Mobile-first approach has increased in importance across the whole of the online space over the past few years, Amazon marketplace included.
Google even switched to Mobile-first indexing, which means Google predominantly uses the mobile version of the content for indexing and ranking, highlighting the importance of optimising for mobile users on Amazon too.
Studies have shown that 80% of shoppers are using a mobile phone to browse products, so if you don’t have a mobile-first strategy, you are probably losing out on sales.
Below we share the best practices for mobile optimisation of Amazon listings.
Simple & to the point product title
Amazon has a character limit of 150-200 characters for product titles, depending on the category. However, and especially for mobile, Amazon recommends a maximum length of 80 characters, so the title is displayed in full-length on a smartphone.
This means you need to put the only most pertinent information in the title but make it engaging enough to motivate that shopper to click on your product. A good rule of thumb is to follow a title layout similar to this: brand name + product type + key feature or benefit – variant (size/quantity / pack size/colour).
Clear and concise product description
On a mobile, the description appears before the bullets, usually shown as a single paragraph and only 200 characters are shown before more text can be revealed by clicking on the “Show More” or “See More” buttons, it is recommended then that the most important details are within these 200 characters.
It’s critical that you understand who your target audience is and what they are looking for in a product to increase the likelihood of a conversion, for example, you could use this space to solve a question buyers often ask in the Q&A of other listings to pre-empt any blockers there may be to a conversion.
Make sentences short and easy to read on a small screen, long sentences are more difficult to follow when reading them on the phone so make each individual point a sentence, rather than wasting characters on conjunctions and commas.
Make your bullet points count
You only get three bullet points displayed as standard on mobile, meaning you need to prioritise the most important benefits first. To decide this, it is imperative that you conduct some research into your target consumer and your competitors. As with the description, look at the Q&A of similar products being sold and see if a certain feature is asked about a lot or check to see if past purchasers have mentioned anything in particular within the reviews of the product. Pick out three engaging facts about the product and make these your bullets.
Keep bullets concise, though. Even though you only have three you should be sure to keep them short as otherwise, you lose the benefit of having bullet points altogether.
Have a good mobile-friendly hero image
Lastly, make sure you have a good mobile-friendly main product image is vital for conversions on mobile. Generally, shoppers are looking for what specific product it is, how much of the product there is and what the variations look like. Good images can help mobile shoppers quickly identify a product that suits them, the primary image should do its best to accurately portray these things.
It must evidently show the brand, type of product and item variant as well as any extra information that might specify the exact product being sold in a quality that allows for easy viewing on mobile and can be zoomed in without losing quality.
When viewed at 16mm size on mobile and held at arm’s length away a consumer with no vision impairment should be able to determine all key elements from the image.
As a more general rule, your product should be, taking up 80% or more of the image size, the product should be shown out of its packaging and at a clear angle. Other visual information such as scale and additional box contents can be shown in subsequent images.
It is also recommended, where possible, that you use portrait shots for your images. Smartphones have a portrait orientation by default, it will also help fill up the white space much more effectively compared to landscape shots.