Wouldn't you love to increase the number of times your book is shown on Amazon?
To boost your bookβs rankings so it shows up sooner and more often in searches?
Most self-publishers know that the keywords you choose play an important role when it comes to showing up for certain searches.Β However, knowing what to do with keywords can get complicated.
Amazon presents us with seven boxes in which we can enter our desired target Kindle keywords. In each box, we can use up to 50 characters, which allows us to either put in a particular target phrase we want to rank for or fill up the box to include as many phrases as possible.
Some book marketing gurus argue that you should use up as many of the available characters as possible, while others believe you should only enter a target phrase.Β This conflicting advice has left lots of authors scratching their heads, wondering how to actually approach their Kindle keywords.
Well, in this article, Iβm going to use data we gained from experimentation to provide the most optimal way to fill in your seven Kindle keywords.
This will give you the best strategy going forward and answer some other questions we tackled through this experiment.Β By using this technique, you will not only increase how many times your book is shown, but also increase your bookβs rankings in Amazon for your target keywords.
- How to select the best keywords for your book
- How to fill in your keywords in KDP
- Mistakes that might be killing your keyword strategy
Below I will detail my data approach and the experiment we conducted to get the information, but if youβd like to just skip that and get straight to the part that talks about what the findings show and what you should do, then click here.
What are the 7 Kindle Keyword Boxes?
Before we dive into how to approach your keywords, letβs first look at what those 7 Kindle keyword boxes are (in case you're unfamiliar with them):
Each author is allowed to input their target keywords into 7 boxes. Each box allows for a maximum of 50 characters.
This has left authors wondering:
“Should I fill in all 50 characters per box, or should I only target one particular phrase regardless of whether I have filled in all 50 charactersΒ or not?”
In other words…
Is it better to be more targeted or more broad with your keywords?
Here at Kindlepreneur, we built out an experiment to find the answer to this question. I'll explain how that worked in just a moment.
Terminology For This Article
Before we go further, it might be useful to first define some of the terminology I will use throughout this article:
Keyword boxes: These are the seven Kindle keyword boxes where you get to choose the keywords you want your book to show up for.
You can find these seven boxes in your Kindle Direct Publishing account when you are either editing an existing book or uploading and publishing a new book.
Amazon Search Result Page: When someone types in a phrase into Amazon's search box, Amazon then presents them with a list of products.Β These are called the Amazon Search Results. If your book shows up on this page immediately, then we say that it is listed on the first page of search results.
If, however, you need to click to see the next set of results, then we call this the second page of search results, and so on.Β Google SEO'ers will shorten/abbreviate this phrase and call it the “SERPs” for Search Engine Results Page, and I've seen some book marketers use this phrase as well when talking about Amazon.
When I personally have a high-level conversation with a publishing company or another marketer, I call them SERPs too.
Indexing for a Keyword: For the purposes of book marketing, indexing for a keyword is when you convince Amazon to list your book for that keyword phrase. It doesn't necessarily mean you show up on the first page of the Amazon search results, it just means Amazon acknowledges your book should be listed for that search phrase and you will therefore show up somewhere in the search results for that keyword.
If Amazon has listed 11,041 books for that search result, and you are now ‘indexed' for that keyword, then there will be 11,042 books listed in total for that search result.
Ranking for a Keyword: In a previous definition, we discussed that Amazon Search Results is a listing of products shown after a customer does a search. The rankings for that phrase or keyword the customer typed in is the number at which the product shows up.
So, say for example someone types in “War Mage” and your book is the 7th book shown on the search results, then you have a ranking of 7 for that keyword phrase. If you rank #100 however, that means the shopper would need to go through many search results pages in order to see your book as the 100th book listed for that keyword.
Rankings are very important because, as you can see from the below graph, the book that ranks #1 for a keyword gets the most clicks by a huge margin.
The Experiment with Kindle Keywords
To do this experiment, I needed two things:
- Volunteers willing to submit their current keywords and be willing to change their keywords
- To build a specialized crawler to find keywords and whether books are indexed for it and where they rank
For the volunteers, I emailed the Kindlepreneur email list and got an AMAZING response. In the end I choose 120 books with 82 being fiction and 38 being nonfiction. Each author submitted the current keywords they have listed in the 7 boxes. We marked whether or not the author had used the strategy of filling in as many of the characters as possible or was specific with their keyword phrase choices β or some combination of the two.
I then utilized a special crawler that the Publisher Rocket development team created just for this experiment.
The crawler was designed to rapidly go through thousands of genre and topic specific keywords, Amazon suggested keywords, keywords in their title and subtitle, and the listed keywords that fit our 120 volunteer books. Then it would index whether or not it found any of the volunteer books and at what rank (up to 300 since that is a far as we could financially go).
We then ran the crawler for days to ensure that over 100,000+ keyword possibilities were checked.
Once we had our data, we then had the volunteers change their data depending on whether or not they used the full box strategy or the specific strategy. Afterwards, we ran the crawler again and marked the changes in results.Β We even went further to check if there was a decay of rankings or not over time.
For the Statistician Friends Out There: I know, I know…120 books is not perfect for generating statistical proof and the standard deviation and sample size are not ideal.Β However, I'd request that you keep in mind the results were pretty sound to allow for such conclusions, and it was all we could afford to run considering this was a very expensive experiment.
