When it comes to conducting keyword research for Amazon, most people have to retrain themselves. That's because — up until a few years ago — the discussion about keyword research was monopolized by Google. As we saw in my previous article, Amazon and Google are quite different.

There is a path my team and I follow every time we do keyword research for Amazon product listings. Walking through these steps helps uncover popular keywords and those little-known gems that can really boost your product page to the top of the search results for niche terms.

Start your list with any keywords that pop into your mind regarding the product you'll be selling on Amazon. These will help you determine a direction to follow. Let's use chicken dog treats as our example product for this article. What else pops to mind? Look to the product's features.

There has been a lot of news about chicken treats made in China that have been recalled, so we could include "made in the USA." The treats are natural, made of white meat, and are oven baked so they are low in calories. Adding that information, our list now includes:

chicken dog treats
dog treats made in the USA
natural dog treats
white meat dog treats
oven baked dog treats
dog treats zip-top bag

In addition to physical features, consider the benefits of the treats themselves as well as each feature you listed above. Is there an associated benefit that would make a great keyword? Doing this, I came up with these:

safe dog treats
pure dog treats
organic dog treats
dog treats no additives
dog treats no chemicals
dog treats no preservatives
dog treats no fillers
breast meat dog treats
dog treats reclosable bag
dog treats resealable bag

After I've made a short list of the keywords I can think of on my own, I begin to enlist some help from a few keyword tools.

Synonyms are an excellent addition to your Amazon keyword list because people don't always use the same words and phrases to describe products. As I look for other terms to describe dog treats, I turn to a couple of resources: Amazon.com and Thesaurus.com . Here are a few ideas I found:

poultry dog treats
chick dog treats
chicken K9 treats
chicken canine treats
chicken puppy treats
chicken pet treats
chicken dog snacks
chicken dog chews
chicken dog jerky
chicken dog strips
chicken dog tenders
chicken dog biscuits

Depending on what product you're selling, there are lots of other ideas to consider when researching keywords, including: colors, shapes, sizes, gender-specific, type of packaging, seasonal, ingredients, processing, etc.

After you've compiled a starter list, it's time to evaluate which keywords will actually draw the most traffic to your Amazon page. For that, you need a keyword research tool.

There are dozens of Amazon keyword tools you can use, but they can only offer search term suggestions directly from Amazon. Any search volume data they use comes from scraping search engines like Google.

Most Amazon keyword tools allow you to enter a word or phrase (one at a time) and they return words or phrases that contain that term. By using Wordtracker to find search volumes, you can enter multiple keywords or phrases to speed your search process.

To get specific results, I've added the term "dog treats" to each of the terms on our original list (at the top of this article). Then I've looked through each additional list and pulled out keywords that I think shoppers would search for. Here's what I entered into Wordtracker:

chicken dog treats
dog treats made in the USA
natural dog treats
white meat dog treats
oven baked dog treats
dog treats zip-top bag
safe dog treats
pure dog treats
organic dog treats
dog treats no additives
dog treats no chemicals
dog treats no preservatives
dog treats no fillers
breast meat dog treats
dog treats reclosable bag
dog treats resealable bag
poultry dog treats
chick dog treats
chicken K9 treats
chicken canine treats
chicken puppy treats
chicken pet treats
chicken dog snacks
chicken dog chews
chicken dog jerky
chicken dog strips
chicken dog tenders
chicken dog biscuits

What I end up with is a cohesive list of keywords I can sort through by volume or whatever other parameter I choose.

From here, you can choose the top keywords you think would attract the right audience for your product. Then — because you have a limited amount of space for Amazon keywords — you'll format the search terms according to Amazon's criteria so you get maximum impact.

We'll cover that in the next installment of this series.