Tier 1: Title
The title is the highest-weight indexing field in your listing. Your primary keyword — the term with the highest search volume and most direct match to your product — should appear within the first 5–7 words. Amazon indexes the full title, but placement earlier in the title correlates with stronger indexing signals for those terms. Don't waste the first 20 characters on your brand name if your brand doesn't have significant shopper recognition.
Pack secondary keywords into the title wherever they fit naturally. A title like "Bamboo Cutting Board with Juice Groove — Large Wooden Chopping Board for Meat, Vegetables, and Bread" covers primary keyword ("bamboo cutting board"), secondary material term ("wooden"), functional attribute ("juice groove"), and use-case terms ("for meat, vegetables, bread") in one readable sentence. Every keyword that fits naturally in the title is one less you need to work around in other sections.
Tier 2: Bullet points
Bullet points are the second most important indexing location and your primary conversion copy. Place secondary keywords in the explanatory body of each bullet — the text after the capitalized headline — where they read naturally within a feature description. Five bullets at 150–200 characters each give you roughly 800 words of indexed text that also speaks directly to buyers. That's significant keyword real estate.
The rule for bullet keyword placement: if reading the bullet aloud sounds like normal product copy, the keyword is placed well. If it sounds like you inserted a search term into an otherwise normal sentence, it will read that way to buyers too. "Dishwasher safe for easy cleanup" naturally includes the term "dishwasher safe." "Dishwasher safe cleaning easy washing machine safe" does not. Use the first approach, not the second.
Tier 3: Backend search terms
Backend search terms give you 250 bytes of indexed keyword space that shoppers never see. This is where you put everything that didn't fit naturally into the visible listing: synonyms ("chopping block," "kitchen board," "prep board"), alternate spellings (British vs. American English for international sellers), Spanish translations for US listings that may reach bilingual buyers, and specific long-tail phrases that would sound awkward in a bullet.
Format backend terms as a single space-separated string without commas, pipes, or repetition. Do not repeat words already in your title or bullets — they are already indexed, and repetition wastes your byte allowance without adding indexing benefit. Treat each byte as premium — put the most valuable unique terms first, since Amazon may truncate if the field gets parsed incorrectly. 250 bytes typically accommodates 30–50 additional keyword phrases if written efficiently.
Tier 4: Description / A+ content
The standard product description is indexed by Amazon, though it carries less algorithmic weight than the title or bullets. Use it for long-form keyword phrases and buyer reassurance copy that didn't fit in the bullets. If you have A+ Content enabled, the modules replace the standard description in the display, but the indexing behavior is different — A+ text modules are generally not crawled for keyword indexing, so the standard description's SEO value is limited once A+ is live.
For sellers without A+ content, the description is worth optimizing with secondary and long-tail keywords in natural, readable paragraphs. For sellers with A+ content, focus your keyword efforts on the title, bullets, and backend — these carry the indexing weight, while A+ handles the visual conversion work.
Mistakes sellers make
The most common mistake is leaving the backend search terms field empty or only partially filled. Many sellers complete the visible listing sections and skip the backend entirely, throwing away 250 bytes of free indexing. A close second is repeating the same keywords from the title in the backend, wasting that space on terms that are already indexed. Every word in the backend should be a net-new addition to your indexed keyword set.
Another frequent error is placing high-priority keywords only in bullets and backend, while leaving the title generic. The title has the most ranking weight — if your primary keyword is buried in bullet three, you're indexing for it but not as strongly as you would be if it appeared in the first seven words of the title. Prioritize placement by weight: title first, then bullets, then backend, then description.