I'll go over 6 of our findings below, but first, let's talk about what you can actually DO to get your 7 Kindle Keywords…
So, Here is What Authors Should Do
Itβs apparent that when you have more keyword phrases in the box, you rank for more things, but you also have a lower rank for those phrases.
Step 1: Find 1-3 Keyword Specific Phrases
These 1-3 keyword phrases need to be:
Very relevant to your book: Think of them as the perfect descriptive phrase your target reader would type into Amazon when searching for your book.
Examples: How to lose weight fast, Gaslamp supernatural romance, Evernote for authors, military scifi space marines. They read like real terms, and truly fit your book.
Have shoppers looking for them: Since weβll be burning a couple of our seven boxes for these phrases, they NEED to actually have people searching for them. This is where Publisher Rocketβs Amazon Searches Per Month number is SUPER important. Donβt waste your boxes on something that has no shoppers searching for it.
Not overly competitive: On Publisher Rocket, the competition score is a number from 1-100 which tells you how hard it would be to rank for that keyword. In essence, if youβre using one keyword box for that term or phrase, you might want to ensure you can actually rank for it and thus benefit from it.
If you find 1-3 phrases that exude these three characteristics, then I'd absolutely recommend using a specific box for each.
Step 2: Find 1-2 to Target Specific Categories
A newer strategy we've implemented, based on changes Amazon has made to the category selection process, is to use at least 1-2 of your 7 keywords to target or reinforce your choice of categories.
Here's what that looks like:
First, you can search or scroll through Publisher Rocket's list of categories. From there, you will see a button on the far right that says “keywords”.
Note: This feature is ONLY available in Publisher Rocket. Amazon does not make this information public.
Next, Rocket will give you a list of words that describe that category. Find a handful that you can use, or even combine, to place as 1-2 of your 7 keywords.
They can even serve as great inspiration for other keywords that you'll want to use in steps 1 or 3!
You may have already selected your categories already, but since Amazon now only lets you select three categories, it's important to use Keywords as a way to fortify those category selections, and possibly even get Amazon to place you in more categories.
You see, Amazon reserves the right to place you in as many categories as they see fit. Just because you selected three doesn't mean you will get to keep those three. And Amazon could also even include your book in more than three.
So, to maximize the number of categories you could rank for, as well as to ensure Amazon doesn't take your book out of any categories, I would use at least two of your seven keyword slots to use category-specific keywords.
Step 3: For the Rest, Fill in With Niche Specific Terms and Phrases
I believe that for the rest of your boxes, it would be best to fill in as many of the 50 characters as possible with words or phrases that fit your type of book.
These would be broad terms that fit your niche or genre but arenβt as important because the chances that someone would type them into Amazon and youβd be the exact type of book they are looking for would be small.
Here are some things to help you figure out how to generate those words.
For Fiction create a list of words that Describe:
- Your character or their role
- The Setting and Time of the story
- The Catalyst that kickstarts your story
- Your genre or the flavor of your genre (steamy romance vs wholesome love vs erotica, etc)
- Synonyms of the above
For Nonfiction create a list of words that Describe:
- The pain points of your target reader
- The success your reader hopes to gain from your book
- The type of reader or their demographic
- Descriptive words
- Synonyms of the above
If you follow these steps for each, you should not have a problem at all coming up with multiple 50 character boxes and should help to increase your book's indexing on Amazon.
6 Questions Answered By the Experiment
Here are some of the questions we were able to answer thanks to the experiment results:
1. Does Filling In All 50 Characters Index Your Book For More Keywords?
Based on our findings, the answer is clearly yes.Β We found that the more words or phrases you entered in the Kindle box, so as to fill in as much of the 50 characters as possible, the more your book was indexed for.Β Which leads us to our next observation…
2. Does Amazon Rearrange the Words and Index for them or just use the exact phrase you type in?
It turns out that Amazon does use all variations of the words you enter as you can see from the diagram above.Β Therefore, if you typed in “Dragon War Mage” into one of the 7 keyword boxes, you would also be indexed for War Dragon Mage, Mage Dragon, War Mage, Mage, and all other versions of the phrase.Β This is a major reason why our graph above shows an almost exponential increase in words indexed as you move to the right.
This makes a lot of sense since Amazon specifically tells people to not put quotation marks around your phrase, or else you will only show up for that exact phrase and nothing else.Β In boolean search criteria, if you ever want to only be shown an exact phrase, put quotations around it.Β You can do this on Google the next time you only want to see results based on exactly what you type, and no subsets of it. Looks like Amazon's search engine (and thus their indexing) works the same way.
However, it is important to note that Amazon only indexed the books for terms they deemed legitimate β terms that would actually produce results if you typed into Amazon.Β So, if one of the combinations of the phrase is something that Amazon doesn't acknowledge or show books for, they won't start ranking you for it either just because you had it listed.Β Apparently they are smarter than that.
Also of important note, Amazon includes pluralizations of the word automatically and so we found that you also indexed for the pluralizations of most of the phrases as well.
3. If I have the Same Keyword More than Once, Does that Help or Hurt?
Amazon makes it clear that you should avoid reusing the same keyword that shows up elsewhere in your book's metadata (title, contributor, etc).Β If you were to click the link above your 7 kindle boxes that says “how do I choose keywords” (see above image of the keyword boxes to find the link), you'll see this popup:
So, does it hurt us if we do repeat words? Will this be something Amazon penalizes us for?
