Improve Your Book’s Amazon Rank

by Susan U. Neal RN, MBA, MHS @SusanNealYoga

Is your book selling as well as you would like? How would you like to attain a higher Amazon rank? This article will describe techniques to boost your book’s rank by adding book categories and strengthening keywords. It takes a little work, but the results can be exceptional.

Categories

Typically, your book is placed in three Amazon categories. Amazon uses categories to rank books. Did you know that you can put your book in ten Amazon categories? The trick is that you have to call Amazon or email them with the additional applicable categories for your book. You communicate with Amazon through authorcentral.Amazon.com.

If you self-published, you can contact Amazon to add categories. If your book is traditionally published, you would need to ask your publisher to do this. 

If you strategically choose additional categories with less competition, your book ranking could increase. When I added seven more categories to my book 7 Steps To Get Off Sugar and Carbohydrates it went from number ninety-eight in the diet category to number one in the healthy diet category. Healthy diet is a more specific category with fewer competitive books. All it took was one phone call to get my book ranked as a number one Amazon best-seller. When your book ranks number one, Amazon posts a best-seller sticker next to it. Now that is advertising at its best, and it is free! Since I added additional categories, all seven of my books are listed in the top one hundred books for at least one category. 

Figuring out the categories can be challenging as there are thousands of book categories for both e-books and print books. Therefore, I purchased the software program Publisher Rocket which identifies the best keywords and categories for your book. If you want to be strategic and sell more books, this software is indispensable. When choosing categories, be sure that they match the content in your book. Categories are similar to genres.

Keywords

The second tactic to increase your Amazon ranking is by strengthening your book’s keywords. Amazon allows you to list seven keywords for each eBook and print book. That’s fourteen keywords not just seven. Strengthen your keywords through using Publisher Rocket. This software tells you how many Amazon searches are performed per month for each keyword so that you can select the keywords with the most searches. 

For my newest release, Solving the Gluten Puzzle, over 18,000 monthly searches are performed for the fourteen keywords I chose for this book. I added the keywords to the detail section of my book in Kindle Direct Publishing. Since I added additional categories, this book is now ranking number thirteen in Irritable Bowel Syndrome and number sixty-two in gluten-free diets.

After you figure out your additional categories and more robust keywords, it is time to update your Amazon book description. Amazon needs more information about your book to get it into the appropriate readers’ hands. So add your new keywords to the description and include any awards your book received.

If you are self-published, I recommend purchasing Publisher Rocket and selecting additional book categories and keywords for each of your books. Add more robust keywords to your book’s description, make that phone call to Amazon, and watch your book’s ranking soar. 

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Susan U. Neal, RN, MBA, MHS

Susan’s mission is to improve the health of the body of Christ. She has her RN and MBA degrees, as well as a master’s in health science. She is a CERTIFIED HEALTH AND WELLNESS COACH with the American Association of Christian Counselors. She published five books, the Selah award winner 7 STEPS TO GET OFF SUGAR AND CARBOHYDRATES, CHRISTIAN STUDY GUIDE FOR 7 STEPS TO GET OFF SUGAR AND CARBOHYDRATES, HEALTHY LIVING JOURNAL, SCRIPTURE YOGA a #1 Amazon best-selling yoga book, and YOGA FOR BEGINNERS which ranked #3. She published two sets of Christian Yoga Card Decks and two Christian Yoga DVDs that are available at CHRISTINAYOGA.COM. Her digital product HOW TO PREVENT, IMPROVE, AND REVERSE ALZHEIMER’S AND DEMENTIA is a great resource. To learn more about Susan visit her website SUSANUNEAL.COM You can also connect with Susan on FACEBOOK, TWITTER, and INSTAGRAM.