Amazon Product Titles - Best Practice?

Selling on Amazon Listings and Variations
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The NSFE Handmade Group mods posted a “Top 5 Tips to Improve Titles (NSFE)”

Supposedly we should start ALL of our titles with Brand + Handmade which for me uses 20 of the 60 suggested characters.

My thoughts on this

How could this possibly be the “best practice”?

Let’s look at item #1 with relation to item #2:

  • Adding Handmade as the second word uses 8 of the 60 characters (13%).
  • I’m “lucky” to have a relatively “short” brand name that “only” uses 10 characters (16%)
  • I’d be using 29% of the characters available (33% at 20 if spaces count) , to say the SAME THING, at the FRONT MOST IMPORTANT PART, for EVERY item I make. That leaves only 40 characters to cover the product and the rest.
  • An example: JoeBcrafts Handmade Stove Top Cover is 36 characters. If I add the “special feature” of Personalized Carving the title is now up to 57.
  • Following #2 one can’t even get all of #1 covered let alone even think about trying to do #3 and #5 too.

It doesn’t make any sense to me for Brand + Handmade to be included in the Title. There is too little real estate and seemingly more important things like the Product + Special Features + Hook (Unique) to include in that small space.

In my opinion Brand and Handmade should only be a part of the way Amazon displays the listing.

I need a “compelling” WHY it is so good to use the exact same first 20 characters (more or less for other Brands) for EVERY product that I create to sell on Amazon. Amazon has all the data on what is clicked and purchased, so why don’t you (Amazon) tell us what you’ve “learned”? I’m not changing my products titles just to “test” your “theory”.

What are your thoughts on this “best practice”?

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I think these are safe to say but key word stuffing without keyword stuffing is important. So in other words that precise template

brand + handmade (if handmade) + product (main keyword (kw)) + secondary kw + features + variation type (color, quantity, etc)

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I’ve added my brand in the title to my listings after seeing numerous suggestions to include it and even without “handmade” most all are over 60. I agree it does not make sense when any advantage can be facilitated on the back end. I have not noticed any benefit to putting my unknown brand name in the title so far so who knows??

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We did see some traffic boost after we moved to a title like Tried_Tested suggests. (We’re not handmade). I don’t like how they look, though, and I’m hoping to refine the listings to look less keyword stuffed.

One interesting note, we have a Jungle Scout account, and they suggest a title between 160 and 200 characters in their listing builder. In fact, they rate your listing lower for anything under 160. Not saying theirs is right or wrong…I just always find it so interesting that guidance is so all over the place for Amz. It feels like you just throw something at the wall, if it sticks, keep it…otherwise throw something else.

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I saw this too and I’m slightly hesitant. I don’t exactly know how amazons search works but I know Etsy says priority is keywords placed at the front of the title. I think everything at the front helps for google as well.

Now I don’t know about my brand name because I don’t think people are searching for my brand name. I’m just a tiny little handmade person. Obviously if your a big company it probably makes sense to put your brand name. Though I wonder if it interferes with your google seo if you are trying to rank high in google for your brand name probably don’t need to be competing with amazon. I don’t know a lot about seo anymore.

I have been putting handmade in my titles just not in the front because while amazons old keyword tool they discontinued did show me people were searching for handmade. I just prefer to try and rank higher for things I know people are searching for.

So for me typically it will be like “boho nursery decor rainbow light switch cover handmade home decor”

I do worry about having decor in there twice but it just looks more readable.

But I don’t think anyone should listen to me because I can’t figure out seo no matter what I do. I so rarely ever rank for “light switch cover” on Etsy. My listings rarely if ever show up. Though history has showed me that people don’t really search for light switch covers anyway so I try not to worry about it. I try to focus on things like boho nursery decor or nautical home decor because those are things people actually are searching for of course the more people sell for something the harder it is to compete.

So I don’t know yet if I should do what Amazon says or just keep on trucking with what I am doing. Waiting for everyone’s opinions before I make a decision.

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Helium 10 is similar. Oddly enough, Helium for Walmart suggests a much lower character count than they do for Amazon.