The answer to both is no.Β From our findings, authors did not get penalized for reusing a keyword that is in the title, subtitle or elsewhere.Β They also didn't get penalized if they had the same keyword in different boxes. But we also found that it didn't help either.Β Having the same keyword in the title and in different boxes didn't mean you got better rankings.
BUT, I wouldn't avoid using the same keyword in another box if it fits in a specific phrase you have.Β Say for example you have two phrases that you want to target for your book. Thanks to your research using Publisher Rocket, you know there are specific Amazon searches per month for both and low competition.Β One is War Mage, and the other is Fantasy Mage.Β I wouldn't remove the word “Mage” from one of them just because you used it already in your title or in another keyword box. In the next question, you'll find out why.
4. Does Targeting a Specific Phrase Help With Rankings?
Amazon specifically says that the degree of text match plays a major part in rankings. This is our first indication that the more specific you are in the 7 keyword boxes, the more likely you are to rank for those target phrases.
Our experiment also showed the same.Β We found that the more specific you were for a particular keyword phrase in the keyword box, the higher you'd initially rank for that phrase in Amazon search results on average.Β So, while Amazon does rearrange the words and index them for you, the way you put them into the box has a stronger affect than a random combination of them.
In the graph above, you can see a 300 dashed line. That's because in our experiment, our special crawler would only check the rankings up to #300. It was a very costly process and to go above that number would have cost us a LOT more time and money.Β Sorry for the limitation, but looking at the data, I think we have enough to make a more solid decision here.
5. Is it Better to Put My Keyword in the Title and Subtitle, or the Keyword Box?
The short answer is yes, it is better to put your keyword in the title or subtitle.Β We saw an increase of 37% in rankings when someone had the phrase in the title or subtitle, compared to if it was just one of the phrases in a keyword box. This makes sense considering what is in the title or subtitle is a better indication of what the book focuses on.Β However, this is NOT a recommendation to keyword stuff. It only shows that those two spots have a larger effect on rankings than your 7 keyword boxes.
6. One Last Thing: Two Anomalies that I Think Tell Us Something
We had two anomalies that I think require bringing up.Β Both could tell us something, however, I caution making it a fact since both only happened once and do not constitute a statistical proof.
The first is that, while all the other books indexed for most combinations of their keywords in the 7 boxes, one particular book did not.Β My guess on why is that when I looked at the individual keywords, they were…how should I put this…extremely (and I mean extremely) risquΓ©.Β I have a feeling that Amazon just didn't allow for such words to have results and this caused such phrases to not index.
The second book also didn't index for ANY of its target keywords.Β However, when I looked at the specific book, and the keywords listed, it was obvious that these keywords were not the right keywords for the book.Β When I contacted the author, they realized they entered the wrong phrase into Amazon because they were uploading a bunch of books and copied the wrong phrase for the wrong book….whoops.
But I think this is a VERY valuable lesson: Amazon knew from the other information about the book (metadata) that those keywords did NOT belong to that book and therefore didn't index that book for those terms.Β I believe this means Amazon doesn't just blindly take what you enter here, and list you. Instead, it looks at everything else and, based on that data, decides if you really are a book that should show up for these things.Β I'd like to experiment with this is the future to have more statistical proof, but I think it's a fair assumption based on logic and results from this one particular case.
So, what should authors do about this considering that more words do get your book indexed more, but more specific phrases get better rankings?
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Conclusion
As you can see, the more words you put into the boxes, the more you will index for on Amazon. But, at the same time, youβll weaken your overall rankings for those terms since their power will be diluted.
Through this experiment, we now see that authors should use a combination of the two tactics where they target specific words or phrases that best fit their book, but also reserve certain keyword boxes for including the other terms and phrases not included. This will give you the most optimal rankings and indexing so you can get your book found by readers.
Of Important Note: The crawler I discussed in the experiment was something I was hoping to employ for Rocket users, where we could help authors see how many words and phrases they index for and what their rankings are. However, even after months of madness, I could never get the operations to be cheap enough to make it a viable option. Sorry guys…we tried and will keep trying. As Rocket users are accustomed to, I'm always working to add to Rocket and make it better and better…but sometimes we have test flights that just don't make the light of day.
Cheers,
Thanks a lot Dave.
I just want to ask if I can say that? You are wonderful, you are selfless. May you be blessed for always, for your generosity. I have been doing the wrong thing over and over, with over fifty books and crying for it. Not able to sell 20 dollars from all.
I hope I’ll be better now.
It’s like I’m yet to see another open-minded person everywhere I’ve ever been. Thanks again for this article.
Awesome and glad to have helped! Best of luck!
Hi Dave, question on choosing findable titles for new non-fiction authors /
When giving a book a title, is it better to use a main title with good stats on Rocket and follow it up with another title the way this author did below:
“You Are a Badass Every Day: How to Keep Your Motivation Strong, Your Vibe High, and Your Quest for Transformation Unstoppable”
Or is it better to keep a title to a minimum of a few words searchable based on what people are searching for in google? I’m taking a course and we are using Rocket to determine our titles, however, they are saying to keep it short. I am thinking I should find as many key words people are searching for in my title so it’s findable? I appreciate any thoughts.
