How to Really Optimize the Amazon Generic Keywords Field

Amazon “generic keywords” sometimes known as “backend keywords” are one of the key aspects of Amazon listing optimization (I'll refrain from the word ‘important' as that is up for debate). In this article I'll discuss how to properly optimize your generic keywords. 

How Do You Edit Generic Keywords

Simple – click “edit” on your listing and then go to product details. 

Voila. Easy. 

250-500 Character Limits (or 500 bytes)

The actual character limit is somewhat inconsistent from Amazon. Official documentation says there's a 250 character limit but in reality it varies by category and for many categories there's a 500 character limit for generic keywords. Depending on the category this may be 500 “bytes”. For all intents and purposes, almost all characters are 1 byte except weird foreign language letters (like é) so you can interpret this as a 500 character limit like shown below. Be careful not to exceed this limit as Amazon may ignore all of the keywords if you do. 

Amazon search does not count spaces or punctuation.

Best Practices for Amazon Generic Keywords

So what exactly do you use in all 500 characters? Well it can boil down to this: don't repeat anything from bullet points/descriptions and don't use the most common misspellings and synonyms. You can assume that Amazon's semantic AI is smart enough at this point to know garlik is a misspelling for garlic – basically if a misspelling gets autocorrected you probably don't need to include it in your backend keywords.  

• Use Spanish spellings.
• Don't exceed 500 characters/bytes
• Make use of synonyms, i.e. if you sell shoes then use sneakers, kicks, footwear, etc. 
• Use spelling variations, but don’t include common misspellings, i.e. garlik for garlic.
• Include abbreviations.
• Use all lowercase letters.
• Avoid punctuation marks such as semicolons, colons, and dashes.
• Include products it's compatible with (if applicable)
• Separate words with spaces not commas.
• Don't repeat keywords from your bullet points or description.
• Avoid articles, prepositions, or other short words such as “a,” “an,” “and,” “by,” “for,” “of,” “the,” or “with.”
• Use either singular or plural words.
• Don't use competitor brand names. 

ChatGPT Promt for Generating Generic Amazon Keywords

Here's a prompt for generating generic keywords. Copy your bullet points below.

Take the bullet points for this product below and generate me a list of keywords separated by spaces up to 500 characters. Do not repeat any words from the bullet points. Make 25% uncommon misspellings for the top keywords listed in the bullet points, make 25% of the keywords common synonyms, make 25% other potential related products, make 25% of the keywords Spanish keywords. Do not repeat any words. Give this to me as one continuous list of words in one line.