They say a picture tells a thousand words.
If that’s true, today we’re going to talk about how your Amazon listing can tell thousands and thousands of conversion-driving, profit-producing words through your listing images.
It’s going to help you build your business faster, sell more products, launch more products globally, and help you achieve your goals faster. So let’s get into it.
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How do I optimise images for Amazon?
I’m going to talk you through our go-to strategy for Amazon image optimisation today.
Our complete strategy is in our Amazon listing playbook eBook which you can grab for free here. It goes through our four-stage process for creating and testing a listing on Amazon.
It also has a checklist so you can literally go through and check off each section as you go. Make sure you grab your copy here – hope you find it helpful!
These days, pretty much every single product you see is going to have some form of an infographic.
So it’s not enough just to throw up colourful pictures or lifestyle images of your product, you need to think through the purpose behind each and every image that you have on your Amazon listing.
My hope is to help you do exactly that today with some of the best examples of live Amazon product listing images that I’m going to break down for you.
Your main Amazon product image
Depending on your marketplace and your category, how many actual image slots you have on Amazon may differ. For most people, right now, if you have a listing video, you’ll have six slots.
One of those is going to be taken up by the main image. Now we’re not gonna spend loads of time talking about the main image today because my focus is sharing our sub-image formula.
But of course, your main image is critically important because it needs to attract the click.
It’s one of the only things that’s going to drive clicks onto your listing when people find it in the search results, so you need to make sure that it is eye-catching.
On Amazon Terms of Service, your main image needs to feature just your product on a white background. Of course, there are sellers who don’t do this and get away with it, but I recommend you stick to the rules.
However, of course, you can be creative with that if your product has parts in it or multiple components – spread them out or otherwise get creative with it.
A good little hack for this is to create some options for your main image. Then, search for your main keyword on Amazon and drag and hover your image over the listing results to see whether it stands out enough to attract that click.
Our image creation formula for Amazon images
Okay, so on to the sub-images.
I’m going to talk you through our tried-and-tested image creation formula for Amazon seller images. It’s what has worked for us many times in the past, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only way – so feel free to adapt this as much as you like.
The first two or three sub-images should be benefit images.
Just a reminder on features vs. benefits – Features are what your product is or does, and benefits are what your product does for the customer.
As private label brand builders, we can get too focused on the features because we spend time, effort and energy on creating a product with awesome features.
But we have to remember that the customer doesn’t care about the blood, sweat and tears you put into it. What they care about is how it impacts their life.
So it’s really important that we draw out these benefits.
Your Amazon product description images are going to be one of your main conversion aspects for most people – especially those on mobile.
They’re going to see those images really early along, swipe through them and instantly get an impression of whether your product meets their need. That’s why it’s so important to define the benefits in those first two or three images.
The idea behind benefit images is they clearly state the power statement – the key benefit we’re trying to communicate.
The next Amazon product image that we would recommend people use is a trust image.
Show the consumer that they can trust your brand in some way. This is commonly done in the form of a review image that highlights positive customer feedback. It can also be done in the form of a satisfaction guarantee or straightforward refund policy.
Just be aware that Amazon updates their terms of service regularly, and this kind of image might now be against TOS (although there are many, many sellers using this approach).
So do your research and remember that if you do choose to include this kind of image it is at your own risk.
Image number six should be a comparison image highlighting the clear differences between your product and your competition.
This doesn’t always suit every product so you can leave this out if it’s not right for the kind of product you’re selling.
Some people would say, “don’t highlight the competition”. But honestly, Amazon is doing that for you anyway in the form of sponsored product placements.
People are going to see the competition whether you like it or not, so consider tackling it head-on by actively showing the consumer why your product is head and shoulders above the competition.
We recommend the final image be a utility image.
A utility image could demonstrate how you use the product, explain the dimensions, quantities, or other key aspects of the product, or show anything else that is really going to help the customer understand what it is about your product that’s so great.
Of course, if you have a very technical product you may want to have a couple of utility images and drop the comparison or trust image.
So there you have it – that’s the structure that we always include in some format in the new listings we create.
Amazon product images best practices
In the video above, I’ll walk you through some actual live listing examples that will help you see exactly how to communicate the benefits of your product through the sub-images. Make sure you check out that video at the top of this post.
Once you’ve watched the video, you’ll have a clear idea of what the best Amazon product images look like.
I’ve also summarised three of my top tips here:
- The mistake I see people make too often is they’re trying to use too many words. I would try and limit the number of words you’re using on one image to 15 to 20.
- Keep it brief and use a large font, as this makes it far more mobile-friendly.
- It’s absolutely fine to highlight the features, but make sure you show how these features result in benefits.
- Ask yourself ‘does this make clear the difference the product will make in customers’ lives, or does it just share details about what the product is/does?’
- Get three or four benefit images created, one or two trust images, one or two comparison images and two or three utility images. You’ll have 10 to 12 images that you can use to test your product.
- Test the first six on your listing for a couple of weeks. Then add a different one in and test that for a couple of weeks before looking at the numbers.
- See how that affects things, and keep testing and iterating from there. Remember that the ultimate Amazon listing is never finished.
I hope this has helped you with your Amazon product listing images. If you haven’t already, don’t forget to grab your Amazon Listing Optimisation Guide for free here.