Honestly, both and either. What I mean by that is, if you have a creative fun title, and it doesn’t incorporate the use of data driven words, then DEFINITELY use the data driven words in the subtitle. But if you don’t, then use that data to help you formulate something.
Does Amazon (KDP) still publish books or do you have to use an outside vendor?
Yes they do – and it’s the recommended way.
Hi Dave, just picked up Publisher Rocket and test driving it now.
A question about keywords.
Does Amazon break a string of keywords into its parts?
So will “better husband communication skills” potentially rank for “better husband”, “communication skills”, and “husband communication skills?”
Yes they do – so that phrase will break into the other phrases as well.
If I enter keywords in one of the 7 fields which is something like
“coloring book for kids boy girl men women teens” β’ does this mean
that my book could show up in search results if someone search for a
“coloring book for kids”, as well as a “coloring book for girl”, as well as
a “coloring book for teens” etc…? Or i use per box as a “coloring book for kids”, as well as a “coloring book for girl”, as well as
a “coloring book for teens” etc “Please Give some correct example how i
use the 7 boxes keywords.
Yes, it will show up somewhere in the search for those phrases.
Hey Dave, I have created a daily journal on gratitude and positivity. I did some research on Publisher Rocket (which is a godsend, btw!) and came up with a bunch of relevant keywords. The title of the book has a few relevant keywords and sounds natural and coherent, so I know that there’s nothing keyword stuff-y about it.
I was wondering if it’s a good idea to also include ‘A 66-day positive thinking journal and diary’ as the subtitle or would that be key-word stuffing?
I could, of course, include ‘positive thinking journal’ and ‘positivity diary’ in the keyword fields. But from what I understand, the phrases work better when used in the title.
Would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks!
You’re right in that the title and subtitle are more powerful. If it doesn’t detract from the title, then you’re good to go
Much obliged for this inordinately useful study and post, Dave — and for the raft of other invaluable content that you provide.
I am based in London, so Amazon UK will be the main market for my upcoming debut novel. My keywords for the US market I have nailed down, thanks to Rocket. You do not yet have functionality for Amazon UK.
This leads me to a two-fold question:
1. To what extent do you think US Amazon keywords map across to Amazon UK, in terms of searcher per month and competitiveness?
2. Should I include alternate spellings of words in the same keyword boxes, to reflect searches is US and UK Amazon. (EG: first person dark humor humour novels)
1. Extremely well – unless it is a term that obviously wouldn’t jive here like ‘cricket’, etc.
2. You can or put it in a different box. I think that would be better.
Dave, I have a question about this situation too.
Are the keywords inserted in different boxes indexed by Amazon also as phrases? Here is an example:
the key βketogenicβ in box 1 and the key βdietβ in box 2, Amazon will also index the phrase βketogenic dietβ?
Thank you very much.
I don’t know. I didn’t test for that so I can’t say.
Hi Dave, Iβve got Publisher Rocket since March and itβs fantastic.
Regarding the keywords to insert in the KDP boxes, if I have, for example, a key as βgardeningβ, should I also insert its related βgardenβ?
Thank you very much.
I forgot to add “gardener”
You can, to push that specific keyword, but our research found that Amazon generally uses the different forms of a word as well.
I am new KDP Rocket user. for example “Unicorn Coloring Book” and “Unicorn Coloring book for Kids” if i put these 2 keywords in two boxes. Will “unicorn coloring book” count as repetitive words?
Thanks in advance.
Technically, yes. But if the data shows that you really should target that, and you don’t have others out there that you really want to target (the numbers rocket shows, are soooo important – imagine trying to figure this out without it), then use two boxes for those statements. If not, then use Unicorn Coloring book for kids as one.
A related question: When publishing an ebook as well as a paperback, should you use the same keywords or split them up between versions?
Honestly, I didn’t study this tactic, so I can’t say. I’ll be the first to tell you when I don’t know the answer.
I’ve found when using Publisher Rocket, that a keyword can show a lot of searches for say ebook, but <100 for the paperback, and vice versa. So I put the keyword I'm interested in, in both ebook and book searches on Rocket, and depending on the result, I'll put it in the ebook 7 fields and the 7 fields for the book – as there are 7 for the ebook and 7 for the paperback, or only in the one there were lots of searches for. I hope this helps and is right Dave!
Thank you Dave for such a comprehensive analysis. Finally a scientific, evidence based study unlike the guesses of publishing “gurus”. All my questions were answered either by you or in the comments. One confirmation though, it is a simple one. Are the first 3 boxes counted as the first 3 boxes in the column of 4 boxes to the left, or does Amazon count left to right?
Awesome – yeah, that’s exactly why I built the experiment for that. So…many…ideas from people. Figured it was time to have data to backup a hypothesis. As for the boxes, I just meant 3 of the 7, not a specific 3.
Dave, thanks for all you do to help authors. Should I use different keywords for my ebook versus my print book, e.g., 14 unique keywords or should I use the same 7 for each?
I am wondering if I can get more leverage using different keywords for the two different versions?
Using Publisher Rocket, it’s interesting that for Kindle books I see a particular keyword ranks high, but for the same exact keyword for printed books, it doesn’t rank.
