Throwback: The Best Advanced Content Strategies for Dominating Amazon Sales

In this Throwback episode, host Josh interviews Steven Pope from My Amazon Guy about advanced strategies for Amazon sellers, especially those with mature or seven-figure brands. Steven details the importance of focusing on SEO, PPC, merchandising, and design, and explains why SEO should be continuously optimized. He shares a case study on using Amazon’s search query performance report to find untapped keywords, and discusses practical tactics like updating product images and A/B testing. The episode wraps up with Steven’s favorite business resources and advice to take action and keep improving your Amazon business.

Chapters:

Introduction & Episode Overview (00:00:00)
Josh introduces Steven Pope and sets up the discussion on advanced Amazon content strategies for mature brands.

The Four Pillars of Amazon Success (00:00:40)
Steven outlines the four key areas: SEO, PPC, merchandising, and design, emphasizing their importance for traffic and conversion.

Challenges Facing Amazon Sellers (00:02:10)
Discussion of increased competition, shrinking margins, and the need to focus on fundamentals instead of hacks or blackhat tactics.

Deep Dive: SEO is Not Set-and-Forget (00:03:51)
Steven explains his multi-phase SEO approach and stresses the importance of continuous optimization.

Case Study: Using Search Query Performance Report (00:04:12)
Steven introduces the ICAP marketing funnel and demonstrates how to use Amazon’s search query performance report to find valuable keywords.

Market Share Growth Example (00:06:18)
Steven shares a real-world example of tripling market share for a previously overlooked keyword using data-driven SEO.

Image Optimization & A/B Testing (00:08:15)
Discussion on improving product images (e.g., adding age ranges) and the impact on click-through rates, with a live example.

Implementing Data-Driven Content Changes (00:09:59)
How to use search data to inform content updates, including A/B testing and targeting specific demographics.

Three Actionable Takeaways (00:11:30)
Josh summarizes key steps: analyze search query data, implement keyword-driven content changes, and A/B test main images and A+ content.

Favorite Business Book (00:13:17)
Steven shares his most influential book, "The Road Less Stupid," and its impact on his decision-making.

Favorite Productivity Tool (00:13:48)
Steven discusses his upcoming productivity tool, Hybrid, and mentions the value of tools like Calendly.

Recommended Ecommerce Influencer (00:14:33)
Steven recommends following Harry Joiner for unique ecommerce insights and strategy frameworks.

Final Words of Wisdom (00:15:18)
Steven encourages listeners to take action and shares his contact info for feedback and stories.

Podcast Closing (00:15:41)
Josh thanks Steven for joining the podcast and wraps up the episode.

Links and Mentions:

Tools and Resources 
Seller Central
Pickfu  
Calendly

Books 
The Road Less Stupid 
Traction
Scaling Up

People to Follow  
Harry Joiner on LinkedIn

Transcript:

Josh 00:00:00  Today I'm speaking with Steven Pope of my Amazon guy, and we will be talking a lot about content, strategies and how to uplevel your game on Amazon to capture more traffic and drive more revenue. We talked about this prior to recording Hitting the record button on this podcast, but I want to learn from you. And our audience is going to be interested, Steven, to learn. What would you recommend? Seven figure sellers and those that are maybe experienced on Amazon? They have a mature brand, so to speak. What should they be focusing on? Amazon, especially knowing where, you know, kind of the puck is going in the future with Amazon where things are going. What strategies would you recommend sellers be implementing right now?

Steven 00:00:40  Anything that generates traffic and improves conversion rates. Full stop. That's it. That's all you got to focus on those two basic parameters. Now I can break those two down one layer deeper. Yep. Under traffic there's PPC and SEO and under conversion there's merchandising and design. So those four pillars make up E-commerce on Amazon.

Steven 00:01:01  And so as we continue to go down even a layer further. Content production is the most underrated, easiest thing to do. As an Amazon seller that is being abandoned. Now, obviously there's a lot of cardinal rules of Amazon. Like never go out of stock. That's cardinal rule number one. And cardinal rule number two is kind of like cardinal rule number one. Don't go out of stock. Right. And so like those are important concepts. But when we look down to the very basics of how to sell more products to more people, more often for more money, it comes back to those four pillars SEO, PPC, design and merchandising. And if you were ignoring 1 or 2, maybe even three of those protocols, you're in a world of hurt right now. You are losing to the Chinese who are hacking your accounts and your listings. You are losing to Amazon's policies, who are clamping down and making it harder to be on the platform. You are losing to your Are competitors who are in a death spiral with margin problems, but are still lowering their prices because consumer demand is down and inflation is like 27%, despite what the government claims.

Steven 00:02:10  Whatever the government says, triple it. That's the true inflation rate. And so people's margins are shrinking. Policies are harder. Competition is steeper. Let's throw aggregators into the mix too. They're buying up all the brands and then, you know, really messing with the marketplace. And and so like all of these things make it so that Amazon is entering the maturity phase. So it was a seven figure Amazon seller. You need to get back down to the basics. Ignore all of the hacks. Do this two step URL. Everything will be fine. Yeah. Then your next hey do rebates and then all of a sudden you're you're banned right. Or or incentivized reviews. And then what happens. Right. All of these things are against policy and they are blackhat tactics. Stick to the basics SEO, PPC, design, merchandising. If you're trying to violate the basics by overcoming them with alternative options, you're going to reap alternative benefits. And those are not good benefits.

Josh 00:03:11  That's a fantastic breakdown. I love that you, you know, gave us a layer deeper there.

Josh 00:03:15  You know, you have the traffic and then the conversion. Then you gave us basically four kind of areas that seven figure sellers or anybody in general on Amazon should be focused on. So, Steven, I would love for us to dive in to each of these, you know, individually. Let's talk about SEO. What are some quick wins that we could do with SEO, PPC, you know, and then we can really dive into the merchandising and the design, because that's where I think a lot of that content strategy that you talked about is going to make a big impact. But let's start at SEO. What are some quick wins and things that we should be focused on?

Steven 00:03:51  SEO has, in my opinion, a multiple phase approach. It's not SEO is not set it and forget it. SEO is not set it and forget it. SEO is in fact the opposite of that. SEO is. Let me optimize it continuously. Therefore, if you buy that paradigm, it'll shift how you make content.

Ste...