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Exactly this. Except you don’t throw random shyte at the wall hoping it sticks - it’s still within the confines of search and replicating search on amazon. Everything must be split tested. Everything.

Brand Analytics> H10/JS - and still must be split tested.

For instance, you can have a high SFR kw but for some odd reason you don’t convert well enough to it than others and it would cost too much to assess whether you could out convert others. We tried for a kw for 60 days with an SFR in the 300k’s - highly converting but with a very high acos. And we had to drop the acos target on that one because it made no sense after that point.

Yet still, there is a very low SFR kw that we used to rank for 2 years ago and we haven’t tried since. That kw is in the 1000<2000 and we convert for it but its very expensive and we’re keeping it for at least 4 months.

And its all on capital, budgets, goals, forecast, and of course inventory…there are some other things to consider as well. Like cyclical budgets over a period and then reassessing and redoing it - feeding the flywheel - spin the wheel type shyte, but that’s for another time.

Anyone who says otherwise can suck a :eggplant:

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Correct BUT - Amazon routinely changes things without warning or notice which makes intelligently analyzing A/B tests nearly impossible. Just sayin… :wink:

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Yesir constant reassessments.

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Yes, I didn’t mean to imply just try any old shyte. We’re just constantly trying to improve. We also noticed a trend that Amz likes activity. So, if we see a slump it’s time to freshen things up again…tweak this, add that.

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Exactly the same as yours.

In the wake of the 2Aug18 Search Conformity Initiative, Amazon began more-strictly enforcing the Product Title requirement of placing the Brand first.

There was a good deal of hullabaloo in the OSFE, later that year & well into 2019, raised (mainly, but not entirely) from those who didn’t willingly comply - generally, it seemed @ the time, on the score of this or that Brand Name being so long that it alone consumed a good chunk of the available real estate - regarding a discovery that Amazon was serious about applying Search Suppression for non-compliance in that matter.

Beginning in the third business quarter of 2021, members of the Brand Registry 2.0 Program began reporting that Amazon, w/o fanfare or notice, had of its own volition begun removing Brand Names from the PDP Titles of certain Brand-Registered ASINs.

I strongly suspect that this was done in service of this or that tweaking of the ongoing PT (“Product Types and Attributes”) Initiative/Attribute Harmonization Initiative/Size Normalization Initiative (nomenclatures that are at their root the same thing, but used by different of Amazon’s internal entities), w/ perhaps a dash of the equally-ongoing Mobile Device-Optimization Initiative thrown in for good measure.

As our friend @QuestMark obliquely alludes upthread, the various well-siloed entities in Amazon’s administrative infrastructure - especially those ensconced at or near the top of the DPC (“Detail Page Control”) hierarchical pyramid, such as the ART (“Amazon Retail Team”), the BT (“Business Team”), the A(/A10 Algorithm Team, and the FBA Team - are often to be found @ cross-purposes.

It would not surprise me to learn that this is yet another example of the many ills inherent in the Silo Management Model of Bureaucratic Administration…

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This is why I assume that the 60 characters (the 160-200 seems more in-line with regular websites) isn’t a mis-type/print. “Everyone” (not me) is shopping via phones and shortening the titles would be of great benefit for that form factor. The Brand Name + Handmade format seems at odds with that end.

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Many numbers have been thrown around over the last 6 years with different numbers for different categories 60-80-100. Why can’t they just do like ebay and code it to limit the field/cell at whatever number they decide on. Instead they have to make EVERYTHING as confusion as the INFORM or Verification process.

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I go back to I ain’t got time for the $hit.

I remember working hard to fix all my titles and then to fix all the titles in my patterns so that they were the same until you got to the end of the title where I state the size.

Doily Boutique Table Runner or Dresser Scarf with Easter Lily Flowers embroidered on Bleached White Fabric Size 36 x 16 inches

They all follow a similar pattern

Doily Boutique Christmas Fireplace Mantel Scarf with Red Candles and Lace Bells Handmade Size 84 x 27 inches.

I do put handmade IF it’s not in the handmade category. I had those listed before Handmade was a thing.

