The Look Back: Week 8 of 2023

“The Look Back” is a newsletter that summarizes important news, tools, and insights for brand owners selling online.?

News Recollections:?

Join my 3 webinar series, Compliant Brand Development!

PROSPER Show is March 13-15, 2023! Use Council20 to get 20% off!?

Why I’m not worried at all about Amazon layoffs and sales slowdowns:?

Check out my podcast interview with Dan Englander of the Digital Agency Podcast

Tool Refresh:?

No Data No Business has my favorite new tool this week - a Google Sheets import.?

I know it sounds like, seriously? Google Sheets??

But, I do conversion rate optimization. A big part of that is doing research on competitor ASIN reviews and deriving patterns, keywords, phrases and more from customer generated content.?

This little plug in just saved me and my team 30-40 minutes per research project. #winning

Thought Retrospective:?

This week I got a few questions from clients and my mentee about writing titles.?

Amazon’s guidance on titles is detailed:?

• Titles should be concise. We recommend fewer than 80 characters.
• Don't use ALL CAPS.
• Capitalize the first letter of each word except for prepositions (in, on, over, with), conjunctions (and, or, for), or articles (the, a, an).
• Use numerals: "2" instead of "two".
• Don't use non-language ASCII characters such as ?, ?, or ?.
• Titles should contain the minimal information needed to identify the item and nothing more.
• Don't use subjective commentary, such as "Hot Item" or "Best Seller".
• Titles can include necessary punctuation, like hyphens (-), forward slashes (/), commas (,), ampersands (&), and periods (.).
• Titles can abbreviate measurements, such as "cm", "oz", "in", and "kg".
• Don't include your merchant name in titles.
• Size and color variations should be included in titles for child ASINs, not the main title (see below).

Example:?

Think about a physical product on a supermarket shelf. Its title is simple and to the point. You only have a moment to catch the eye of a passing shopper. With online titles on Amazon, there’s no need to go on and on. Simply put, the title should reflect what is on the physical packaging of a product:

Some of these tips are reasonable - All CAPS feels like you’re getting shouted at and it’s not going to get customers excited to click - which is the main purpose of a title. Stylistic guidance like this from Amazon should be followed.?

However, when it comes to the keyword content, Amazon’s guidance isn’t just unhelpful, it will actually cause you to lose sales against sellers who follow my Title guidelines.?

For example, using only 2 and not “two” could keep your product from being seen as highly relevant for “two jars of peanut butter” if the number is actually critical to the purchase search behavior of your customer. Same goes for ounces/oz or pounds/lbs.?

The minimal information part is highly amusing to me, because if they really didn’t want us to use the Title for SEO, they shouldn’t have made it so important for A9 search.?

With punctuation, keep in mind that copper-core and copper core are two different terms, and you need to include all of your chosen relevant keywords in the title. Do not waste space with repeats! And keep in mind that Amazon’s search knows that cook and cooks are the same thing, but not cook and cooked or cooking.?

My preferred title style:?

[Brand Name]* [top 4-8 keyword descriptors for maximizing clicks] | [remainder should be common search terms for this product type] (pack/color/etc information)

*if you have a very long brand name that doesn’t include relevant keywords, use a shortened version of it at the beginning of the title to maximize your visual title space.?

So here’s my rewrite of Amazon’s Skippy example:?

Original: Skippy Peanut Butter, Reduced Fat Creamy, 40 ounce (Pack of 2)

Rewrite: Skippy Reduced Fat Creamy Peanut Butter Bulk 40 oz Jar, Nut Spread for Sandwiches Low Calories High Protein Lunch, Reduce Intake with Healthy Snacks or Sandwich

• I reorganized the adjectives because I’ve found it helps to have the keywords in order from first to last the same way you’ve phrased them for advertising purposes - think of how phrase targeting works.?
• Reduce and Reduced do not seem to behave as exact matches in advertising, therefore I would include both
• No words are repeated as that is wasteful of the available space
• Primary selling benefits are at the beginning, with alternate search terms and features towards the end - this is because those usually get cut off in search and therefore are only really useful as SEO

Now, this is a somewhat silly example because Skippy peanut butter has no need to maximize clicks - they have enormous brand awareness and brand loyalty.?

But if you’re a new brand or have low brand awareness, following Amazon’s title guidance is a great way to continue to have low brand awareness and not present any challenge whatsoever to the Skippy’s of the world.?

Product Recalls:?

Product recalls should be the first place you search as a company looking to produce top notch products. These are the “worst of the worst” stories of failure to help you develop high quality and safe products for sale.?

Candles were recalled for burning too close to the glass sides of the candle, causing the sides to shatter and present a laceration hazard.?

Adult care beds have a defect that can cause the user to become trapped and asphyxiate.?

Scuba regulators can be defective, posing a drowning hazard.?

High chair can break, causing a fall hazard to babies and toddlers.?

Bookcases can present a tip-over and entrapment hazard.?

Snow bikes are recalled to repair as they can cause crashes.?

Electric saws have a defect that can pose a laceration hazard to users.?

Air fryers recalled as a connection is faulty, resulting in potential kitchen fires and injuries.?

Metal bed frame is missing a support and can collapse causing a fall hazard.?

Ski boots have defective pins/screws that can fall out and result in injury to the consumer.?