What is A+ Content?
Not every product is very self-explanatory in its form and use as for example could be a rubber. If a Seller wants to give detailed information to his potential client, in most of the cases he can do it with 2000 characters, since this is the maximum number of characters allowed by Amazon for a product description. On the other hand, with A+ Content you can add 5000 characters and this means that you can illustrate to the user in a more explanatory way your products and their advantages or different uses. Another advantage of A+ Content: in addition to the text, you can add pictures through ready-made templates, different design and illustrations that will optically valorize more your product description. Therefore, the Conversion Rate could considerably increase – when you do it correctly and according to the target.
How to generate an A+ Content
As you already have read, not every Amazon Seller has the opportunity to generate A+ Content – now only the so-called “vendor” has this privilege: this means online seller who sell their products directly through Amazon and who do not appear as “B2B sellers” on the website. Normal sellers can only access the EBC (enhanced brand content): less comprehensive but also a convenient possibility to valorize their Content. In order to generate A+ Content, the Vendor has to log in in the Vendor Central and click “A+ detail page” under the category “Marketing”. Here you have the possibility to create A+ Content or to commit it directly to Amazon. According to the vendor membership and to the negotiated conditions, an Amazon A+ Content detail page costs between 100 and 1500 euro (it could be more expensive for some product categories).
1. How to generate an A+ Content project
In order to generate the A+ Content, an ASIN has to be determined. A name for the project is required too, even though it is useful only for internal purposes since clients will never see it. Here more ASINs could be assigned to the same project and completed one after another.
2. How to generate an A+ Content layout
Amazon provides a total of 12 different A+ Content templates (modules) for the layout: ten of them are standard modules and two are advanced modules. The desired elements will be moved from the library to the right template through a “Drag’n’Drop” function. The modules can be at will repositioned or deleted again too.
3. How to upload and generate contents in the A+ Content
The next step consists in charging real contents on the chosen A+ Content module. You can add pictures via “Drag’n’Drop” and text via “Copy and Paste”. Concretely, a master-model defines A+ Contents and it has to be provided to every ASINs and optimized by A+ Content.
4. How to review and order the A+ Content
The last step needed for the creation of an A+ Content is only the checkout that works just as if you would buy a “real” product on Amazon. At the end, according to the chosen vendor program (in this case basic flat rate), the amount to pay is confirmed and charged to the vendor account.
5 Suggestions for Amazon A+ Content
As described, the creation of an A+ detailed page is relatively easy, thanks to the ready-made modules. However, there are some peculiarities that you should consider. Shown below, there are five things you should know on A+ Content:
- A+ Content is not indexed by Amazon. That is, the created content of the text won’t be taken into account from the relevance ranking, even though a query matches the content.
- Even though there are 12 A+ Content modules, Amazon sellers can use max. five modules to create their A+ detailed page.
- A+ Content cannot be used for products that have been already added to Amazon by other vendors or products that have been sold by other Sellers.
- A+ Content won’t be shown on the mobile app or website of Amazon. This means, only people who visit Amazon with a computer or a tablet can see the A+ Content.
- A+ Content can’t be directly modified by Amazon sellers: a variation of the A+ detailed page has always to be carried out by Amazon and sometimes this takes more days.
Best practices for a better A+ Content
Even though the creation of Amazon A+ detail pages is easy and fast, you could do make many mistakes and in the worst case even reduce the conversion rate. Therefore, you should consider the following “best practices” concerning the A+ Content:
WDF-IDF SEO analysis before writing the text
Namely, A+ Content is not indexed by Amazon, however you should make the WDF-IDF text analysis before writing since the A+ text content is absolutely crucial for a search engine: Google. When an Amazon product has a well built and relevant Content, it can create a higher ranking on Google search results, generating additional traffic. You have to keep in mind that EVERY Amazon visitor is a potential buyer.
