Amazon-SEO international: Why translations aren’t the right way

When you take your Amazon business to an international level, you are facing the challenge of creating content for different national marketplaces. For example, many vendors and sellers simply translate their content from amazon.de for amazon.fr or amazon.com – often at the expense of both visibility and revenue. If you want to take the right approach for Amazon-SEO when internationalising, you should consider several aspects.

Optimise title, bullet points and product description individually for each country

The search and purchase behaviour of Amazon users varies from country to country due to different cultures and living conditions. If you ignore the preferences and needs of consumers, you are wasting valuable potential. Those need to be considered for content optimisation and keyword research – a simple translation wouldn't suffice. Here is an example: A manufacturer offers a smart thermostat. In France, Amazon users find it particularly important that the smart device has a high-quality design. In Spain, consumers are more likely to buy the device if they can use it to lower the temperature in their home from the distance. By contrast, German consumers focus on the reporting: they want to know exactly how much energy they consume and what the resulting costs are. The information for each country should be strategically integrated into optimised content in order to motivate potential customers to buy the product.   If you want to learn about these differences between countries, you need to conduct a thorough Content Relevance Analysis of the product or product groups for each individual country. To this end, a number of different sources is considered to work out the target groups' concerns and the relevant product characteristics for their purchase decision. The analysis provides the foundation for conversion-optimised content per country. If you neglect this fact, the probability of site visitors buying your product decreases.

Best Practice: Even if the same language is spoken in different countries, a separate Content Relevance Analysis and keyword research should be carried out for each of them, and country-specific content should be created. For example, consumer behaviour in the USA differs from that in Great Britain.

Strike a chord with the national target group

Another crucial point are country-specific peculiarities in the perception of products or product categories as they can affect the content's (linguistic) layout. For example, in France dental care products are rather considered medical products, while German Amazon users tend to place them in the lifestyle segment. Thus, a very objective approach for content optimisation would be advised for amazon.fr, spotlighting the hard facts. On amazon.de on the contrary the emphasis lays on good marketing and convincingly formulated arguments. There may also be differences in the degree of translation. For example, in Germany it is quite common to work with English or French terms (Anglicisms or Gallicisms). French Amazon users are generally accustomed to have all terms translated into their native tongue.

Attention: Please note that Amazon's specifications and guidelines for content creation (Amazon Style Guides) may vary from country to country and by product category.

Creation of country-specific keyword sets

Regarding visibility it is also important to consider each country individually. Any country-specific differences may be reflected by the keyword sets. To create a high-performance keyword set, editors use the autocomplete feature of Amazon's search function (Auto Suggest) which shows the most frequent search terms and combinations employed by Amazon users. Differences in consumer search behaviour become apparent when comparing the auto-completion for search queries containing the keyword "shampoo" as an example. On the German marketplace, users are often looking for hair care without artificial additives and for dry scalps. However, users on amazon.com are specifically looking for sets including shampoo and conditioner as well as hair care products for bleached or dyed hair. Thus, consumers are focusing on different product features. The comparison also shows that the category "gender" seems to play an important role for German Amazon users in their purchasing decision as they often search for shampoo for men (Herren) or women (Damen). When searching on amazon.com, this characteristic seems to play a secondary role and other categories, such as the intended use or the type of product, determine the buying intention more strongly. In a nutshell: When creating the German keyword set and the optimised content, gender-specific keywords should be prioritized among other things.

Attention: The search behaviour of Amazon users can change constantly. Therefore, the auto-completion offers only temporary insights.

Conclusion

Neither vendors nor sellers should economise on internationalisation at the expense of Amazon-SEO by simply translating. Instead, a keyword research and Content Relevance Analysis should be conducted for each and every national marketplace. At best, native speakers use this as the foundation for optimising content.

Best Practice: Only if you analyse each marketplace individually can you tap the full potential.

At factor-a, native speakers specialised on Amazon create and optimise your content for all relevant national marketplaces. Contact us!