Update: Ranking, Reviews and URLs

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Anthony Lee joins to discuss the state of Amazon reviews and ranking.

Anthony is constantly running test to test the algorithm
Blasting – take a lump amount of units and released them as quickly as possible, quicker they were released, quicker they got bought and the higher your rank went
Single day blasts became no longer effective as the algorithm shifted to 7-day averages and monthly averages
Promotions got spread out over time
Then speculation of the more natural the sales looked the better
Then concepts for how to promote came along

Blasting is good again?

Anthony has gone back to testing and is seeing a move back to higher volumes and velocity being effective again
The more zero sales history a product has over the year the harder it is to rank it
For brand new listings velocity is a surefire way to rank
If it’s not a new launch then sales history has a part to play as well
There is a good 90 day window to hit velocity and rank well

Amazon cares about hourly sales
Also cares about weekly but not as much as hourly
Monthly sales also may not be as important to them as the hourly sales
After 3-4 months then the longer term sales matter as much as the hourly
If you have a newer product then it makes more sense to take as many units as you can to release them and spike that velocity as it will rank you faster
This brings you upto the same level as the competition in Amazon’s algorithm’s eyes
Take advantage of the honeymoon period to get ranked on the front page and stay there for a while and hope that organics kick-in and keep you there
Zero sales history can be the death of your listing

Danny looks at top-ups
Give away a bunch of units
Check the numbers and organic sales to check on progress
Then maybe release a few more giveaways checking the coupon codes to assess progress
Filling in the gaps to boost along with extra promotions to keep sales progressing is good

If you have high discount you can be really bad at Facebook ads
The discount level is what Facebook users are looking for
Facebook is a billboard you are going there for the eyeballs
Unless you test though you won’t know if you can get away with a 50% discount instead of a 90%
Check you conversions and vary the discount level

With a blast service going at 50% for 7 days in a row – day 1 might be good but diminishes after as the discount is not low enough
Anthony goes and blasts 100 units and makes only 200 available but only give 65% off – he wants to breakeven
When the competition has all decided that PPC is too expensive and all are blasting
Anthony has seen this model in the consumables space and the key here has been the ‘branding’ as a differentiator
Maybe using Pickfu and market research with customers for imagery, labelling to all be appealing and they blast the same was as everyone else but their sticks
You can do everything right and rank – but nothing is guaranteed to stick
The product has to be right and appeal to the audience
The skies are not falling – it does work

It works like any filter option on the screen
It makes the URL longer but essentially access the same data
Amazon’s algorithm does not seem to reduce the effectiveness of rank juice
The branded URL does work but it’s easier to produce a storefront URL
Breaking it down the URL is BRAND > CATEGORY > HIDDEN KEYWORDS
The ‘hidden keyword’ url aspect is new to Anthony
Not yet tested the hidden keyword feature and not sure why Amazon has it so really interesting as to why Amazon needs the facility
It might be totally unrelated to ranking at all!
We’ll revisit this in a couple of months and hear of the tests Anthony undertakes

Seller already know our position on reviews
All of us who sell physical products under our own brands want reviews
Mainstream media has caught onto the story that reviews are scandals
Reviewmater – a chrome extension to get everyone to create reviews as they make money out of it
Black hat tactics have put some of the legitimate review sources in a bad light
The media’s hype machine is making it a bigger deal than it is
Anthony wrote an article to try and level the pitch
Then Amazon had the big scandal when data scientists looked at all the reviews being skewed

Amazon then separated out the verified and non-verified reviews
The star rating is skewed toward the verified
Media kept feeding the machine so Amazon started wiping out the reviews
Amazon insists you have to spend at least $50 to leave a review
You can only leave 5 reviews a week – cancels out the professional reviewers
Not allowing reviews to be left for deep discounts at all
All of this makes it harder for smaller sellers (big brands have marketing machines that mean they are not hit)
For $1,000 Amazon lets you fight your way into the Amazon Vine programme and get 30 reviews
The early review programme is a joke and not a good service
99% of Sellers don’t know how to get onto the Vine programme and their feedback sequence is not generating reviews at a rate to stimulate the algorithm to rank

Acquiring the Positives and dealing with the negatives
People need to fully understand your product and “get it”
If you have a poor product and you’re blind to it – you will get negative reviews
If you can get the quality then it’s a lot easier
Doesn’t help with the getting out of the gate issue or being hobbled by a competitor