- Okay so if you're publishing
on the Kindle Direct Publishing platform,
then chances are likely you've got a lot of questions
when it comes to the use of KDP keywords.
In fact we're gonna talk about making your book
more discoverable with keywords in today's video.
So make sure you stay tuned.
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I'm a best-selling author,
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Among the most popular videos here on this channel,
I find questions come up a lot when it comes to keywords
especially through the Kindle Direct Publishing platform.
So I thought we'd go ahead and clear up some ambiguity,
especially going here into 2020.
So we're gonna start it out at the very basic
when it comes to what are keywords.
Well, keywords are essentially a descriptor
of your specific book or your product.
It essentially is a way to relate what it is
your customer's looking for and what you have.
I always tell people keywords are the bridge
that connects your product to your customer
and vice versa.
Now, not to be confused,
when you hear keyword you think to yourself,
"Well that's just a singular term."
It can be anywhere from two three or even more words
in a complete phrase.
So if you hear me say keywords,
just immediately assume it's probably referring
to a keyword phrase.
According to KDP, they say this about keywords.
To make your book easier to find in Amazon,
you need keywords to accurately portray
your book's content and reflect the words
customers will use when they search
along with factors like sales history
and Amazon Best Sellers Rank,
relevant keywords can boost your placement
and search results on amazon.com.
Note the word relevancy.
Now we can probably go to the dictionary
and find out real quick that it is meaning appropriate to
or closely connected,
but that's not the way it's determined on Amazon.
They don't go just by, okay, well,
that's what it's gonna be relevant,
so we're gonna just send them on
over towards your direction.
You will have noticed in how they expressed
how keywords work.
There was two phrases in there.
They said based on sales history
and Amazon Best Sellers Rank.
And that really places highly on your relevancy
for a specific keyword that you want to place for.
There are a few other factors
and I've actually talked about that
in few other videos and I'll leave some of the links
inside the description down below.
You can go take a look at those other videos
when it comes to something like placing more relevancy
on a specific keyword.
So what are the important areas to use keywords
when it comes to your KDP book?
It's the metadata.
Now, what the metadata means
is it's actually the full product listing.
This includes things like your title,
your subtitle, your series name,
your book description,
the number of pages you have, if it's a print book,
how big is it.
So many factors when it comes into what is your metadata.
Now, the theory is that if you put keywords
in your title and subtitle
that you will actually get more weight in that.
Now, again, that is just a theory.
Unfortunately, there are some people
that have taken it to extremes.
Now, rest assured the Amazon algorithm,
which determines relevancy is becoming
a bit more sophisticated as the years push on.
So I imagine that if you're trying
to keyword stuff your titles,
you're probably not gonna win in the long game.
So, sure, you might be able
to get a ton of sales right now
but in due time you're gonna find
that A9 is gonna go,
"Oh I see what you're doing,
"and we're just gonna go ahead and surprise you."
In fact they recommend that you keep your titles
right below sixty characters.
That way it's not overwhelming
and the customers just pass on your particular product.
But for the rest of this video,
I want to talk to you about the seven keyword slots
that we have in our KDP dashboard
for each one of our eBooks and our print books.
Now, to be clear, we have seven keyword slots
that you're allowed to have up to 50 characters per slot.
How exactly do you use those?
Well, let's go ahead and talk an order of importance.
Let's talk about how you do not want to use keywords.
Now I'm going right over to KDP's playbook here.
I'm just gonna read right from what they say
inside their policy.
This includes anything misrepresentative
like the name of an author not associated with your book.
This kind of information could create
a confusing customer experience.
KDP has a zero tolerance policy for metadata
that is meant to advertise, promote or mislead.
This is huge.
I've seen so many people, you know,
whether directly or indirectly violating this area here
because they're putting in, say, for instance,
another author's name or a trademarked brand name.
And some people will get a slap on the wrist
and say, "Don't do that again, fix it for us."
And other people have actually had account suspensions.
And in some extreme instances, terminations,
when they've had, you know, a number of infractions.
The next one that you're gonna want to avoid
is going to be anything that's related to Amazon.
