the graphics and description without ever needing to click to a new page.

Final Thoughts

Mobile optimization done right can be a key competitive advantage on Amazon. Strive for clear, concise, and compelling copy, removing anything that is not absolutely necessary to convey your core product features, brand information, and keywords. With more and more shoppers incorporating mobile into their buying processes, and some buyers becoming mobile-only, optimizing your listings for mobile will help increase both product discoverability and visibility on the marketplace.