Boost Amazon SEO: 5 Ways to Get in Good With Cosmo and Rufus
Amazon's investments in AI-enabled search are significantly impacting how products are ranked and discovered. As a result, a first-mover advantage is re-emerging in SEO, with small strategy shifts potentially impacting performance and providing new opportunities for brands.
For example, Amazon’s Cosmo AI knowledge graph system is reportedly rewarding fresh content, making continuous optimization of product listings critical for maintaining organic search dominance. As product relevance remains a key factor in both paid and organic search, brands may also have an opportunity to optimize their retail media budgets through new SEO investments.
Amanda Wolff, chief marketing officer of Productwind, recently joined the Path to Purchase Institute for the "Decoding Amazon's Rapid SEO Evolution" Learning Lab. The PDP-optimization masterclass marched through what's new in Amazon search, what's next and what commerce marketers can do in the meantime.
Here are five top-line highlights:
1. Cosmo prioritizes context over just keywords: Beyond keywords, Wolff said the new algorithm looks at the utility and application of a product, making merchandising best practices (like the five W's) more crucial than ever.
2. Titles are undergoing significant changes: Amazon is expected to move toward two-part title structures — a mobile-friendly title around 55-75 characters and a longer, descriptive one — to improve mobile conversion and feed structured data to AI.
P2PI members can access the on-demand session, including the presentation deck, here. In addition to more granular recommendations and a look at other Amazon SEO news, it includes 15+ SEO thought leaders to follow on LinkedIn.
To learn more about becoming a member, contact Nicole Mitchell, senior director of membership at P2PI.
3. Bullets and hidden keywords are more impactful for SEO: Amazon now indexes up to nine bullets (compared to a previous 1,000 characters) and has increased the capacity of hidden keywords tenfold, offering more opportunity for keyword inclusion.
4. Images are now crawled by AI for context: Text on images and the overall context of images are said to be crawled by Cosmo, influencing the recommendations made by Amazon's shopping agent Rufus. Brands should ensure images provide utility and explanation.
5. Enhanced content contributes to Cosmo's algorithm: Text and images within A+ and A++ content modules are now said to be crawled by both Cosmo and Google. This means brands should provide more in-depth and "how-to" information to help align product details with ratings and reviews, according to Wolff.
Editor’s note: This headline is likely not SEO friendly.
