SITRUNA GUIDES: Listing Optimisation: Titles, Images & Bullet Points

Your product title, product description, bullet points, primary image and six additional images are absolutely crucial for getting sales on Amazon.

While the Amazon platform is quite formulaic, and there are lots of requirements to meet, there is still plenty of space for being creative and persuasive. Here is our guide to making the best impression with your listing content.

Product Titles

Your product title is highly important because of how Amazon indexes search terms. It attracts the customer and impacts significantly on your ranking

‍The requirements are:

1. You should include your exact brand name.
2. You should include your exact product name.
3. You should include the variation specifics if relevant (colour, size etc.).
4. Titles shouldn't be longer than 200 characters.
5. Titles must not contain promotional phrases, such as "free shipping", "100% quality guaranteed".
6. Titles must not contain characters for decoration, such as ~ ! * $ ? _ ~ { } # < > * ; ^ ¬ ¦
7. Titles must contain product-identifying information, such as "hiking boots" or "umbrella".

We recommend:

1. Beginning with your brand name.
2. Separating phrases with punctuation, for legibility. Either | or , or - .
3. Including the most important descriptors and keywords for your product.
4. Try to avoid repeating words, as this wastes keyword possibilities.

BAD EXAMPLE: The Best Chocolate You'll Ever Taste 100% Top Seller

‍GOOD EXAMPLE: The Chocolate Factory: Truffle Variety Hamper | Luxury Liqueur-Filled Treats | Salted Caramel, Coconut & Lime | Alcohol Cocktail Flavours | Perfect for Adults, Birthdays, Gifts | 30 Truffles in Gift Box

Image Guidelines

Primary Product Image

Amazon requires you to have a white background photo as your primary image.Here are some of our recommendations for maximising this image:

1. 1.Fill the frame. Too much white on a primary image causes your listing to sink into the background on search results.
2. 2.Consider including packaging if it's attractive/a selling point.
3. 3.You can add a close up swatch photoshopped onto the image. This can be great for products with fabric/pattern/colour details that would help sell the product.
4. 4.If you have the same product available in different colours or materials, you can add a (non active) banner of swatch options, photoshopped onto the image.
5. 5.You must keep the focus on your product, and not include unnecessary props, but if you are selling, say, a phone screen protector, you can include the phone with the screen protector in the image.

On the technical side:

• Image size: Images should be at least 1000 pixels in either width or height. Amazon recommends 2560 pixels wide.
• Image frame: The product should fill 85% of the frame.
• Background color: ALL product photos should have a pure white background.
• File format: You can upload JPEG, PNG, GIF or TIFF files.
• Colour mode: Both sRGB and CMYK are accepted.

Listing Images

Of your six supplementary listing images, we recommend a mix of white background product shots, highlighting technical features, and lifestyle photography, showing the product in context. The crucial thing is to have high quality imagery, and to use the full capacity of your listing image space.

White Background Product Photography

1. Make sure you show the product from different angles.
2. Show close ups of appealing features.
3. Include a photo of the product in packaging, if it is nicely presented/a gift product.
4. Consider including infographic information photoshopped onto an image - this can be a great way to show dimensions or explain functionality details.

Lifestyle Photography

Nothing sells a product better than some well-taken photos of the product in the right context. We recommend using as much lifestyle imagery on your listing as possible, once you've covered showing the technical specifications in white background shots. For planning your lifestyle shots, it can help to consider the following points:

1. Think about where your product would be used. Customers often like to see the product in the intended user context. Show a car air freshener hanging from a wing mirror, for example.
2. Think about where your product would look best. Design products, and those bought for fun, are often best advertised in less utilitarian settings. There is absolutely room to be creative and imaginative in your lifestyle images.
3. Think about who would use your product. Product images including people can be great, if well-taken. But make sure that any models will seem relatable or aspirational to your target market.
4. Include general brand shots if applicable. Not every image has to focus on just this product. If several of your products are best bought together, show them set up as such. You can even include an image or two where your product is less of the focus than the general brand impression and atmosphere in which people would use your product.

Bullet Points

Your product bullet points are your opportunity to tell a potential customer about your product - but Amazon is also reading them, and using them to rank and sort your product listing.

Your Amazon listing should include 5 bullet points. These must cover all the relevant product features.

Bullet Points need to be focused, not too wordy, and contain key information. Each of the five bullet points should ideally be less than 100 characters, because Amazon search only indexes up to this length, but no more than 500 characters.

📚 Avoid keyword stuffing

Because Amazon is using your bullet points to find search terms, you need to include keywords. This can really affect your product listing's ranking. But keyword stuffing is a major error – Amazon doesn't like it, and it doesn't read well to a customer either.

Don't just write a list of keywords. Your bullet points must be compelling, coherent, well-thought-out phrases that help the customer. Only include the keywords that are most relevant for the customer, and that fit smoothly into the copy.

📚 Write for the customer

Your main job with these bullet points is to sell your product to a customer. Focus on the concrete benefits your product offers them.

Reading product reviews is a great way to get inspiration about, and to better understand, what matters to customers. They'll mention the features they care about most, or find particularly important, and you can then create bullet points that speak to these wants and needs. Reviews and customer questions can also highlight any necessary information that might be missing from your description.

📚 Don't include offer-specific information

These bullet points should, ideally, be timeless. Avoid writing things such as “free returns” or “30-day return policy”.

Keep your content focused on your product, not your service. The only time you should include detail about your service is if you really need to include warranty information. If you do, leave it for the last bullet point.

📚 Make the bullet points easy to skim

Shoppers browsing on Amazon have a very limited attention span. They want information fast, and will often skim through text. Using capital letters to highlight the main point of each bullet can help get your message across faster, allowing customers to decide rapidly whether they want to read further. For example:

• DISHWASHER SAFE: Cleaning is easy. Don't waste time scrubbing at the sink!
• BPA AND PHTHALATE FREE: Material tested by a 3rd party. No harmful chemicals or pollutants are used.
• EASY MIXING: Quickly mix shakes and powdered supplements. The blender ball offers maximum mixing power.
• MEASUREMENT MARKINGS: Easily measure out your daily drinks and shakes. No waste and less mess!

For more tutorials and how-tos, check out our Sitruna Guides series!