As a self published author or publisher on Amazon, you want sales.
And in order to get sales, you need customers or traffic to your books.
And that's the biggest hurdle to overcome because without anyone going to your
product page is a bit like having a shop and no one coming through the door to
see what you've got for sale. Now, last year,
Amazon updated its search algorithm nicknamed the A10 search algorithm.
Now, don't worry,
it doesn't involve computer programming or complex computer flow diagrams,
but having a basic understanding of it can go a long way to helping you optimize
your books and strategy to get more sales and make more money.
And that's why we're in this business after all.
So what I'm going to do is explain the basics of this algorithm,
how it's changed and how you can use that information to improve your sales
and bottom line. So if that sounds good, then follow along.
Now, if you've not been here before,
my name is Paul Marles and I do videos on how to make it, keep it and grow it.
And that's your money I'm talking about. And if you do like videos like that,
then please do give it a thumbs up,
hit the subscribe button and smash that notification bell to receive
notification of when I produce more videos like this. Okay.
So when anyone goes to a website to search for something,
it could be Google, eBay, YouTube, or in our case, Amazon,
the website has to decide what to show. Now this could be search results,
that link to other websites or in the case of Amazon, products.
So if your book appears or gets recommended by Amazon and customers see your
book, you'll get traffic to your book. And the more traffic you get,
the better chance you have of making sales. And if it's a lot of traffic,
a lot of sales. Now there are a couple of issues.
The competition on Amazon is ever increasing for all types of products,
including books, as the barrier to entry on publishing is very small.
I mean,
basically you can do it pretty quickly in the case of some books and it's pretty
much for free. Also,
customers rarely search past pages two or three of the search results.
So it's important if you're going to get that traffic and make sales to get your
book as high up the search result, rankings as possible.
Ideally on the first page and in a perfect world, the number one spot.
So how does Amazon decide which products appear and where it
appears in the search results, amidst all this increasing competition?
Well, that's where the A10 algorithm comes in.
And basically it's just a list of factors or parameters Amazon takes into
account and applies to your book before deciding where it's going to put it in
the search results. Remember,
Amazon's ethos has always been to provide the best customer experience.
So it wants to give the customer the best choices of books it thinks possible.
And when someone searches and your book appears,
that's called the organic search ranking.
So what are these factors influencing the A10 algorithm and how can we
use this knowledge to get our books some traffic and sales.
Remember knowledge is power. And if we have this knowledge,
it can put us at an advantage over our competitors. Well,
I'll tell you the important ones first,
which I've split into six main areas and then I'll list what I think
you need to do or should consider doing in order to increase your books
rankings. Now, these are not in any particular order.
So we've got sales history,
consistent sales help a book rank higher.
So consistent sales over longer periods of time give your ranking strength to
your book over a newer book that may have made a lot of sales,
but in a shorter period of time.
That's why you may see a book with a higher best sellers rank outranking,
a book with a lower best sellers rank has it's been around longer and
beenmaking sales for longer.
So if you have a book that's making the occasional sale,
but you're not happy with that. Then be patient as over the longer time period,
it's ranking may improve and you'll make more sales.
Then we've got sales. Now this is important to understand.
So listen to this bit again, if you don't get it the first time.
So sales can come from a variety of sources and they are not all treated
equally.
I guess you could say that Amazon assigns some sales as a better quality sale.
And so gives you a book's more strength in the ranking.
So these sales could come from the organic search ranking.
They could come from the sale as a result of sponsored listings that comes from
the Amazon ads.
They could come from those frequently bought together items that appear,
or the related products listings,
or your author central page, which I'm sure you've all got.
And finally sales could come from external traffic, such as Google,
social media, i.e Facebook and Instagram. A Shopify store maybe,
or something like Facebook ads.
Now organic search sales gives the books the
greatest ranking strength.
Less emphasis has now been placed on sales from sponsored listings.
And more strength has actually now been given to sales that arrive
from external sites.
And that's one of the biggest changes in the new A10 algorithm.
There's impressions. That's how often someone sees your books.
The more impressions it gets,
the better And impressions could come from the organic search ranking or
again from external sites.