Hey Dave, thanks for the content, here and YT. Much appreciated.
If I had a dinosaur non-fiction book, would it be considered keyword stuffing if i had something like this for the word “dinosaur”?:
Box 1: dinosaur keeping
Box 2: dinosaur vaccinations
Box 3: baby dinosaur
Box 4: Dinosaur childrens book
Box 5: Dinosaur feeding
etc…
Thanks!
No, I personally don’t see it as such and from the experiment, I don’t see it hurting either.
Hi,
I want to ask you, can we put commas (,) in fields 7 to increase the number of words
No, we found that doesn’t help and in some cases actually hurt – plus amazon has a warning saying not to.
Excellent Article Dave just perfect π
Thanks!
Wow! This article explained EVERY question I had. Thank you very much.
I just published my book but when I search the title in Amazon, it doesnβt show. I need to search by my name to find the book. Should I change one of my keyword boxes to the title of my book?
I wouldn’t think so. Sometimes it just takes time for it to settle. The more sales you end up making will help too.
Great article, and thank you to put written version, my english isn’t so good to understand anything from video π
i bought rocket, great software
Awesome and glad you enjoyed it!
I have a question regarding the 10 categories and the 7 keyword boxes. Iβve emailed Amazon and had my books placed in 10 appropriate categories like horror > vampire (vampire is also in the title).
Do you suggest that I leave the words of the categories Iβm already in, like horror and vampire, out of the 7 boxes, that is if they donβt fit in any of the 3 perfect phrases?
I’d still keep them in the boxes only because like this article shows, Amazon will use the combination of the words to find things to index you for. I can’t say they do that with combining keywords and categories though.
Merci Dave
De rien!
Hi Dave,
Thanks for this. I’m on it now for a preorder and I see that Amazon guidelines say not to put programs like “Kindle Unlimited” as keywords. Is this a new rule that they’ve changed since you did this experiment and could it get my keywords rejected?
Thanks!
Ben
That’s correct. in the article there is a link to all the do’s and don’ts by amazon. One of which is you can’t use trademarked terms like Kindle, Amazon, etc.
Nothing is left to chance… big Dave!
Just one question: the comma.
Okay, in the sentences we choose, the comma is not necessary, but is it necessary for the fields in which we insert the individual kws? So in the field I’ll insert like: coloring, crayons, pastime, play, etc.?
No. And it’s best you not put in the comma or any other things like that – amazon even recommends that you don’t.
Hi Dave,Great stuff as usual. Two questions:1) If I can fit two phrases in one box, is that acceptable? For example Λgreat
travel books ‘ and Λpopular hiking adventures ‘. I realise there ‘s a character limit
but if they fit, would that work?2) Second, using individual words as keywords, I seem to remember that we
used to have to separate these with commas, is this still the case or can we
leave them out?Love your site!Thanks – Keith
1) Yes – so long as It is under 50 characters
2) No, never use quatations or commas – even Amazon says not to
Got it. Many thanks Dave.
Great article, Dave! I have a question. For the keyword phrases, in order to be recognised as a phrase and not single words should be used quotation marks?
Thanks. As for your question, no. You should never use those – Amazon even states somewhere (cannot remember where) not to. This is because in their coding, using quotation marks tells them that you only want to be shown for that exact phrase and nothing else. This will severely limit your indexing and thus your discoverability.
Never use quotation marks. Even Amazon warns of this – it will cause them to only use that exact word and nothing else.
Dave, this is one of the most valuable articles on Amazon publishing I’ve read in years, bravo!
I would also be interested in more info on keyword indexing split between keyword boxes as another commenter mentions but also if there are varying weights applied of importance to the order of the boxes. I’ve heard from somewhere that the first 3 keyword boxes are most important or are weighted more heavily by the almighty algorithm. Another interesting test, perhaps. Anyhow…thanks again, this is super helpful!
Thanks Dave – this is so helpful. Quick question – if you find something with a lower competitive score (under 60) what would you consider an acceptable number of monthly searches to go along with that?
Depends on how perfectly fitting that that keyword is for you. Remember, you get 7 boxes.
Thank you so much for sharing! I’ve always wondered how to use my 7 amazon keywords, and now I have scientific data for my strategy. Love your blog, and love the fact that you’d spend time and resources to put this together for indies. Hopping over to KDP Rocket now to plan π
Awesome and glad you liked it π
sometimes i can see a certain search volume in KDP rocket, let`s say 1000 searches, but if i go on amazon searchbar …..the kword doesn’t shows up, neither the autocomplete suggestion for the long tail….what does it mean ??
Rocket goes beyond what Amazon shows customers and does a bunch of different tasks to pull even more from them. We’re not sure why they choose to show some and not all or some over others.
…you r saying that not all keywords are displayed on amazon autocomplete search bar?
but you can be sure there are more keywords even they are not there? that would explaine why if i digit a certain kword not appearing on autocomplete, it will shows a number of results as competitors anyway
Correct – there are a LOT more than Amazon shows in Autocomplete.
allrighty …thank you so much π .bless
keep up the good work
….what the publishing world would be without you ? …thank you so much
Awe…thanks!
My question is how is the algo working? Can I use verbs instead of a noun. For example:
identify – identification
register – registry
observe – observationOr do I need to write the noun to get searched for ?
