Something I see many authors and publishers struggling with is effective amazon keyword research. In other words they aren’t finding the keywords that will be profitable for them.

Every author or publisher should be focusing on amazon search engine optimization (amazon seo) as part of their marketing plan. The single most important factor of amazon search is keywords. It isn’t enough to find popular keywords anymore. You have to find the ones where the people searching them are HUNGRY for information.

When you have the correct keywords and you’ve correctly taken advantage of amazons search algorithm you will be rewarded with your book (or product) ranking on the first page. Basically, you’ll make tons of money.

In today’s video I’ll be discussing everything from the importance of keywords to how to find the most profitable ones.

Watch the video below:

Do you want to make more money selling books as a publishing or author? I’ll teach you the specific techniques and strategies that have allowed me to sell 1000’s of books. CLICK HERE to view my 1-on-1 Coaching Program.

Amazon Keyword Research and Amazon SEO

Keywords, one of the most important things about self-publishing. Today, I’m going to talk about the importance of keywords and how to find good ones. Well, ones that will make you money. If you don’t know, if you’re not familiar with publishing or you haven’t published a book yet and don’t know what keywords are, keywords are the specific words that people type into a search engine, like Amazon.com or Google.com or Bing.

Keyword Examples

These words are the words that they’re using to search for something. A word could be the word “cookbook” or the word “diet” or the word “meditation,” “baby food,” anything like that. Those are words that people are typing in into search engines specifically to find something, whether that be information or whether that’s product or a book that they’re looking for or anything.

Now, this applies to book publishers, because in the online world, how is somebody going to find your book? By typing in a keyword, usually. Now, you know, they can also find them through book lists and through top cookbooks and top best-sellers and top whatever, but generally speaking, if they’re going to find your book, they’re going to find it by searching for it and using a keyword.

How Many Keywords Can I Use?

When you are actually in the process of publishing a book, you get to choose. On Amazon, up to seven keywords. So you get to tell Amazon seven keywords that you think your book should rank for and that you think is relevant to the customers searching. This is your opportunity to say, “Hey, Amazon, these are the seven keywords that I think the most customers who are typing these words in are going to want to buy my book,” or my product. This applies to anything on Amazon.

The problem with that is it can be very difficult to find the keywords that actually matter and that actually are important. Specifically, that people are searching for, and even more specific than that, the keywords that people are searching for that are also people are buying from. Sometimes people search a keyword but they don’t really buy a lot from it. Then, there’s other times where people search a keyword, and almost every time they search that word, they buy a product. There’s an important difference between that.

How to Do Amazon Keyword Research

So now let’s talk about how to do amazon keyword research. To start off, you only want to pick words that are relevant to your book. Again, if you have a cookbook, you probably don’t want to put the keyword “leadership” in or the word “tree,” unless your cookbook is about trees and then maybe that’s okay. You want to make sure that your keywords are relevant to your book, first and foremost, before anything else. After that, the only other requirement that you have is to find keywords that people are searching for and buying from. Amazon has a little nifty thing called BSR, Best-Sellers Ranking.

This is a way that Amazon ranks product and, in specific, books, from, I don’t know, somewhere like a million all the way down to one. One being the best seller, a million being one of the worst-selling books that they have. Now, there’s millions of book they have on their, so I’m sure the number probably goes beyond that. If you find a book on there that’s number one, that’s probably making thousands and thousands, probably $50,000 a month just from that one book, maybe more. I don’t know. Who knows? Maybe a lot.

The whole general idea is that the lower they are on the ranking system, the more money they’re making. The higher they are on the ranking system, the less money they’re making. You can find this number by when you view a book, you scroll all the way down, and there’s going to be a product details section. Then, it’s going to say best-sellers ranking. Under that, it’ll tell you the exact number, what position that book that you’re viewing is in. With that knowledge, you know what books are selling well.

How to Tell if a Keyword is Profitable

Now, you can apply that through keywords. Go to Amazon, type in a word that you think is related to your book. I can’t tell you what words to use, because I don’t know what books you’re publishing. I’m going to take a cookbook, for example. I’m not saying this is the word you should use for any cookbook, I’m just saying that this is just an example of how to use this.

So, let’s say you have a cookbook. Who cares what the name is. You go to Amazon. You type in the word “cookbook” and click Search. Then, on the first page, you can open up every single book that’s on the first page. Now, this can be a little tedious, but in the end, it’s worth it. You open up every book on the page, and you can scroll down and view their best-sellers ranking. Generally, a book that’s best-sellers ranking is 50,000 or less is making over $50 to $100 a month, which is decent. If a book makes $100 a month or more, that’s an extra $100 a month every month you’ve got coming in.

A Good Rule to Live By

My rule of thumb for picking a good keyword is, in general, when you type the keyword in, like let’s say the word “cookbook,” and every single book on that list, on the first page, has a best-sellers ranking of less than 100,000, that’s a decent keyword. That means that not only are people searching for that topic, but on top of that, people are buying on that topic, on that specific keyword. Type the word “cookbook” in. If they’re all less than 100,000, it’s probably a good keyword for your cookbook or for your book.

Now, you can type in other words like “diet” or more specific words like a specific type of cookbook or a recipe book or whatever. That’s how you can tell if a keyword’s good. If most of the books, not all of them necessarily have to be, but most of them are under 100,000, it’s a good keyword. Now, if all of them are under 5,000, it’s an excellent keyword. Obviously, that keyword is making thousands and thousands of dollars.

Keywords that Are too Popular Can Be Bad

Now, the one caveat here, the one problem, is that if you type in a keyword and every single book is below 5,000 on the ranking, meaning they’re making a lot of money, that keyword is a good keyword but is going to be very difficult to get your book ranked for and to get your book seen, because there’s so many competitive books. It’s such a competitive word. I would say the balance with keywords that you want to use is picking keywords that are selling but are also not selling too well that you can’t get in.

You can always change your keywords later. If you pick less popular keywords at first, you can then switch it up. Let’s say your book starts to hit it off and starts to sell really well. Now you can change your keywords over to some more competitive keywords and rank for those once you already have momentum, once you’re already going and you’re already making money. That’s how you find keywords. I’m sorry, that’s not how you find keywords. That’s how you do proper amazon keyword research. So best-seller ranking below 100,000. You can find it on the product page for any book or any product on Amazon. Basically, just search for a keyword and check the rankings.

Then, if a keyword isn’t relevant, don’t use it. Don’t put it on there, because the customers aren’t going to buy it. Again, if you type the word in, “tree,” and a book on leadership pops up, nobody’s going to buy it. They’re not looking for that. In turn, you’re not going to make money, and Amazon’s not going to think your book is good. So don’t do that. Don’t pick non-relevant keywords. Also, don’t pick too popular keywords unless your book’s already selling well.

Another Method for Amazon Keyword Research

Another good method for amazon keyword research is similar to what I just said, type the word into Amazon, so like “cookbook,” for example. Type the word “cookbook” and Amazon will give you alternative suggestions. You type in the word “cookbook” and Amazon might throw another word in the little list that pops up beneath it before you hit the send button to actually search for it. So when you’re just typing it in, Amazon will give you other search terms that people are typing in. Those are good ones to check as well. You can check all of those on there and see if they’re more relevant to your book maybe and also maybe sell better. You never know.

So that’s how you do good amazon keyword research. Hopefully, this helped clear some things up for you!

Do you want to make more money selling books as a publishing or author? Maybe you need help with amazon keyword research? I’ll teach you the specific techniques and strategies that have allowed me to sell 1000’s of books. CLICK HERE to view my 1-on-1 Coaching Program.

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