5 Keyword Mistakes Killing Your Amazon Merch Sales 2025

About this video

RJ Martinez walks through a live Merch by Amazon listing for a funny goose design (’locked up for honking off’) to fix five keyword mistakes. The creator claims over 125,000 products sold on Merch by Amazon. Mistake one is keyword stuffing — inserting unrelated terms like Bigfoot, dog or monkey — because Amazon will show the listing to the wrong customers, get no traction and push it back; instead every keyword should relate to the design, with the strongest keywords at the front of the title. Mistake two is ignoring long-tail keywords: starting from ‘funny goose’ in Amazon’s suggestions he follows branches such as funny goose birthday, golf and back-to-school, arguing longer phrases signal more passionate buyers and can reveal underserved niches. Mistake three is copying a competitor’s brand/title/bullets word for word, which leaves you behind a listing that already ranks; he instead mines Google related searches and ‘people also search for,’ and asks ChatGPT how different buyers would phrase the search. Mistake four is poor keyword placement: brand and title matter most, then bullet points and description, so heavy keywords belong up front rather than buried in bullets. Mistake five is not researching buyer intent — designing for who will actually search and buy, e.g. a back-to-school goose shirt for teachers (or gift-givers to teachers), with elements teachers want like backpacks, apples and pencils.

Key takeaways

• Never keyword-stuff unrelated terms: Amazon tests the listing on the wrong audience, gets no traction, and pushes it down.
• Chase long-tail keywords from Amazon autocomplete — longer, specific phrases signal passionate buyers and underserved niches.
• Do not copy competitor listings word for word; use Google related searches and ChatGPT to find your own phrasing of how buyers search.
• Put the heaviest keywords in the brand and front of the title; treat bullets and description as secondary placement.
• Research buyer intent first: know who searches, who buys (including gift-givers), and what design elements that buyer wants.

Episode details: published July 23, 2025 · 12:00 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are RJ Martinez’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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