Improve Your Book’s Amazon Rank With Categories and Keywords
Learn how to improve your book’s Amazon rank. Your book sales will increase if you implement the following strategies: adding more Amazon book categories and strengthening keywords. You can modify keywords and add up to ten categories to your book’s Amazon listing.
Categories
Amazon uses categories to rank books. The more competition a category has, the harder it is to attain a high book rank and vice versa. Usually, your book is listed in three Amazon categories. However, did you know that you can put your book into ten categories?
An author should strategically choose additional categories with less competition so that your book will rank higher in that category. I attained great success when I added categories to 7 Steps To Get Off Sugar and Carbohydrates. Amazingly, it leaped from number ninety-eight in the diet category to number one in the healthy diet category. That’s because healthy diet is a narrow category with less competition. My Christian book became a number one Amazon best seller through this one change.
Did you know that Amazon places a best-seller sticker next to books that rank number one? Now that is outstanding, free advertising! When I see an Amazon best seller label, I am more apt to purchase that product over another. One month after the #1 Amazon best-seller label was applied to my self-published book, it sold over 800 copies. For a year, my book has continued to be listed as number one on Amazon in at least one category.
I also added more categories to my other six books, and when I did, everyone of my books were listed in the top one hundred books for a category. When any book gets into the top 100 books for a specific category, it becomes an Amazon best seller. Did you know that Amazon lists the top 100 books in any category in the “Best-Seller Section?”
Unfortunately, determining additional categories can be challenging since thousands of book categories for eBooks and print books exist. That’s why I created the course, Improve Your Book’s Amazon Rank by Expanding Categories and Strengthening Keywords. This course is available for free as part of the Christian Indie Publishing Association membership (CIPA).
CIPA was created in 2004 to assist indie authors and small publishers with resources, tools, and discounts to publish like a traditional publisher. Learning how to self-publish is challenging, so why do it alone when you can join this association. CIPA makes an indie author’s self-publishing experience easier and more profitable. Annual membership costs $90, but there is over $3600 worth of marketing and publishing discounts. So CIPA can save you money! Check out the vast list of benefits at https://christianpublishers.net/membership/.
First, to figure out the best categories for your book, you need to determine the categories that your book is currently listed under. Next, you want to add categories with less competition to achieve a higher sales rank in that category by selling fewer books. You want to identify up to ten categories for your eBook and print book.
Several CIPA members recently shared their success from expanding their categories after reviewing the course:
Lisa Worthey Smith posted: “After the CIPA workshop on how to improve the Amazon ranking, I used the tools that Susan Neal demonstrated and found better categories and keywords. This morning, The Ground Kisser was listed on two bestseller lists.”
Janet Shay posted: “My categories did make a difference in my book’s Amazon ratings. Within about three days, The Prayer that Makes a Difference reached #1 in three categories.”
“I’ve gone through a couple of Susan Neal’s instructional videos. They are so detailed. Often when I try to follow an online instructional course, the presenter leaves out small steps, and those small steps make all of the difference. Not so with Susan. She says, ‘click on help,’ next ‘click on the box with three dots,’ and she walks you through literally step by step. She doesn’t assume you will fill in what she left out. I was able to easily set up new categories and keywords and understand what I was doing because of her excellent and very easy directions. Thank you, Susan!”
Keywords
Another strategic approach to increase your Amazon ranking is by strengthening your book’s keywords. Typically seven keywords are listed for each eBook and print book. Strengthen your keywords by identifying words and phrases that have high Amazon searches per month
First, you should analyze all seven keywords that you previously used for your book, as well as any other pertinent keywords. You want to narrow your list of keywords to those that receive high Amazon searches every month and lower competitive scores. The course “Improve Your Book’s Amazon Rank by Expanding Categories & Strengthening Keywords” teaches you how.
When I expanded my keywords for my indie book, Solving the Gluten Puzzle, over 18,000 searches were done for the fourteen keywords (seven for the eBook and seven for the print book) each month.
After you figure out your more robust keywords and additional categories, you need to update your book’s title setup description. Amazon needs more information about your book to get it into the appropriate readers’ hands. Add your new keywords to the book’s description and while you are updating the description remember to include any awards your book received. Your Amazon book description and author page are prime, free real estate for book marketing.
It is strategic for any author to determine ten book categories and fourteen keywords for their books. In addition to this technique, it is prudent to combine book promotional efforts at the same time that you expand your book’s categories. This synergistic effect will help get your book to #1. That’s when Amazon adds the “Best-Seller” sticker. Afterward, you can sit back and watch your book’s sales soar. These tactics will help your book succeed, and you will be amazed at its growth. If you are an indie author, join Christian Indie Publishing Association, and learn all sorts of book marketing strategies to improve book sales. Over $400 of educational courses, guides, and checklists are included in the membership.