Thanks, Dave. Useful in the practice of author-entrepreneurship.
“The short answer is yes, it is better to put your keyword in the title or subtitle. We saw an increase of 37% in rankings when someone had the phrase in the title or subtitle, compared to if it was just one of the phrases in a keyword box”so shouldn’t we then put 3 best long tail keywords in the title and/or subtitle? and then another 3 in the boxes? and remaining boxes keyword stuffed?
Hi, the only thing that is missing for me is what do we put in the title and subtitle since we used best 3 keywords that are bringing best traffic and has lowest competition for the boxes. Can we put these 3 keywords in the title or subtitle and also description and 3 boxes or thats too much? Or we should just put 3 best keywords in the boxes and description? Or just in the 3 boxes. Thanks!
Great job Dave, I think for your next experiment you should ask us to make dotation
Haha…well, It is all good. Just happy to have put a final pin in it π
Great article and so well researched. Thanks for saving many of us loads of hours and failures π
No problem and glad to have helped!
Thank you Dave! You were true to your word about answering our emails. All the questions I had about keywords have been answered alone with re-booting my book. Thank you for allowing us to gain from your research and expense, a rarity in our world of greed and the “It is all about me” mentality. Your podcasts have been a serious learning curve for me, ouch, my head hurts. Thank you again.
Awesome and always glad to have helped!
Very helpful . Thanks very much. One point : whats this under non-fiction “The pain points of your target reader” Urrrrr …. Gain points, Main points?
Pain points is a sales copy term meaning that, think about what pains your nonfiction shopper that has now moved them to take action and find a book that will help them learn/solve/accomplish whatever it is that they seek.
Great help. I’ve been at a loss for four years (just published 4th novel). Can you “dilute” less by possibly using about half of those word/phrases? ha Or does that make no sense at all?
Nope…That is correct!
Dave, Thank you! Your work adds amazing tools to the indie author arsenal.
Awe, thanks Cathryn!
Thanks for this very insightful post. I have a question that I’ve seen contrary answers to and would love to know your take. Commas between keywords or phrases in the keyword box. Yea or nay?
ABSOLUTELY NO! Amazon even says do NOT use commas in between. The reason you might see conflicting information on that, is because the ones that say to use Commas are old content or people who are using old thoughts. About 2 years ago, Amazon used to only have 1 block to fill in, instead of 7 blocks. In that one block, they would tell people to write in seven keyword phrases, and separate them with a comma. Now, they specifically say to not put a comma in the blocks.
I have a question about the “Average Monthly Earnings” box. Is this amount for each competitor or for the entire category?
The Average Monthly Earnings is the average amount of money the top books that rank for that keyword are making.
Wow! Impressive. Thanks! You have solved a great mystery, Sherlock Chesson.
Awesome and glad to have helped!
Hi Dave, so we should use most relevant phrases in first 3 boxes and then keywords related to our book in rest of the 4 boxes. Now my question is in those first 3 boxes there will be lot of repetition. For example my book is on “keto diet for women” so if I search amazon then I find top 3 most relevant phrases would beketo diet for women
keto diet for women over 50
keto diet for women bookHere you can see all 3 top relevant phrases has similar 4 words that are keto diet for women. So what do you suggest then:A: Put these 3 phrases in first 3 boxes
B: By combining all 3 phrases we get this “keto diet for women over 50 book” . By putting these keywords in box 1 we are covering every single words from all the phrases.I personally prefer B as amazon suggests not to repeat but from your experiment you suggest to put relevant phrases in first few boxes so there must be Repetition OF MULTIPLE WORDS EVERY TIME.My English is not good but I hope I have made my points understandable. Thanks for your amazing experiment.
Use only one: Keto diet for women over 50Because you the exact phrase “Keto Diet for Women” in there. And adding book is a waste since Amazon knows its a book and I’m pretty sure they do not allow for book in the 7 keywords.
Thank you Dave! Super helpful as usual!
Awesome and glad to have helped π
Dave – Loyal Rocket user here… I had question, about combining terms, but I see it answered elsewhere in comments. Great job!
Oh, awesome! And glad you like Rocket. We’ve got some new features and additions coming soon (all of which will be free upgrades) π
Extraordinarily valuable information! Thanks for your always great posts, Dave!
Thanks and glad you liked it!
Dave,
This is super useful. Great idea to research this and thanks for the thorough review. This is really helpful and I’m plan to implement ASAP. I guess I need to buy Rocket now. π
No problem, glad to help. Sounds like a great plan!
Thanks and glad you liked it!
Thank you Dave! This was super helpful!
Awesome and glad you liked it!
RICH! Thanks Dave for this awesome experiment plus results!
Very good take-aways and eye-openers.
Thansk man!
Fantastic post, Dave! It makes me realize the level of importance those boxes really are and best strategies for maximizing on keywords. Will start implementing this approach myself and pass on the lessons in coaching. Thanks!
Awesome and glad you liked it.
Dave, thanks so much for this valuable information!
Absolutely and glad you liked it!
Exactly what is ‘too competitive’? And do I not use keywords because they are competitive even if they suit my novel?
That is up to you and your background. If you have a large email list or are a very popular writer, then that will be different than if this was your first book. But generally speaking, a competition score of 60 or less usually means it it targetable without too much extra effort needed.
