Amazon autocomplete keywords: how do you collect them?

Amazon completes the text you have typed so far with searches that start the same way. Its autocomplete patent says the lists are built “to favor the items and/or search strings that are currently the most popular.” Amazon doesn’t publish how it ranks today’s list.

Three things change what you see:

• The store. amazon.com, amazon.de and amazon.co.jp each suggest what their own shoppers search, in their own language.
• The department picked in the menu next to the search box. The same letters give one list in All Departments and another in Kindle Store.
• What you type. One more letter gives a different list. We see at most 10 suggestions per query.

Type your keyword, a space and a letter, and write down the list; then do the same for every letter from a to z. That is 27 searches and up to 270 suggestions for one keyword, with many repeats. Then try the digits 0 to 9, which bring out sizes and counts, and linking words like “for”, “with” and “and”, which bring out buyers and uses.

Note the store, department and date beside each list, because the lists change; our own examples are collected signed out. The guide to finding Amazon keywords walks through one seed with real results.

Typing only ever adds words after what is already in the box, so “yoga mat” never shows you “cork yoga mat”. Buyers often put the deciding word first, so these are worth finding.

By hand, you type the first words you expect, such as a material, a size, a buyer or a use, and keep the ones Amazon completes. That finds the words you thought of and misses the rest. Amazon’s suggestion service can also complete text that ends with your keyword; Shopperwords uses that to fill its Before column with what buyers type in front of yours.

• Remove repeats. The same phrase comes back under many letters. Keep it once.
• Remove other products. “Yoga mat towel” is a towel. Keep it only if you sell one.
• Remove brands. Amazon tells sellers not to put other brands in the backend Search Terms field, and a title that names one misleads buyers.
• Count the words that come back. If “thick”, “wide” or “travel” shows up under many letters, buyers keep asking for it.
• Keep the long phrases. Amazon’s ad guides call phrases of three or more words long-tail keywords. They say who buys and why.

Then place them: the main phrase in the title, details in Item Highlights and bullets, leftovers in Search Terms. The Search Terms guide covers the byte limit.

A suggestion proves people search a phrase; it doesn’t say how many. Its place in the list isn’t a search count either, and the list changes over time. For numbers you need Amazon’s own reports, if your brand is registered, or an estimate from a tool. See where Amazon search volume numbers come from.

Shopperwords is a free Chrome and Firefox extension that runs these searches as you type in Amazon’s search box. Its dropdown shows three columns: Amazon’s own suggestions, Before and After.

• As you type, it asks Amazon 28 questions: your keyword, your keyword plus each letter, and the words before it.
• Deep Expand asks 64: it adds every digit after your keyword and every letter before it.
• It follows the store and department you are on, works on 22 Amazon sites, and hides words you exclude.
• You can copy a keyword, star it or export the list to CSV, free and with no account.

Pro adds estimated monthly searches to every keyword. See pricing.