How to optimize pictures for the A+ module
According to the chosen module, a picture should be suitably adapted before the upload. If you do not pay attention to an accurate resolution that Amazon simulate in A+ pictures, on the one hand it can happen that a motif is uncomely compressed or stretched. On the other hand, Amazon can extinguish without warning A+ detail pages without optimized pictures. For this reason, every A+ picture should be accurately examined.
Textual content for the A+ Content proofreading
On the one hand, Amazon sellers can quickly and straightforwardly correct a normal product description (changes are often visible in some minutes); on the other hand, only the Amazon staff can correct A+ detail page. A variation of A+ Content can last seven days; mistakes in writing and/or wrong product information remain during this period visible for every client.
Using banner and detail screens
It is suggested to design an accurate A+ Content page and especially to create its suitable banner and teaser. Quite strict rules are applied to the normal product pictures, but for the A+ detail page, you have a larger tolerance for beautiful details regarding the product or the company and for sale activating illustrations. For this reason, you should take the time to create unique contents.
How to cross-sell and up-sell with A+ Content
Another advantage of A+ Content: sellers can carry out cross-selling and upselling. Amazon automatically shows all the suitable products (often the ones of competitors too), while in A+ detail pages, is only shown the product that you actually want to introduce. This means that with A+ pages you can introduce to the potential buyer the product portfolio purposefully and from an effective selling point of view.
A+ pages on Amazon –
How to optimize the conversion and increase the sales
Primarily, for the A+ pages, the real user is the most important element. On the one hand, for an Amazon optimization you have to pay particular attention to introduce a high range of keyword in the title and the bullet points; on the other hand, with A+ Content you have 5.000 additional characters (it corresponds to ca. 800 words or a 1,5 DIN A4 page). This means that you have enough space to introduce more details about your product. However, you should not completely ignore the search engine optimization when generating the A+ Content, in order to completely use the potential of the Amazon A+ page. For example, a WDF-IDF analysis has namely a quite strong technical focus on SEO. Nevertheless, with such a SEO analysis you can define crucial keywords that real users could search for. Wh-questions can further help to better understand the search intentions of possible buyers and to respond with specific A+ Content. If everything is carried out in the right way, with an A+ page you can reach a conversion and therefore increase enormously the sales volume.
For whom can the A+ Content be profitable?
In view of a medium price of 600 Euro for an optimized detail page with an A+ Content, you have to decide if it is worthy for every ASIN. If you are an Amazon seller, you should answer the following questions:
- How high is the income that you want to achieve?
- How many additional sales you have to achieve in order to cover the expenses of an A+ Content optimization?
- How strong are the competitors in my precise product category? Are my competitors using A+ Content too?
- How will many concrete competitive products be (automatically) shown on my product detail page?
A+ pages are profitable only in view of a high margin
Primarily, the choice of adopting or not Amazon A+ Content concerns the price. If your margin is very low and the product itself has not often been sold, you have to consider if an additional investment in A+ Content can be a risk. On the contrary, if you have a very high margin, you can employ very quickly the Return of Investment (ROI) after a creation of A+ Content and the additional expenses will be covered.
A+ Content is meaningful for a higher competition
Precisely, in highly competitive categories and especially when the competitors do not have A+ pages yet, such an investment can be profitable. Obviously, A+ Content is currently meaningful for products in need of explanations and for the ones that have the opportunity to have an elaborate description and additional details. The USPs (unique selling proposition) with an A+ detail page can be better emphasized and defined according to their target group.
Amazon A+ pages for a long-term investment
It has already been verifiable, that Googlebot indexes the text content of the A+ page. Another fact is that Amazon website represents for Google a highly significant value in view of transactional search word (search intentions with a purchase intention). With Amazon A+ pages you can accelerate the Google ranking of your product and thus divert a durable, effective and long-term precious traffic. In this way, the product search across Amazon becomes more frequent than it would be if the traffic wouldn’t be generated.