Thanks.
Some of the best advice l’ve read for KDP.
Awesome !
Hmm, I find this enlightening…and disturbing. I’ve had plenty of experience in searches of my own where putting an exact phrase (in many different search engines, Amazon included ) in quotes–does NOTHING. Doesn’t give me the exact phrase I asked for, doesn’t refrain from using variations of a word (return “bell” when you said “bells”), doesn’t even refrain from substituting what it thinks are similar words (“bed” when you specifically said “gurney”).And that book that did not index because Amazon did not think they matched the book–That is scary. Sure, in this case Amazon was right, but what if it was wrong? How would you know? And what could yo do about it? (Again, speaking as someone gets 0% matches to her search criteria more often than anyone should, because the engine thinks It is “helping” by comparing it to what umpteen other people appeared to have wanted when they used those words.)
Thank you! Do you think this strategy will work for both ebooks and print books? Thanks for this and for Publisher Rocket. It is an awesome tool! Cheers!
Absolutely – tested for both in this one.
Thanks Dave, again you provide us with the best in real data and research.
Awe, thanks!
I’ve been waiting to see the results of your experiment. This is great information. Thank you so much for doing this!
Glad you liked it – it took a LOT of time and effort, but soooo worth it.
Excellent article full of concrete info I can apply to my book marketing. Thanks.
Thanks and glad you liked it!
Dave,Any idea how long it took to get indexed for new keywords and you saw a change in ranking? Was it days or weeks?How did you test and how can we test?
Usually about 24 hours
Thanks for this data. As a debut author, I can use all the insights available to ensure my books are going to be seen on Amazon.Acquiring Rocket is my next step!
Awesome!
TJ Logan, the software is definitely worthwhile on its own (I pinch pennies sometimes to a fault) & I consider Dave`s research & blogs as part of the entire package.
Another awesome insight into this amazing thrill ride of a hopeful career. Thanks, Dave. As always, your information is both useful and easy to digest. Will definitely re-tinker with the keywords and see where it leads.
Thanks awesome to hear and thank you!
Thanks Dave! This research is such a great service to the community. I want to make sure I understand the proper way to fill out all 50 characters. So let`s say I have these 4 phrases: realistic fiction, contemporary fiction, literary fiction, modern fiction. I could combine them into one 46-character long string (realistic contemporary literary modern fiction), put it into a single blank, and to Amazon, I’m indexed for every combination of those 5 words? Do I have that right?
Yup – or so the data showed us would be the case.
Thanks again, Richard & Dave for explaining this. I look forward to putting this into practice, especially now that I have sales and reviews at my back…
Excellent! Thanks Dave.
Absolutely and glad you liked it.
Great stuff. One question: how does this impact “Categories with keyword requirements”? That is, if I stuff a bunch of keywords into my boxes and not just “family life,” can/will I still show up under “Literary Fiction Themes/Family Life”?
It doesn’t. There are some categories that require a keyword for Amazon to naturally decided to put you in that category. However, just by asking them to add you to a category (see my article on how to get added to 10 categories) they will do it automatically even if it is a category that requires a Keyword. Basically, if you follow my category addition process, you do not need to burn a keyword to get added to that category π
Thank you. As always, real usable information. Besides using Publisher Rocket for publishing keywords, I’ve also used it for AMS keywords, and then taken the most productive AMS keywords and used them as publishing keywords.One question which may be slightly off-subject here though, is about the clicks vs product ranking chart included above: If position 1 & 2 get 27% and 12% of clicks, are these positions actually the ADS that typically show above the search results? If so, maybe it would still be worthwhile to continue paying for my ads even if my book shows up again in the search results because the ads would be getting 39% of the clicks while the #1 “search” result would only get 9%! Curious because I’ve never seen this question addressed.
Nice and absolutely. As for your question, absolutely. I still advertise to the phrases I naturally rank #1 for anyway because of that exact point you bring up.
Dave, off topic, but are you ever going to add the ability to exclude on your AMS search? If I search for Scottish historical fiction series I come up with hundreds of romances and no I do not want them clicking because it is a waste of money. But it would take hours for me to go through and remove all of them.
Already did….about half a year ago. There is the filters and there is the exclude buttons to the left. Be sure to check out the tutorials to learn more about those.
Thanks. Good to know. I looked just before I posted that and must have missed them. I’ll check the tutorial.
Thanks, Dave. This is great to know… As Val said, something to add to the ever-increasing ‘to-do’ list!
haha…yup and glad you liked it.
So Dave, what you ‘re basically saying is to use 3 out of the 7 boxes to write specific set keyword phrases, such as Εchildren ‘s picture book if it is a highly searched term that isn ‘t too competitive. And then the other 4 boxes, just keyword stuff with other words that relate to your book, and don’t repeat any words used anywhere else?Thanks for this by the way – such an interesting article! Love Publisher Rocket and use it all the time!
In essence, yes. That seems to be the most optimal way to get the best bang on your keyword strategy π
thanks, Dave, i am now experimenting with one fiction and one non-fiction book to see what happens. the non-fiction had been #12 in its category, and today is at#19 so I am hoping it might wander back up the ratings a bit, and maybe fulfill a couple more
Thank you, Dave. Very informative. I think I ‘m pretty much doing everything this article suggests. One question I ‘ve never quite gotten an answer to though. When it comes to keywords which is more important overall, number of searches each month or competition? For example, if one keyword has 1000 searches and a comp rating of 80, but another has 250 searches and a comp rating of 55, which should I pick? It seems to happen often and I ‘m never sure. Thanks!
