Spring has arrived! Although my own weekend forecast is calling for snow, we know that we can start looking toward warmer, more vibrant days soon. Many of us take this as a sign to start sprucing our homes and clearing out everything that has accumulated during the winter so we can start this new season off fresh.

This could be a good time to give your Amazon search engine optimization (SEO) strategy a refresh too. As the seasons change, customer shopping behaviors may change as well which means you can expect a shift in relevant search terms.

If you’re not yet familiar with Amazon SEO it is the strategy in which a Selling Partner can improve their product and brand visibility in Amazon search results. Mastering this strategy can help you continue growing your sales even when customer shopping trends change.

There are 5 ways a customer can find your products in the Amazon Store and your SEO strategy can affect all them:

1. Amazon search box: most customers start shopping by typing in a term or phrase into the Amazon search box and browsing from there
2. Search filters: from the search results page customers can narrow their search by selecting filters like delivery day, customer reviews, and price
3. Search results page: once a customer clicks “search” this page shows relevant product offers to customers so they can compare prices, shipping options, other factors
4. Amazon sales rank: this metric indicates how well a product is selling featured categories
5. Sponsored Products and advertising: cost-per-click ads like Sponsored Products and other forms of ecommerce marketing can help offers rise through search results

Now lets look at a few ways you can refresh your SEO strategy in order to show up in these places:

1. Research relevant keywords and search terms. There are many different ways to conduct this research, but you can always start by typing in a variety of keywords in to the Amazon search box to find out what the search box auto-suggests and where your competition might be showing up. You can also use SEO tools like the Product Opportunity Explorer to identify top search terms in trends based on Amazon customer search volume.
2. Create brief, yet high-performing product titles. Product titles are often the first thing a customer sees when browsing so injecting your highest performing keywords here can help your products surface more quickly in search.
3. Save the best features for the bullet points. The most important details of your product belong in the bullet points. You can use these to highlight the key features and benefits of your product. When writing these, think about it from your customer’s point of view and utilize keywords they would use for search.
4. Write informative and accurate product descriptions. This is a great opportunity to use secondary keywords that talk about the benefits and features of your product. Be sure to avoid keywords that have already been used in titles and bullets. Repeating keywords that have already been used in titles or bullet points is called keyword stuffing and can actually have a negative effect on customer experience.
5. Don’t forget about back-end search terms. Be sure to always utilize the “Generic keyword” field when editing your listing or uploading a new listing. The keywords you add here will not be visible to customers, but can help improve your product ranking when high-performing keywords are used.

The above strategies are not the only way to optimize your search and discoverability, but are great things to focus on as we move into this new season. You can learn more about Amazon SEO by visiting our guide to search optimization.

Let us know in the comments what spring cleaning traditions you have and whether or not you find refreshing your SEO strategy to be helpful to your business.