Doing keyword research for your e-commerce website isn’t difficult. Type in a relevant search term on Google, and you’ll find quite a few suggestions and variations you can use.
Key Takeaways:
- Amazon dominates the e-commerce market, so whatever works for Amazon sellers is likely to work for all online sellers
- Amazon keyword tools have many benefits for all e-commerce business owners, including increasing conversions
- Keywords are central to the SEO and marketing strategies of any online business
- Key data that e-commerce business owners can get from Amazon keyword tools include search volume, competition, and keyword difficulty
Why Amazon Keyword Tools Benefit Your E-Commerce Business
- You can find high search volume keywords
- You’ll get competition insights
- You’ll be able to convert better
- You can find product trends
- You can do competitor research
- You can evaluate keyword difficulty
Amazon keyword tools provide insights specific to Amazon. But since the market share of Amazon in the United States hovers around the 50% mark, keywords that work on Amazon probably work for retailers on other e-commerce platforms.
Even if your store is on Squarespace, which connects directly with the Google Search Console, you can still reap the benefits of using Amazon keyword tools. So, what are those benefits?
You Can Find High Search Volume Keywords
The whole point of using keyword tools is to identify keywords that many people use when looking for a product or service. Keyword tools typically rank keywords according to search volume.
Choosing keywords with high search volumes to associate with a product, service, or site means a higher chance of it coming out in a search on Google or other search engines. If you use an Amazon keyword tool, you have a higher chance of ranking on Amazon.
Of course, choosing keywords with high search volumes also means high competition, as most online sellers tend to choose the same keywords.
As a rule, you want a good mix of high-volume and low-competition keywords in your strategy.
You’ll Get Competition Insights
Knowing the competition for the keywords can help you decide which ones are worth spending time and money building up. High competition keywords mean you’re in a very crowded place, and you’re unlikely to rank well against big players in your space.
Choose low- to medium-competition keywords and mix them up with one or two high search volume ones at the start. Once your e-commerce store starts getting SEO traction, you can work your way up to high competition keywords.
You’ll Be Able to Convert Better
Most high competition keywords tend to be general terms, such as coffeemaker. Keyword tools identify long-tail ― three or more words ― keywords that fully describe your product.
These tend to be low competition and convert better because people who use those long-tail keywords are more likely to buy. The more specific your long-tail keyword, the more likely you rank on search engines and convert.
You Can Find Product Trends
Building your SEO efforts around a set of keywords takes a lot of investment, so you want to make sure the numbers you get from a keyword search aren’t a fluke. For example, some keywords are seasonal, so you’ll only get traction during those seasons.
Others may refer to trends that might be waning. Keyword tools provide you with trend graphs to see if you should use those keywords and when. Trends can throw light on an effective product listing or SEO plan.
You Can Do Competitor Research
Some Amazon keyword tools allow you to find out the keywords your competitors are using and ranking for on Amazon. The goal is to use the same keywords and work harder and smarter to outrank them.
You Can Evaluate Keyword Difficulty
Ranking well on search engines with a specific keyword, on or off Amazon, depends primarily on how much work you need to do. Keyword difficulty (KD) scores (0 to 100, with 100 being impossible) inform you if it’s worth targeting a keyword. Generally, you want to choose keywords with a 50 and lower KD score.
Six of the Best Tools for Amazon Keywords
Finding keywords and using them effectively are two different things. Amazon tools for keyword research can help you do both. Our choices for the best ones are the following:
- Keyword Wizard by Sellzone
- Google Keyword Planner
- Keyword Scout by Jungle Scout
- Amazon Keyword Tool by Ahrefs
- Amazon Keyword Research by SellerApp
- Amazon Keyword Research by Helium 10
This is far from a complete list of tools, but they’re among the most popular and used by many Amazon sellers.
Additionally, most are free, and you can try before you buy, which is always a good thing when starting something new. These tools aren’t listed in any order of importance.
Keyword Wizard by Sellzone
Sellzone’s Keyword Wizard is a tool available to all plans, including the free-forever one, so it’s essentially a free tool. Once you sign up, you can use it to pull up high search volume and low competition keywords on Amazon.
Keyword Wizard has more than 200 million keywords in its research database. You can use the filters for whittling down your keyword list to the ones most relevant for your SEO strategy. Using the free version, you can look up three seed keywords for up to 100 keywords each.
Google Keyword Planner
The Google Keyword Planner is free for you to use once you sign up for an account. You can put in a keyword or start with a website. When you start with a keyword, the tool provides information about the search volume, competition, and bids since Keyword Planner is a Google Ads tool.
When you start with a website, Keyword Planner finds all the keywords on that site or page — useful for scoping out the competition.