Number of searches per month – That is the power of whether or not a keyword actually helps. The competition score only indicates how much you need to do to get up there. If it is a perfect fitting keyword, and your book belongs in that result, then 80,50, whatever..I’ll take it and work to help increase its rankings for it.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. This was extremely helpful. Now to redo all the keywords for all our books….. Wow, thanks for the project, Dave! lol
Awesome and glad you liked it!
You know, I love you, right?
You did all the heavy lifting and delivered the results on a silver plate. Bless you, Dave.
Haha…thanks buddy. cannot wait to see you in Nashville soon π First round of coffee on me.
Tremendously helpful. Thank you for taking this on and for clearly delineating the results, Dave.
Thanks Noah π
Excellent information. Thank you for sharing.
Absolutely and glad you liked it.
Wow Dave, this is really helpful stuff! Thanks for providing it!!
Thanks Kevin π
Thank you Dave! This insight is so valuable for planning, or for updating keywords! Those 7 boxes were a total mystery, but now we have some sound data by which to make a few informed decisions. Bravo!
Thanks Jim and that really means a lot to hear. Glad to have helped!
Excellent article – thanks for putting up the $$ to run this experiment and for sharing the results. Much appreciated! I second the question below for “if ‘war’ was in box 1 and ‘dragon’ in box 2…” so count this as a vote toward that should you run another experiment:-)
Yeah, I wish I had thought of that during the experiment….next time for sure!
Great info! Thanks for all your hard work. I need to get back into using my rocket stuff. I suppose I need an update… π
Awesome and glad you liked it π
Thanks Dave, this is a huge help and clears up a lot of confusion.
Awesome and glad to have helped – you and me both. Wanted to definitively figure it out.
So in filling in the boxes, do I need to separate words/phrases with commas? Or do I have no punctuation at all?? Great article !!
Do not use any punctuation at all
What Cherise said. Also, Amazon even says do NOT put ” quotation marks or else you’ll make it that only if the person types in that EXACT phrase will it even index. So, no punctuation π
Thank you for the valuable and helpful information!
Thanks Kathy and glad you liked it.
Even though I was too late to have my keywords included, your insights give me excellent direction. I see that I inadvertently used many of your findings.Many thanks for actually conducting experiments. You beat any number of anecdotes, ideas, intuitions, and just plain guesses.
Thanks Cliff and glad you liked it. That was exactly my goal π
Very informative ARTICLE. it is so important to understand SEO And keywords to know the right way to deal with AMAZON KDP.
THUMPS UP
Awesome and glad you liked it. π
Wow and thank you! My take away question is based upon your findings that Amazon will use all possible combinations of your keywords in a box (fantasy war mage dragon). What if these words were spread between different boxes? In other words if “war” was in box 1 and “dragon” in box 2, would the book still rank for “dragon war” and any other combinations of those two words? Thank you and this is why I use Kindlepreneur!
Sadly, I totally did not think about that and thus did not test for it. Someone else brought that up on my team at the end of testing, and I was sooo bummed I hadn’t thought of that. However, that is something I’ll do later in a future test because that is a GREAT question.
While it wouldn ‘t be statistically helpful, this seems like something any of us could test/play around with.I have adopted the idea that keywords are bait and there are two kinds of fish you are attempting to catch.One fish is the searching potential customer. This isn ‘t a huge fish, but it is big enough for a dinner.The other fish is Amazon ‘s algorithm. This is a school of fish. If you can create enough keyword related sales to get Amazon to add its bait to your hook, then you can catch a year ‘s worth of dinner…or more.
Thank you for taking the time to put this together. Great article!
Thanks Keith and glad you liked it!
Thanks Dave. This is really useful. Something that came to mind when reading this was the impact the 2 categories have on the overall indexing and ranking. For example: Do they have a greater impact than the keywords? Could they determine how relevant the 7 keywords are (and be a reason Amazon may ignore some KWs. I appreciate you’ve probably not delved into this, but maybe something for the future?
I found a couple of points where Amazon specifically says it affects your indexing and from what I see, I think it definitely does. However, I do not think it directly affects rankings as much but more or less helps Amazon to ensure you ‘should’ show up for certain keywords – see the second part of #6 – I think that is where Cats come in to play more.
Great thanks. Something else to add to my to do lit next week!
Haha…and do not forget, you can get your book listed for 10 categories total π
Yes, I do that already, but I have only been using the specific phrases in the KW boxes, so I need to go back and see how I can use up the 50 characters / box without duplicating. Good job I’ve got Rocket!
Excellent article and very helpful data. Thanks, Dave.
Thanks and glad you liked it – and now on to a well deserved cup of coffee π
This is very good to know! Thanks for doing all the hard work.
Thanks and glad you liked it – I took me over a month of full time work to produce but glad to seal it with definitive guidance π
Brilliant, many thanks Dave.
Thanks and glad you liked it David!
This is so useful. Thank you so much for sharing.
Awesome and no problem!