So you can see how this is all now working together.
Then we've got the click through rate.
This is how often someone clicks on your book when it appears in front of the
customer, I've read,
and this correlates with figures from my ad campaigns that a click through rate
of around 1 to 1.5% is considered very good.
So if your books get more clicks,
the more Amazon will push it up the search rankings.
Then there's seller authority. And I find this quite interesting.
This is how much authority Amazon gives you as a seller.
And this is determined principally by how long you've been selling on Amazon,
how many sales you've made and how many reviews you've received as a seller.
Having fewer products and making good sales would actually give you a better
seller authority than having lots and lots of products and only making a few
sales. It's that quantity over quality thing again.
My experience of seller authority is that I've been selling books since the
middle of 2018.
And I've noticed a gradual increase in sales,
even over periods of time, like last year,
when I didn't actually create that many new books. It puzzled me for a time.
I wondered why I was getting these increased sales.
But when I learned about seller authority, it seemed to explain it perfectly.
And I guess sales and reviews from one book would increase your
authority, which would then help other books you have listed.
Again,
that may be a reason why I found it easier to rank books as time has gone by.
So, so really persistence here is key.
Now lastly,
part of this new algorithm is Amazon cranking down on fake reviews
and fake profiles created to place these fake reviews.
So if you're involved in that,
then here's a heads up and be prepared to get your account banned.
Okay. So the important thing is,
how can we put this information to work for us to gain an advantage
over our competitors? Well,
I've broken it down into seven key things you should consider when
publishing your books. Write these down,
pin them on the wall and refer to them when creating your new books.
Hey guys, before we get onto the seven actionable steps,
I'd just like to ask you all a big favor. Now,
if you're looking to make a change in your life, this could be to move house,
to move country, to change job ,change career,
or start a business,
or just general motivation to move forward with something in your life.
Then my son, Rory Marles,
who some of you might know from his YouTube channel on KDP publishing has
recently published a very interesting and very useful film
around this.
And it would do me a great favor if you went along there and watched it,
because I think a lot of you would get some value out of it.
I'll leave the link below in the description. If you do thank you very much.
I'll let you get on with the video. Okay. So here we go. Number one,
keyword optimization of your books.
That's putting the relevant keywords in your titles, subtitles,
and seven keyword boxes to give your books the best chance of ranking in the
organic search results. So you can get those better quality sales.
I've done a video already on this exact process,
so I won't waste your time with it again,
but I'll leave a link to it in the description below. Number two,
cover design,
good cover design will affect and help the click through rate.
And remember covers need to look good and be readable when shrunk
down to the thumbnail size on cell phones.
Number three,
give yourself the best chance of getting a good review.
You've got no control over the quality of the paper or book material,
so work on what you can control.
And that is the cover design and interior design.
Nicely set out aligned and no spelling mistakes.
Number four, description.
Make sure your main keywords and any secondary keywords are in the
description. And I don't mean keyword stuffing.
This will help ranking on Google and getting those sales from external
sites. Number five,
create quality over quantity to build and maintain that seller
authority. Having one good book,
making five sales a day will give you more authority over someone with say,
I don't know, a hundred books also selling five a day.
Number six, offsite traffic.
This is one of the biggest changes in the A10 algorithm.
So consider getting traffic from external sites.
Now this could mean getting your books on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest,
building a website, or, or even running a Facebook ads campaign.
That's just a few examples and I'm sure there's many,
many more you could actually think of. And finally, number seven,
be patient.
How long you've been selling on Amazon will help build your seller authority.
So it's going to favor those who are in this game for the long term and who
wants to build a proper business,
which is essentially what Amazon wants in order to give the best customer
experience. Remember,
all these point to producing the best products you can to make the most
customers happy. Not uploading junk, or copying other book designs.
All those of you that are copying mine, you know who you are.
Now as I've mentioned,
keywords are a big part of getting this organic ranking.
So if you want to know how I use keywords to get my books ranked at number one,
then watch this video next. Thank you very much for your time.
It's very much appreciated and don't forget to click the subscribe button.
So until next time, goodbye.