Keyword Planner isn’t technically an Amazon keyword tool. But given that Google is a minefield of information, you can use it to get ideas for top keywords that work on both Amazon and Google.
Keyword Scout by Jungle Scout
As a product research tool, Jungle Scout already has a good reputation. One of the contributing factors is its Keyword Scout tool, which uses actual data from Amazon to generate keyword ideas and accurate monthly search volumes. Keyword Scout also has a reverse Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN) lookup so you can scope your competitors.
Unfortunately, Keyword Scout isn’t a free tool. It has paid plans, so you can try using it for a month with the Basic plan ― $49 a month, cancel anytime ― to see if it’s worth your money.
Amazon Keyword Tool by Ahrefs
Ahrefs Amazon Keyword Tool is a free tool with 3 billion keywords in its database. A quick keyword search yields keywords and search volumes without even signing up for an account. You can also use the Keyword Tool to generate keywords on YouTube, Bing, and Google. But to access Keyword Explorer for more information and functionality, you must sign up for a paid plan. Paid plans start at $99 a month (cancel anytime).
Amazon Keyword Research by SellerApp
SellerApp’s Amazon Keyword Research is a free tool with some limitations. You can find some great keywords plus the search volume, estimated orders, and cost-per-click (CPC) like Google Keyword Planner.
You can get more information by signing up for a freemium plan exclusive to Amazon sellers. It’s not full access, but you can do up to 10 keyword searches a day and reverse ASIN lookups.
For full access to Amazon Keyword Research and other tools, you can get a paid plan which starts at $49 a month (cancel anytime).
Amazon Keyword Research By Helium 10
Helium 10 is quite popular with e-commerce business owners for its robust set of tools that give them an edge. One of those is its Amazon Keyword Research, a free tool that anyone can use without signing up. You can generate keywords using a seed keyword or a product ASIN or URL.
Like all the free tools in this list, you need to sign up to get more data and insights. Helium offers a free plan that gives you access to most paid tools, including the Magnet2 Keyword Research tool, but only two seed keywords a day. Filters and sorting functions are also disabled.
Get a paid plan if you want full functionality for the Magnet2 Keyword Research and other tools. The Starter Plan is $39 a month (cancel anytime), but you still have limited uses of some tools, including the Magnet2 Keyword Research.
How To Use Amazon Keyword Tools?
Amazon keyword tools provide you with keywords for your e-commerce store, whether you sell on Amazon or not. You can use the generated keywords in your product title, product description, product details, and on the backend of your Amazon seller account.
With most keyword tools, you get the keywords by putting the product or service you offer in a search bar like coffeemaker. The tool provides you with several related search terms, including search volume, competition for that term, and search trends over time.
With many Amazon keyword tools, you can also search for keywords by doing a reverse ASIN lookup. The ASIN is a unique code given to every product sold on Amazon.
When you do a reverse ASIN lookup, you can get a competitor’s product ASIN and find the keywords for which they rank best. You can use those same keywords to improve your search engine ranking on and off Amazon.
How To Find the Number of Searches for Amazon Keywords
All keyword tools provide the search volume for all keywords and key phrases they generate for each request, among other information. The organization of the keyword data may vary from tool to tool, but the search volume generally appears right next to the keyword. Some of the best SEO software that includes free keyword research tools, such as Ahrefs, provides only the search volume:
Other free Amazon keyword tools provide a little more information. The one from Helium, for instance, also provides the number of competing products and word frequency.
Paid plans typically provide more insights into each keyword. You should also note that tools specific to Amazon only produce search volumes on Amazon. Specifying “Google” on the free Ahrefs keyword generator produces different keywords and search volumes.
Also, the Google search for keywords produces a KD score. The lower a keyword’s KD score, the easier it’s to rank for that keyword on Google.
How Do Keyword Tools Generate Amazon Keywords?
Keyword tools aren’t always transparent about how they generate Amazon keywords. Perhaps it involves some data scraping. But Ahrefs Keyword Tool is upfront about using Amazon’s search suggest function to generate keywords.
That makes a lot of sense since Amazon’s algorithms do most of the work. The role of the Keyword Tool is to organize the results and present them to you in a ready-to-use format.
What Should You Do Next?
Most of the tools listed here are free, so try them all and compare results. Use the keywords they generate for your SEO strategy to improve conversions. When you realize that using Amazon keyword tools can help you grow your e-commerce business, consider investing in a paid plan to maximize the benefits of Amazon tools for keyword research.
If you want more help with your non-Amazon e-commerce business, check out our top 10 keyword and SEO tools for small businesses. You might also find our article on the top 3 e-commerce trends for 2023 quite useful.