“Alexa, please stop telling me that voice search is the next big thing!”
“Sorry, Dave. I can’t do that.”
Yes, voice search is a growing trend that shows no signs of stopping. And Alexa, searched by Amazon products such as the Echo and Amazon Fire TV, only looks on Amazon for products. It means that there are potentially new customers for your products, but only if they can find you!
Voice vs Text Search
Before we get into specific tips on how to boost your ranking in Alexa searches it is important that you are aware of some key differences between text – how people search on the web – and voice – how people search via Alexa – search.
It’s a Conversation
Humans use their voice to communicate. As such, even things like voice search is seen as a conversation. And in a conversation we tend to be specific. So we don’t tell someone to ‘pick us up some tea’ from the grocery store. We say ‘pick us up some Red Rose Orange Pekoe’ from the grocery store.
This is a key reason to raise brand awareness. You want your brand to be the brand associated with a product.
Because of the conversational aspect of speech, voice searches tend to be longer as well. We might write (because we have been trained over the years of text search) ‘green pillow case’, but in a voice search we will say ‘What is the best pillow case that comes in green?’.
You need to optimize your listings for longer, more complicated search queries.
How Does Alexa Decide?
Previous Orders
First thing Alexa/Amazon does is look through your past orders for something that matches. This is a good reason to target new customers (versus repeats) in your Amazon ads. You need to get on that ladder!
Amazon Choice Badge
If there is no matching past purchase the next port of call for Alexa is Amazon Choice badged products.
The Amazon Choice badge is completely different than the Best Seller badge.
The Best Seller badge is determined by sales velocity – typically the product that has sold the most units per hour in their category.
The Amazon Choice badge is determined primarily by SEO. Products that are the ‘best match’ for a keyword or phrase will get the Amazon Choice badge for that search result. Amazon also factors in if your product is ready to ship, or Prime eligible.
Tips For Improved Alexa Ranking
1. Optimize Your Listing
First and foremost your listing needs to be ‘optimized’. This means you need to do keyword research and write great listing copy that naturally incorporates those keywords. You also need to have great images that show your product in the best possible light (literally!).
2. Create a Conversion History with Ads
To get Alexa’s attention you need to have conversions. The best solution at the moment is to run ads on the keywords or phrases you want to target. Ad conversions let you rank organically. When you are launching let ads with a higher ACoS to run until your conversion history is stable.
3. Be Available
As we said, a factor in getting the Amazon Choice badge is product availability. It is essential (in our opinion) that you list your product in FBA and be eligible for Prime. But FBA is not infallible, so have a backup plan of fulfilling by merchant. MFN orders can now be Prime eligible as well.
4. Target Repeat Purchases
To increase the number of purchases that your product receives on Amazon, you might consider adjusting some of your campaigns to focus on customer acquisition. Amazon brand dashboard now provides new customer data to tell you which customers repeat-purchasers and which customers are first time buyers. You can design campaigns specifically to generate new customer adoption, especially if your product is consumable and will likely be reordered multiple times.
5. Get Reviews
Reviews show customer satisfaction. Luckily, if you are a Zonmaster subscriber you have an easy one-click solution to getting reviews – Zonmaster’s Auto Review Request tool which will fully automate the Amazon Review Request button. The easiest way to get reviews is to ask for them!
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