Amazon KDP Keywords Are USELESS

About this video

Note: summarized from the Arabic caption track. Dale argues that Amazon KDP keywords are useless on their own. Keywords are the bridge between a customer and a product — a search phrase that can be broad (e.g. ‘workout’) or a specific long-tail phrase (e.g. ‘at-home workout plan for seniors’) — and they technically just classify a product in Amazon’s marketplace. They do not sell books by themselves: if the cover is bad, the description weak, or reviews are lacking, greater discoverability only exposes those flaws. He covers where keywords belong (title, subtitle, series name, the seven backend keyword slots, book description, Author Central editorial reviews, and A+ Content, which he says indexes keywords). He warns against short-term algorithm-chasing with keywords irrelevant to the book, and explains relevance: Amazon’s algorithm rewards customer interaction, above all sales, and the Amazon Best Seller Rank is affected only by sales and Kindle Unlimited borrows recorded through KDP Select. To make keywords matter, authors must drive sales themselves — via an email list (he recommends MailerLite, free up to 1,000 subscribers, with a reader magnet such as a short story or downloadable report), collaborations with other authors such as newsletter swaps and group promotions (which also feed Amazon’s ‘also bought’ recommendations), and paid promotion such as Amazon Ads, BookBub, Written Word Media services, BookDoggy and Fiverr.

Key takeaways

• Keywords only classify a book in Amazon’s marketplace; they cannot compensate for a bad cover, weak description, or lack of reviews.
• Long-tail keyword phrases are more specific and useful than broad single-word keywords.
• Amazon’s relevance system is driven by customer interaction — above all sales — and the Best Seller Rank is affected only by sales and Kindle Unlimited borrows.
• Chasing trending but irrelevant keywords for the algorithm is short-term thinking; choose keywords real customers search for.
• Build sales through an email list with a reader magnet, author collaborations and newsletter swaps, and paid promotion such as Amazon Ads.

Episode details: published February 26, 2023 · 10:10 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Dale L. Roberts’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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