Some sellers asked: Why is a competitor product that I am following, which has no reviews, in the top 5 of the category’s hot-selling list?
Some sellers asked: Why did I look through all the search results and still not find my product?
Some sellers asked: Why did I bid a high price for the in-site advertisement but still not find it?
These three questions just correspond to the three rankings that we often mention in Amazon operations: BSR ranking, keyword ranking, and ad position ranking.
I believe that sellers with a little operational experience are familiar with these three rankings, but many sellers cannot distinguish the relationship between these three rankings and their influence on each other.
Let’s look at the BSR ranking first. The BSR ranking is simply understood as the sales ranking. If a product has good sales, its BSR ranking will be high; if sales decline over a period of time, its BSR ranking will also decline. BSR ranking is updated hourly, and changes with the sales volume of all products in the same category. Often, what we pursue is to create a hit product, which is actually to hope that our product can become the first in BSR ranking, that is, the best-selling product in the category, or at least be able to rush to the top of BSR ranking.
Keyword ranking refers to the position of the product in the search results when searching for a certain product with keywords on the Amazon front desk. Unlike BSR ranking, which is sorted according to sales volume, keyword ranking is affected by many factors, including conversion rate, number of orders, historical sales volume, star rating and number of reviews, etc. For sellers, we cannot accurately quantify these data, so we cannot accurately know the possible changes in our keyword ranking.
Even so, the following two points can be confirmed: (1) Keyword ranking can be manually interfered with, and there is a so-called “keyword homepage service” on the market; (2) Sales volume and BSR ranking have an important impact on keyword ranking. We often find that the best-selling products in the category are generally on the first or second page of keyword ranking.
Sometimes we look through all the search results pages but still can’t find our products, that is, we can’t find our keyword rankings on the search results page. There are two reasons for this: () The seller’s default address is China, and the created product is set not to ship to areas outside the site. You need to change the address information and check again: (2) Amazon’s search results page only displays products with high keyword rankings, and the seller’s product weight is too low, so it is not displayed. For keyword rankings, even if you can’t find it, you don’t have to worry too much. Check the visitor data in the business report in the backend of the seller center. If there are visitors, it means that the product is displayed normally.
The third ranking is the ad position ranking. According to the Amazon system settings, there are exclusive ad positions on the search results page and the product details page. Generally speaking, the higher the ad keyword bid, the higher the ad position that can be grabbed. But it should be noted that in addition to being affected by the bid, the ad position ranking is also closely related to the ad keyword quality score. If a product has no reviews, low review stars, poor conversion rate, and low relevance between keywords and products, it will lead to a low ad keyword quality score. Even if the ad bid is high, the ad ranking may be low.
After understanding the significance and influencing factors of the three rankings, we also need to know that these three rankings are not independent of each other and affect each other. Any change in any ranking will affect the other two rankings, and any ranking will also change with the change of the other two rankings.
For example, if a product has good sales, its BSR ranking will rise. As the BSR ranking rises, its keyword ranking will also rise. This is why hot-selling products often appear on the first page of search results. In addition, when the keyword ranking is high, its exposure and traffic will be more. Assuming that the conversion rate remains unchanged, the number of orders for the product will be more, thereby pushing up the BSR ranking. Similarly, when the keyword ranking is high, generally speaking, its conversion rate will be higher, and the number of orders will be more. These factors will increase the weight of the product, play a role in adding points to the quality score of the advertising keyword, and then promote the increase of the advertising position: and the advertising position is high, its exposure and clicks will be more, and the number of orders will increase accordingly. With more orders, the BSR ranking will also rise. This is the angular cycle of the three rankings.
Through the above analysis, it is not difficult to see that the three rankings form a flywheel that influences and drives each other. In operation, if we strive to improve one ranking, we can drive the other two rankings to gradually improve. On the contrary, if one ranking declines, the other two rankings will also be dragged down.
Therefore, sellers should dynamically view the relationship and mutual influence of the three rankings, and strive to promote a certain ranking to develop upward within their own capabilities. The three rankings influence each other and form a virtuous circle. This is the operational thinking we should have.