Any Amazon program names like Kindle Unlimited,
any kind of programs like KDP Select, Amazon,
anything related to Amazon, you can't use it.
And then the next one is going to be the F word,
meaning free.
They don't like you to put in free
and in fact if you try to test the limits
when it comes to free,
they'll typically put your book to draft
and tell you, "Hey you have to fix this."
Now the instances that you probably can push back
is if it is related or actually relevant
to your particular title.
So if you're doing like, say, a dairy-free cookbook
or a gluten-free cookbook,
then you may kind of say to them,
"Hey this actually really is doing.
"This really is relevant to my particular title."
There has been some people that have had to push back
a couple of times before they finally said,
"Oh, we get it, now we understand."
So let's talk about the keywords you should avoid using.
Now, again, I'm gonna go over to KDP's playbook on this one,
because there's some of 'em they want you to avoid
and they're not necessarily going to shut down your account
or suspend you for using these ones,
they just recommend that there's better use
of your seven keyword slots in the 50 characters per slot.
And these include information covered elsewhere
in your book's metadata.
So you don't want to repeat things
like your title, your subtitle or contributor names.
You know, there's just no sense in doing it
because again the title and subtitle are searchable,
so think of those as additional keyword slots
outside of those seven keywords.
Subjective claims about quality
like best ever or, you know, ultimate,
things like that.
I've actually used things like that before
and they don't really ever shut down your account
for that or anything else.
I don't imagine them taking that away anytime soon
but they just recommend there's better use
of those seven keyword slots.
Time-sensitive statements.
Now this one right here
is just creating more work for yourself.
If you're doing things like new, on sale, available now.
Those are going to probably get pulled out
some point or another.
So no sense putting into your seven keyword slots.
And it's really not like too many people
are going to be looking up
some of those particular types of keywords.
And this one actually gets me scratching my head.
It's actually information common to most items
in the category like book or books or eBook or audiobook.
These type of things they say it's just a bit redundant
because people are obviously gonna look for it
and it's gonna pull up that category.
Again you're gonna find that some keywords are relevant
and people are actually searching for it,
so I'm kind of on the fence on this one.
Again they're not going to suspend
or terminate your account for using these type of words.
They just say that you probably shouldn't use them.
Spelling errors.
Now this one's a pretty interesting one,
because over on YouTube they have an algorithm
as Amazon does.
And one of the things they actually recommend
and what they call the tags is to put in
some common misspellings to be pulled up in searches.
Now, I don't imagine this is going to be any different
when it comes to Amazon's algorithm.
So in the event there's a high amount of search volume
based on some spelling errors,
it's something possibly worth pursuing
but I wouldn't go all in on your seven keyword slots
based on a misspelled word,
unless there's actual proof of concept.
Variance of spacing, punctuations,
capitalization and pluralization.
This includes things like 80 gigabytes
or 80 space gigabytes,
computer or computers.
So they're saying that you shouldn't just repeat
the same word in there because they're gonna know
that computer in computers is one on the same,
so there's no need to go ahead and double down
on that particular thing.
Now I used to lean heavily
in favor of utilizing both of these
but they're saying, "No it's not necessary."
And quotation marks and search terms.
And when you put quotes around any kind of keyword phrases
that is what's called an exact match.
So this means that anybody that is searching up
that exact phrase right there will pull up your book
but this is going to be very limiting
because the way that people find your book
with those seven keywords is through a broad keyword match.
That means that the Amazon algorithm
is going to see about taking any number of the keywords
inside your keyword phrase
and matching it up to the customer.
So in the event you're doing something,
let's say, a home workout plan for women,
let's say someone's typing up workout for women.
It just goes ahead and it just pulls
the three words that was relevant based on that search
for that customer.
When you put the quotations around it,
the problem is it says I want only the customers
that are looking for this particular item.
You're welcome to test that out if you want to
but again you're kind of limiting yourself
to the audience exposure you would normally get
through a broad keyword match.
Here's how you should use your keywords
Now, Amazon again suggests combine keywords
in the most logical order.
What they said was there's a difference
between science fiction military
and military science fiction
but that kind of contradicts
what they've actually said before
and that, you know, it's a broad keyword match.
