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Making the Grade: Everything You Need to Know to Create Searchable, High-Converting Amazon A+ Content

Despite being a major contributor to search results and sales, A+ Content is often overlooked by sellers. Here’s why it’s so important, and how to create the best A+ Content possible.

  • March 21, 2023
  • /
  • Ashlynn Ruman
Stackshare
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Amazon sellers spend a lot of time thinking about listing optimization. That makes sense because to succeed on Amazon’s crowded marketplace, sellers need their ‘A’ game.

I’m talking about Amazon A + Content.

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Amazon A+ Content is one of the best ways to build your brand, boost conversion rates, and acquire a higher ranking on Amazon SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).

Because it’s not a required part of an Amazon listing, it’s often overlooked. It’s just not on the radar of many sellers.
Amazon A+ Content used to be known as Enhanced Brand Content (or Amazon EBC), and was introduced to sellers in 2016. The premium content feature was designed to allow Amazon Brand Registered Sellers to level up the creative value of their listings through enhanced images and text placements.

Even though Amazon has said that on average, A+ Content helps increase the overall sales of a product by up to 10%, the results of an Amazon listing fully optimized to include A+ Content is probably much greater than that. 

Amazon A+ Content improves sales by enhancing the product description with scannable text highlighting the features and benefits of your products. This means it can appear in Google search results. 

Most importantly, the increased sales helps leverage sales velocity, one of Amazon’s biggest algorithm multipliers. 

What is Amazon A+ Content?

As shown above in the screenshot, A+ Content is a premium content feature that allows sellers to craft high-quality Amazon creative assets for their Amazon listing using rich texts, videos, and images. Amazon A+ Content is part of a unique set of built-in creative tools in Seller Central and is available for brand-registered third-party sellers and all vendors. 

Even better, it’s free! 

Without it, sellers are limited to 2,000 characters and can’t add any imagery or graphics to the content itself. The following screenshot shows how uninspiring a block of text can be.

Where Does A+ Content Appear on Amazon?

A+ Content appears under the Product Description section on an Amazon product detail page. When you create A+ Content, it takes the place of the regular text product description.

What Does Amazon A+ Content Look Like?

Short answer? Just about anything! Amazon A+ Content can be customized to your specific creative needs. You can add images, large infographics, and descriptive text to tell a story and craft the overall look and feel of your brand store.  

Take a look at the screenshots below to see why Amazon A + Content is preferable to a simple product description. 

Who is Eligible to Create Amazon A+ Content?

To begin with, you’re going to need Amazon brand registry. 

In order to take advantage of A+ Content, your brand needs to be registered under Amazon’s Brand Registry Program. For more information, visit Amazon’s eligibility page.

What is Premium Amazon A+ Content?

A++ (that’s two plusses!) Content is a premium version of A+ Content available to Brand Registered sellers. It allows you to use differentiated content such as video, interactive hotspot modules, image carousels, and enhanced comparative tables. 

In August 2022, Amazon announced that Premium A+ would be available on Seller Central during a promotional period to use for free. Premium A+ Content was previously available only by invite for brands using Vendor Central and could cost upwards of tens of thousands of dollars per product. 

The most impactful features of Premium A+ are:

Who Can Use Premium A+?

According to Amazon, you’re eligible for Premium A+ Content if:

  1. You have already published A+ Brand Story to all ASINs within your catalog that you own. You can confirm this by accessing the A+ Content Manager and searching to see if you have created and published a project. 
  2. You have had at least 15 project submissions of A+ Content that have been approved within the past 12 months. 

Amazon says that, “Access to Premium A+ features will be available to 3P Brand Owners at no cost during our promotional period for all ASINs registered to their brand. If we announce a fee for Premium A+ Content, 3P Brand Owners will be given the opportunity to opt-in for a fee. We will not charge any fees without your consent. Currently, we have not determined an end date for the promotional period or a fee structure.

What Are the Benefits of Amazon A+ Content?

A+ Content isn’t just a great way to increase the likelihood that a single product will sell, it’s perfect for cross marketing and brand building. 

A+ Content also gives you the ideal opportunity to really explain how your product works, and what exactly the customer can expect when they open the package. By being able to do that, you’re helping customers make more informed purchasing decisions, leading directly to a reduction in returns and negative reviews. 

It also helps you to grow brand awareness and creatively tell the story behind the product to build a loyal customer base that’s the foundation of a lucrative repeat business model. 

Creating A+ Content

If you’ve seen an advertisement for the Squarespace website building app, Amazon A+ Content will seem familiar. It mirrors the Squarespace system of using “blocks” of content to assemble a site, or in this case an Amazon listing. 

Getting started with A+ Content is easy. Simply navigate to the A+ Content section in the window corresponding to either Advertising (for sellers) or Merchandising (for vendors) and follow the instructions.

Once there, you’ll see that there are 15 different modules available. Using the modules you can blend the creative components to create the look and feel that suits your brand. 

Amazon’s A+ modules include:

How to Optimize Your Amazon A+ Content

As we’ve written in a previous blog post, Amazon is perfectly happy if everyone is a little bit successful. They’re going to get paid one way or the other. However, an individual Amazon seller is uniquely focused on the success of their own product. As an Amazon seller, you are in COMPETITION with the rest of the sellers in your niche. 

Fortunately for you, a lot of Amazon sellers don’t take the time to do the one thing that ultimately makes the biggest difference to their success as eCommerce sellers: Amazon listing optimization.

Amazon SEO Optimization is where you can separate yourself – and your brand – from the rest! 

Don’t Forget About Your Regular Product Description 

Remember that your A+ Content is not indexed by Amazon. Make sure to fully optimize your regular product description. Even though it doesn’t show up, it’s necessary for indexing purposes. 

Tell a Story

Take your customers on a journey. Anticipate their questions and answer them (unasked) in the copy. Build your brand by making sure that shoppers know that there’s a real human behind the product, it’s not just an impersonal Amazon ASIN. 

Be Clear About Your Product’s Benefits 

This is where you are able to take full advantage of the multiple modules available to detail why your product alone is the one that shoppers should choose. Do your competitor research to understand what’s being said and promised. Make sure that there’s a clearly identified reason shoppers choose your product over theirs. 

How Canopy Management Can Help

Amazon’s marketplace is designed for shopping. That’s why it’s in Amazon’s best interest to quickly connect shoppers with highest-quality products to fit their needs. Amazon listing optimization is how that’s going to happen. By fully optimizing your Amazon listings you are putting your products right in the middle of an enormous Amazon bullseye! 

Canopy Management is a full-service marketing agency for Amazon and Walmart sellers. Our team consists of former Amazonians, multi-million dollar sellers, and award-winning experts. When you consider the many ways that Canopy Management can help you grow your business, you’ll see why selling on Amazon is much easier “under the Canopy.”

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