Amazon Limits Keywords for Books—Why This Is and Isn’t a Big Deal
In the midst of interminable backlogs, delayed shipments, and declining sales, book publishers may be forgiven for having missed a somewhat significant change to Amazon’s product set up—keywords, which had been restrictive already, are now limited to 210 characters, or, essentially, an old-school tweet and a half. While this severely restricts how publishers can position their books via metadata, this actually isn’t a big deal and may help publishers focus on those things that can better drive discoverability.
You Shouldn’t Be Relying on the Keywords Field Anyway
After years of abuse and grey-hat tactics, keywords have become less and less important SEO tools overall. In fact, egregious keyword use can get you dinged by Google and actually hurt search result rankings. And it seems like Amazon may simply be following suit here. Keywords in the keyword field will still be driving things like categorization, but they don’t drive much discovery on Amazon as it is. As a company hyper-focused on the customer, having metadata that’s invisible to the user driving search results seems at odds with the Amazon philosophy. This reduced limit simply reinforces this and shows that Amazon’s search algorithms are not going to heavily weight the keywords field.
Use Keywords Where They Count—In the Product Description
At the same time that they limited keyword character limits, Amazon has expanded the limits for product description to 4,200 characters. That’s nearly a book in and of itself! And it’s here where you should be using your keywords. A well written and properly formatted description that’s loaded with appropriate keywords is going to be a better discovery tool than a string of 25 keywords (now less) anyway. Awkwardly shoe-horning in relevant search terms isn’t going to be you much good, but relevant copy that gives potential buyers a good sense of your book’s content is not only going to help you with search discovery, but more importantly, also with conversions. Along with other best practices—such as excerpts, descriptive bios, links to author pages, and video—a well-written description (that begins with a short, bolded headline, for some reason) is the best way to move a book to the shopping cart. Something the keyword field could never do anyway.
And Then There’s Amazon Advertising…
If you’re a small and/or independent publisher creating books in a crowded field, all of this may be a bit moot because you’re already facing an uphill battle and likely are on the barren wastelands of page 2 and 3 of the search results already. This can be different for Association and non-profit publishers who can leverage a recognized brand and/or related subject descriptor right there in the name of the publisher, but except for rare cases, most small publishers don’t benefit from consumer brand recognition (hell, most big publishers don’t benefit either—ask a friend or family member who published the best-selling book they’re currently reading). And this is where Amazon coughs politely and asks if you’d like to take a look at their advertising platform.
It’s a double-edged sword, to be sure. While metadata best practices are essentially free, it’s evident that Amazon is prioritizing sponsored products and that if you want to drive discovery and get better results than you could with well-crafted copy and an attractive jacket, you’re going to have to pay. Fortunately, you may not need to pay that much. Built just like Google AdWords and other SEM tools, publishers can identify the keywords they’re willing to pay for, set their budget, and optimize. How much you want to spend will be based on your budget, built-in margin, and subject area. If you’re a digital self-publisher with a low MSRP in a crowded field, Advertising may not offer the greatest ROI—that slim margin can get eaten up quick with popular keywords. For niche publishers, however, this may be just the key to better visibility.
Also keep in mind that there are few rules regarding what keywords you can use with Amazon Advertising. While using other books or authors in the keyword field will get your hand slapped and all of your keywords zapped, this type of thing is actively encouraged in Advertising. Just be careful, as it can lead to expensive campaigns if you’re tying to a popular title or author (which, of course, is exactly why it’s encouraged by Amazon). If you’re looking for more best practices for on Amazon Advertising, Ian Lamont just wrote a great primer for Independent, which is highly recommended.
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The takeaway here is that while this seems like another instance of the boogeyman again restricting publishers’ ability to reach an audience, it’s really more of an inconvenience. The keywords field, along with BISAC information, may influence categorization on the site, but it’s not driving search discovery. Put your keywords where they matter—and maybe consider ponying up a buck or two.