So that means that if someone's looking up
this particular thing,
it's going to be pulling those three keywords.
So I'm not sure where they're going with this.
Maybe this is something that's a little bit outdated
that KDP hasn't updated lately
but either way it's going to do a broad keyword match,
it's going to pull from the keywords
that are inside your keyword slot.
They of course encourage you to use all seven keyword slots.
So don't ever leave a keyword slot empty.
And I would say that you have up to 50 characters.
Try to utilize it in the most tasteful way possible.
They further recommend,
and this is something that I'm going to go ahead
and put my two cents in on,
and that is when you're looking for some keywords,
use their search engine to show you
what customers are looking for.
So what you'll do is go over into incognito mode
on your browser, your gonna visit amazon.com,
go into the particular store that you want to
and then start to type in the query that you want.
So let's just say, for instance,
again, we're dealing with home workouts,
so we start to type in home workout.
It's going to populate other searches
that the audience is commonly looking for
and what you're gonna want to do is pick the keywords
that are most relevant to you.
Amazon further suggests
that you need to think like a reader.
Imagine how you would search if you were a customer.
So just get yourself in the customer's shoes
and think, "Okay what am I gonna be looking for
"to find my particular publication?"
So what's the best keyword practice?
Now, first, right out the gate is if you're going to use
the seven keyword slots,
don't just put single term keyword phrases in there.
So, let's say, for instance, you're putting out
a book on fitness and you just put fitness
or you got a book on self-help
and you put something in self-help.
These single phrase keywords
are just not going to cut the mustard.
It's so stinking broad.
And there are people that are dominating that space
that probably already pretty much own that keyword.
So this means that if someone's searching you up
and you're using something like fitness,
you're probably going to end up
on the very last page of the search
because you're probably not as relevant,
unless you're a very big fitness author.
Use long tail keywords.
Now don't overthink this one.
You're gonna get a lot of industry experts
that are gonna tell you,
"If you find this much search volume
"and all of the ranks are this this and that."
Let me make it dead simple for you.
Don't overthink this one.
Is it relevant to your publication?
It's just that simple.
Does this match up to your product?
And will it make sense if a customer's looking
for your book and they discover it
with that specific keyword?
There's also what's called keyword stemming.
Now this is where you take two similar keywords
and you're able to kind of branch them together
or kind of combine them,
where it's a prefix and a suffix
and you've got your root keyword.
So I already kind of gave you one
where I said workout plan
and then we added home, home workout plan,
and then we added for women,
so we have workout plan for women.
We put the whole thing together
in a home workout plan for women.
And though it may not pull up on the autosuggest,
you will find that each of the individual parts
may pull up there.
So maybe home workout plan pulls up,
maybe workout plan pulls up,
maybe workout plan for women pulls up.
If all three of those pull up,
put them all together because it makes sense
and maybe it is relevant to your publication.
Avoid stuffing a bunch of unnecessary words into there.
You don't just want to fill the 50 character slots
just with just any old keywords
or just guessing your way through it.
You want to make sure that it makes sense.
Yeah, it's a good idea to fill the 50 characters if you can
but you don't want to go overboard
just for the sake of putting a bunch of words in there,
because all its gonna do is it's going to confuse
the Amazon algorithm and it's not really gonna be sure
about who you are or what your book is
and there's just gonna be a complete identity crisis.
A good friend of mine, the Kindlepreneur himself,
Dave Chesson, actually wrote a full article
about those seven keywords slots
and how to best utilize those.
And in some of the tips
that I have actually dispensed today,
really are in alignment with that.
And he talks about how you can put
those 50 characters together
in the most sensible fashion
to where your books being served to the right audience
and of course is hopefully getting bought.
So you can take a look at that at DaleLinks.com/7keywords.
If any of this information was new to you,
please do me a favor drop inside the comments #newtome.
And while you're at it just hit that like button to blue,
so that way I know that you enjoyed today's video.
And while we're talking about keywords,
I actually have a full video
about Dave Chesson's Publisher Rocket.
And I'm talking about the Publisher Rocket keywords,
what you need to know about this research tool.
I'm gonna see you in the next video.