Amazon sellers are no strangers to ranking tactics, and Search Find Buy is the one that everyone is currently talking about.
Many of the most popular Amazon ranking tactics have fallen away, but a few are still relevant. What remains true is that you can’t get by as a seller without having optimization and ranking tactics in place.
Amazon’s algorithms have become more and more sophisticated, which is why it’s essential to stay on top of new tactics and discard what no longer works.
As you plan your 2021 ranking strategy, this is what you need to know about the Search Find Buy (SFB) method.
What Does Search Find Buy Mean?
Instead of imitating a click-through with some sort of URL, Search Find Buy generates one organically.
Search find buy (SFB) is the most common method an Amazon customer will use to find your product.
SFB is simply the process of a customer typing in a keyword, finding a particular product and making a purchase.
How Does Search Find Buy Work?
It’s very straight forward, let’s say you sold clips for weight lifting.
After your keyword research (process explained below) you’d chosen “weight lifting clips” as your main target keyword.
You’d instruct your customer to go onto Amazon and search for your product using this keyword.
You would then ask your customer to find your product, add to cart and make the purchase.
Your product might be challenging to find, especially if you are starting, it will take a long time for your customer to find your product if you are back on page 6.
In these cases, you could ensure your product is page one by setting up an exact match PPC campaign for “weight lifting clips”, you’d need to be bidding enough to be shown on page one of course.
SFB is the most natural way to rank your product in Amazon’s eyes; it’s how they will determine any product’s popularity on the platform. By using this method, you can ensure a sale is attributed to a specific keyword.
When a customer is prompted to perform a search using specific keywords, they are presented with a set of instructions that helps them find your products organically. Your Instructions might even include the product’s price or the featured product image.
The more Amazon sees that customers are reaching your products organically, the better it is for your rankings.
As with any strategy, Amazon will be working hard to stop anyone trying to manipulate their platform; if you are going to use any of these strategies, please do so at your own risk.
Let’s take a closer look at SFB using an example.
Building a Funnel Using Search Find Buy
To make Search Find Buy work for you, you need to get people into your purchase funnel.
Social media ads or email campaigns are two of the most popular ways of leading a customer into your search find buy funnel.
Here is a simple overview of the process
- Advert or email captures customers attention.
- Customer is sent to a landing page or Facebook messenger.
- They are then provided with purchasing instructions.
- Customer goes onto Amazon, uses a specific keyword and finds the product.
- Customer completes the purchase.
In your ad or on your landing page, you could mention a discount or some sort of exclusive deal when they purchase your product.
I am using a discount in this example because it is one of the most effective ways to generate a click.
This funnel’s objective is simple: a customer finds your product organically, you make a sale, and Amazon adjusts your rankings accordingly over time.
Most sellers say that this works best with new products, this will be down to Amazons honeymoon period.
Taking Advantage of Amazon’s Honeymoon Period
Amazon’s honeymoon period is one of the best times to take advantage of the Search Find Buy strategy.
The honeymoon period is said to last anywhere between 60 – 90 days. However, it is said that your product category also plays a role in this.
Only Amazon will know the answer to this, but according to A LOT of sellers I know, your amazon listing is a lot easier to rank within the first few months of it being created.
When launching products I have found this to be the case, new listings are far easier to rank than existing listings.
If a listing has failed and you don’t think it’s down the product offering itself, you could always delete your listing and start again. I know plenty of sellers that have done this to significant effect.
Before doing this ensure you have sorted your stock and it all has the correct barcodes, FNSKU etc.
Is Search Find Buy Worth It?
This is certainly a tactic that has worked for us.
Highlight your target keywords, optimize your listing and start launching.
In the long term, this tactic won’t work alone; you need a solid product offering, what reason are you giving your customer to buy your product over your competitors?
Let’s talk about some of the other Amazon ranking strategies.
Amazon Ranking Strategies – What You Should & Shouldn’t Use
Your keyword ranking is one of the most critical KPI’s as an Amazon seller.
The higher your keywords rank, the more traffic and sales you’ll get as a result.
There are a few ways that you can boost the positions of your listings, these, of course, get abused by some sellers, which is why Amazon algorithms have to change frequently.
We refer to sellers that abuse these strategies as Amazon black hat sellers; these people are always looking for ways to game the system.
Each to their own, but in my opinion, it’s a very short term way of thinking, I prefer to focus on long term, ethical strategies, it’s served me well so far.
Let’s look at the tactics that Amazon sellers tend to use; some will quickly become outdated.
Super URLs
This is a tactic you can stop using in 2021.
If you continue to use super URLs, Amazon could suspend your account entirely.
This is seen as a black hat tactic on Amazon.
Never used super URLs before? They mimic Amazon’s URL structure to give specific keywords more ranking power, allowing sellers to boost their listings.
Here is how a typical super URL would look:
(Source: Kindlepreneur)
If any method has been designed to trick Amazon, you can bet it’s not going to last long term.
2-Step URLs
I wouldn’t say discard this tactic just yet. It doesn’t work as well as it used to, but it still has an effect.
If you are new to 2-step URLs, they are a good alternative to super URLs, but we don’t use them any more.
The idea is to take a user through a 2-step process to indicate to Amazon that you are generating a high percentage of traffic for a specific term.
A user is first directed to a search result page that contains one listing and then to a specific product listing.
Helium 10 is one example of a platform that has tools dedicated to generating promotional URLs like this.
If you want to create URL’s like this for yourself, you can use their gems tool.
Keyword Optimization
This is still one of my favorite Amazon ranking tactics because of its effectiveness (when used correctly, that is). If you want to succeed on Amazon, you need a good product and a well-crafted product listing.
Keyword optimization should set the foundation for any ranking strategy; your listing should be full of high traffic, relevant keywords that you think you could compete for.
There are several useful tools available for identifying competitor and keyword opportunities, Helium 10 and Jungle Scout are the favorites amongst most sellers.
As you’ll see in the video below we take our Keyword research VERY seriously. It’s a critical part of our ranking strategy.
If you want to know precisely how we do it, watch the video below.
PPC Exact Match
PPC remains an integral part of most ranking strategies, and it should be, with Exact Match still being the most popular method of ranking your product.
PPC Exact match can be used in conjunction with the search find buy strategy; it’s a smart way to build rankings towards keywords you might not be on page one for.
If you have been using Exact Match for your PPC campaigns, I recommend that you continue to do so.
With the exact match method, you tell Amazon the EXACT keyword you want that product to be displayed for; we usually create a list of 20 + highly relevant, high volume keywords to be included on our exact match list.
Let’s finish up; I think I’ve gone on long enough.
If you want to learn more about strategies we use to start and scale brands on Amazon, take a look at the training we’ve just put together.
If you don’t already, I also recommend investing in tools that can help you better implement and track your ranking efforts.
Here are my full reviews on both Jungle Scout and Helium 10. I write about A LOT of Amazon tools so if you have any questions, ask away!
More soon.
Tags: amazon FBA, amazon seller
