The last time you went looking online for a new product, maybe a new coat, or something for the house, did you start your quest on Google (GOOGL), or Amazon (AMZN)?
If you said Amazon, you’d be in good company. In fact over 44% of people who are looking to buy products start their search on Amazon.
That is 17,000,000 people a day – searching on Amazon. How do you show up?
But, if you ask most people what the #1 search engine is, they would say Google. Most people would consider Yahoo (YHOO) or Microsoft (MSFT) Bing is their biggest competitor for the global market share. But this couldn’t be any further from the truth.
Amazon, contrary to what most people think, is very close to replacing the Menlo Park tech giant as the next prevalent search hub. If you are wondering how this is possible, here is a quick primer.
#1. Amazon Dominates Product Search
Over the years, Amazon has managed to position itself as the number one online marketplace and has penetrated over 200 countries in terms of both capitalization and popularity.
BloomReach did a survey of 2,000 US consumers and found that 44 percent of consumers go directly to Amazon to start their searches. Only 34 percent us search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo, and only 21 percent start on the retailer site.
This means that for every person who comes to your website, two people are looking searching for your products on Amazon.
Many brands are realizing that Amazon is no longer just a retail channel. Most successful brands are considering Amazon a marketing channel and crafting their presence on Amazon to introduce new customers to their brand and solidify relationships with loyal customers.
#2. Search Personalization
Google ate Yahoo!’s lunch because of their complex search algorithms that provided searchers the very best results.
Amazon’s advanced algorithmic recommendation tools rival Google’s tools with a focus on bringing customers the very best product results.
In fact, today a massive 75 percent of consumers feel that no other online retailer can personalize shopping experiences better than Amazon. The closest competition is Walmart.com, with 9 percent and eBay with 8.
Retailers can respond in three ways:
A. Overwhelm. Many brands are looking at Amazon and the challenges of maintaining a high quality brand identity and consistent pricing across all channels and sticking their heads in the sand and hoping that Amazon will go away.
B. Engage. Successful brands are engaging with the Amazon system, really using it as a branding platform and making sure that their customers and perspective customers have a great experience of their brand across channels.
C. Innovate. Front runner brands are creating frictionless experiences for their customers across channels – realizing that their websites will probably never again be where most of their customers find new products, and finding new ways to innovate.
#3. Customer Loyalty and Amazon Prime
Amazon’s grip on customers starts with amazing selection of products and trustworthy reviews. Then they get their buyers hooked on Prime.
With 99% of all US Online Adult Shoppers admitting to being Amazon customers, and 52% of those being prime shoppers, that indicates that 52% of all online shoppers are part of the Prime program (Amazon does not release these numbers, so there is some educated guessing going on by researchers).
Many of our clients have told me stories about shoppers coming into their brick and mortar stores, checking out a product they were interested in and then, right in front of the salesperson, buying it cheaper on Amazon.
In fact I just read an article in USA Today that indicated that Amazon sells close to 30% of all U.S. retail goods online and it’s shares are growing.
Based on these numbers, it looks like Amazon will continue to take search market share away from traditional search engines.
The question is, which brands will grow with Amazon, and which will be lost in the shuffle?
#4. Content is King; Amazon is Ahead of the Pack
To improve your product’s visibility through Google as a brand strategist, you would have to put in a gargantuan amount of effort in developing relevant content related to your product.
And not just the relevant stuff, but also interesting and captivating content that will pull hordes of leads back to your site.
This obviously requires a lot of time and work but it is the only effective way of rising through Google’s cut-throat competitive SERPs ranks.
However, even though things are not any easier with Amazon, you have a chance to directly control your rank among major retailers on the platform. In other words, you have a better SEO conversion rate on Amazon than when relying only on Google.
Amazon provides tools and freedom to control your own content. Most brands either don’t know about these tools, or don’t use them. This gives a huge opportunity to those brands that do take advantage of Amazon’s branding and marketing tools.
The opportunity is to have consistent branding across all your platforms, and, since Amazon seems to be the wild, wild west of quality content, you have the opportunity to really stand out against the competition.
#5. Puts Out More Useful Data
Amazon, unlike Google, puts out more useful data that you might need to make crucial content decisions. That means you have access to all the DIY tools and data sources you need to come up with attractive product pages with all the right keywords. Couple this with strategic sponsored ads and you have one more bonus reason to watch this global retailer more closely.
The Bottom Line
The fact that Amazon is gradually positioning itself as Google’s new competitor is good news for all retailers and brand marketers looking to sell more on Amazon.
If you know all the right buttons to push, including jumping on Amazon’s SEO authority bandwagon, you can catapult your market dominance and sales within no time.
And before you know it, Google will also start rewarding your main product page with an improved ranking its SERP analysis. To anyone, this sounds like killing two birds with one stone.
Get started today.
