How to find keywords for your Amazon listing for free

Most keyword advice for Amazon starts with "sign up for this tool". If you're selling a handful of products, a monthly subscription for keyword research is hard to justify, and you're left guessing which words buyers actually type.

You don't have to guess. Amazon gives you a surprising amount of search data for free, some of it to every shopper and some of it to sellers inside Seller Central. This guide goes through the free methods in the order we'd use them, then shows how to sort what you find into your title, bullets and backend search terms. If you're new to how the parts of an Amazon listing fit together, our Amazon listing optimization guide covers each one.

Start with what you already know

Before opening Amazon, write down how you'd describe the product to a friend, then how a buyer who's never heard of it might. You'll usually get three kinds of words:

• What it is: "water bottle", "insulated bottle", "flask".
• What makes it different: "32 oz", "straw lid", "stainless steel".
• Who or what it's for: "kids", "gym", "hiking", "school".

This list is only a starting point. The rest of the methods tell you which of these words buyers actually use, and what you missed.

1. The Amazon search bar

The suggestions that drop down as you type in Amazon's search bar come from what shoppers search. It's the closest free view of real demand.

How to get the most out of it:

1. 1Type your main phrase slowly and note every suggestion. "insulated water bottle" will suggest sizes, lid types and uses.
2. 2Add a letter after your phrase. "insulated water bottle a", "insulated water bottle b" and so on. Each letter surfaces different suggestions.
3. 3Try the words buyers put first. "kids insulated water bottle", "32 oz water bottle", "water bottle with straw". The order buyers type matters.
4. 4Try "for" and "with". "water bottle for", "water bottle with" shows you uses and features people want.
5. 5Search in the right department. Suggestions and results look different when you search inside your category instead of across all of Amazon.

Write everything down in a spreadsheet as you go. You'll want to see which words come up again and again.

2. The listings that already rank

Search your top three phrases and open the first page of results. Ignore the sponsored listings for this step and look at the products that show up on their own.

• Which words keep appearing in their titles? If eight of the top ten bottles say "leak proof", buyers probably care about leaks.
• What do their Item Highlights and bullets lead with? That's what those sellers think matters most.
• What words do they avoid? Sometimes a phrase you'd use isn't on any top listing, which is worth knowing before you build a title around it.

You're not copying anyone's listing. You're seeing which words the buyers in your category respond to.

3. Reviews and customer questions

Reviews are written by buyers in the words buyers use. Read the 3-star reviews on similar products first. They tend to be specific: "the lid leaks if you lay it flat in a bag", "too tall for my car cup holder".

Every one of those is a possible keyword and a possible bullet. "Fits car cup holder" is a real search, and you'd never have thought of it from your desk.

4. Product Opportunity Explorer (free with a Professional account)

If you have a Professional selling account, Amazon's Product Opportunity Explorer is free and shows search data you can't see anywhere else on Amazon. You'll find it under Growth in the Seller Central menu (Amazon: Product Opportunity Explorer).

Amazon groups related search terms into "niches". Search for your product, open a niche and look at the Search Terms tab. You'll see the terms shoppers use for that kind of product along with how much they're searched and how that's changing. It's also useful for spotting phrases with a lot of searches but relatively few strong products.

If you can't see it in your menu, Amazon's forums say the account's main user may need to grant your login permission for "New Product Opportunities" under Settings, then User Permissions. It isn't available in every Amazon store, so check yours.

5. Brand Analytics (free if you're in Brand Registry)

If your brand is enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry and you have the Brand Representative role, Brand Analytics is free under Brands in Seller Central (Amazon: Brand Analytics). Two dashboards matter for keywords:

• Top Search Terms shows popular searches across the Amazon store, their search frequency rank and the top three clicked products for each. Search by keyword to see what's winning, or by a competitor's ASIN to see which searches bring buyers to it.
• Search Query Performance shows the searches that led shoppers to your own products, with impressions, clicks, cart adds and purchases for each. It's the best way to see which words are already working for you.

6. Your ads, if you already run them

Sponsored Products ads aren't free, so we wouldn't start ads just for research. But if you already run them, the search term report in the Amazon Ads console shows the actual searches that led to clicks on your ads, including ones you never targeted. An automatic campaign is especially good at turning up phrases you wouldn't have guessed.

A worked example: sorting what you find

This is a made-up product to show the process. "Cairnfield" isn't a real brand, and the phrases below are illustrative, not real search data.

The product is a 32 oz stainless steel insulated bottle with a straw lid. After an hour with the methods above, the list looks like this. Here's where each phrase ends up:

Title (67 characters):

Cairnfield Insulated Water Bottle with Straw Lid, 32 oz, Sage Green

Each phrase lives in one place. Nothing is repeated, and nothing a buyer types got left out. For the rules on each field, see our guides to the 75-character title rule, writing bullet points and backend keywords.

How often to redo it

Search habits shift with the seasons. "Kids water bottle" climbs before the school year, and gift searches climb before the holidays. Revisit your keywords every few months, and before your busiest season. If you have Brand Analytics, check Search Query Performance first, because it tells you what's already working.

If you'd rather not do this for every product

Everything above is free and it works. The cost is time: about an hour per product, longer if you sell on Etsy or eBay too, where buyers search differently. If you also sell on Etsy, our guide to finding Etsy keywords covers the free tools there.

YelloShelf is a paid tool that does this research for you. It doesn't have a free plan or trial. You buy a credit pack, starting at $10, and your first purchase comes with a money-back guarantee. You upload product photos, it checks live Amazon results and real monthly search numbers for products like yours, then writes the title, highlights, bullets and backend terms with the phrases already sorted. We're helping you remove the manual, tedious, time-consuming work. You still read it, edit it and paste it in yourself. And if the free methods above suit you, keep using them.

Quick checklist

• Search bar suggestions noted, with a letter sweep after your main phrase.
• Top organic listings checked for the words they share.
• 3-star reviews and customer questions read for buyer wording.
• Product Opportunity Explorer and Brand Analytics checked, if your account has them.
• Each phrase assigned to one place: title, highlights, bullets or backend terms.