I also happily complied in order to deter others from jumping on my listing because they figured out where to find the supplier and “sell one too”…

Now…well, I gotta sew in the morning.

I’m still stuck on getting variations done correctly. I keep wanting to get it started and then get something else to do.

And yes, I worked to get those down to the correct number of characters…and was angry because Mom named the company Doily Boutique which is too many characters when space is limited and then add handmade? well…moving along and going to bed.

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Generally speaking, the variance is rooted in differing fundamental assumptions arrived @ by the two company’s decision-makers early in their history.

eBay targeted having offers being found via this or that search engine’s results, with an acknowledgement that, beyond SEO efforts, it would have likely have little input as to influencing how the search engine’s administrators conducted their operations.

Amazon, with knowledge of the example of eBay’s experience(s) well in hand - there’s a reason why it so-avidly raided the latter’s corporate ranks (and those of the search engine providers), even if it had to go into debt to do so, early in this century - decided to tread a different path: a site-specific search engine optimized to use the Big Data-model pioneered by Google and certain other of the search engine providers to directly promote a statistically-significant likelihood of a sales transaction being completed - and thus was born the A9 Algorithm, which has always been more of a “sales engine” than a “search engine” as a result.

A great deal of time and treasure was expended upon statistical analyses of exactly how differing goods were being found, and sales transactions were being fruited; as a result, it was early-on noticed how disparate these vectors of approach - from purchaser to seller - tend to be; thus were born the original Browse Tree Guides & Category Style Guides, and the wide variance of this or that Formatting Standard between Browse Tree Nodes/Categories that were (and still are, in most cases) embodied in them.

The sheer genius of Amazon’s approach is well-demonstrated in its rapid rise to historically-unprecedented heights in the Retail Industry (and, for that matter, in the History of Commerce itself); all one need do is compare & contrast Mr. Bezos’ relatively-truncated path to becoming the world’s richest human to those plodded by any-given occupier of that pinnacle over the previous ½-millennia and more to realize that neither ‘sheer genius’ OR ‘historically-unprecedented’ are in any shape, form, or fashion merely a misnomer.

Nevertheless, it IS an empirical Truth that the more variables which are brought into play, in any given equation, the possible outcomes WILL, ineluctably, inevitably, & imponderably, increase exponentially - and with any increase of possibilities, the chance of unfavorable outcomes is bound to burgeon as well.

I would submit that Seattle’s panjandrums continue to struggle with exactly that Reality - hence the various disjointed attempts by the aforementioned Initiatives upthread - and that to this point, while they’ve admittedly strived fairly-mightily to wrangle the wild horses into the corral, most of the collateral damage is falling squarely on the shoulders of our Seller Community.

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OK, taking input from everyone:
I’ve gone ahead and changed 3 of my 5 items to the Brand Name + Handmade format. These are ones that don’t sell as often as the 2 primary ASINs and have much lower sales rank.

We’ll see what happens… or what doesn’t… or butterfly flaps its wings… :smile:

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That’s what I figure I might do as well when I get a chance. If it hasn’t sold no harm in renaming it to whatever it is amazon wants :joy:

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Ay, there lieth the rub:

What it wants in one New York Minute is subject to change in the next…

:wink:

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As ATS would remind us, there are additional rules for Jewelry, as per the Style guide. For example, we cannot say “pearl” without saying Cultured Freshwater Pearl. So that alone adds even more of a challenge.

Brand + Handmade is bad SEO, so I do whatever I feel like, and whatever I think someone would search for.

Even if your shops is “JoeB” and you make something with a short name, you can’t do 60 per their guide, and remember for size we can’t use " we have to spell out Inch.

JoeB Handmade Stove Cover Brown Stained Wood 24 Inch x 18 Inch

  • That looks choppy and doesn’t “sell” and it’s over 60 chars. You’d want other words in there for SEO too like Natural, Grain, better words for Brown, etc.
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Yep, I too spell out inch in the title.

I remember reading in an FBA rule that no symbols were allowed in the title if the item is FBA.

well, I wanted to do FBA, so back to the edit board.

I kinda give up now a days…