More than 65% of customers start their product search on Amazon, and the A10 algorithm is the way Amazon helps them search. It’s similar to the way Google searches, using different parameters that are weighted to come up with the most likely useful results.

Obviously, one of those parameters is the combination of keywords used. But that’s not all.  There will likely be tons of products that answer to those keywords.

So Amazon brings in different ways of ranking products. These are all differently weighted, though we don’t know the weightings; the exact way a search engine works is always a closely guarded secret, otherwise people can try to game the system. The different parameters that Amazon uses include the following:

•      Your sales history. If you have consistent sales, rather than sporadic sales, you will tend to get a higher ranking. Basically Amazon is saying that if plenty of people buy your product, there’s likely to be a reason for that, so it’s a product that it can push a little further up the search rankings.

•     Organic sales count particularly highly in the A10 algorithm. An organic sale is when a customer uses Amazon’s search, finds your product in the results, and then clicks through and buys your product. This proves that your product fits the search term, that it’s just what the customer was looking for, so it’s a strong indication that the search engine got it right that time, and ought to continue showing your product as a top search result.

•      Your conversion rate. This is the ratio of the number of customers who see your product page to the number who actually buy your product. If you have a high conversion rate, that suggests the product title that customers see on search is highly representative of the product and gives them an accurate result.#

•      Your seller authority. This includes all kinds of information on how good your customer relations are; your reviews, your handling of product returns, how long you’ve been on Amazon. After all, if your product fits the search terms but you have terrible reviews, then it probably isn’t the product potential buyers want to see.

•      Inventory. The algorithm won’t reward you for having excess stock, but if you only have two items left, you probably won’t go to the top of the results.

•      Your click-through rate; how many customers who see your product in the search listings actually visit your page. This is where having a great photo and a good product title really pull their weight, motivating viewers to click through.

•      Sales from the ‘frequently bought together’ box.

So what changed since the last iteration of the algorithm? One thing became much more important than before: customers coming from off site. For instance, someone might come from Facebook ads, from your Twitter feed or your own website, from internet forums, or from a TikTok video. They might even come from a coupon promotion on Vipon. Amazon loves customers who come from off-site. External visibility gets rewarded, so use influencers to increase your footprint.

This is something that should help your sales anyway, but together with the impact on your search rankings, you should get a double whammy from investing in advertising and promotion away from Amazon. Keep doing PPC, but put new marketing money into beefing up your external ads and your roster of influencers. That should get you rocketing up the rankings.