All top marketplaces (including Walmart) use search algorithms to determine which items should come up first for different search queries. Such algorithms make sure customers always find the exact product they need and make a purchase. This is a key benefit to the growth of both the marketplaces and the sellers. As a seller on the Walmart marketplace, it’s essential that you understand and play by its search algorithm’s rules.
When you compete with other sellers in the same product category, prioritizing Walmart SEO in your Walmart marketing strategy is a great way to gain competitive advantages. It helps your items achieve better rankings on product search result pages and catch more product views.
In this article, we’ll be providing you with a comprehensive guide on how you can nail Walmart SEO and optimize your Walmart product listing!
How Walmart SEO Works?
Before getting into optimization details, let’s have an overview of how a search engine works on this top-selling platform.
What is Walmart SEO?
With over 150 thousand sellers on the Walmart marketplace, Walmart SEO is one of the best practices to increase organic traffic and product views while coping with increasing competitiveness.
Multi-selling Made Easy
Gain competitive advantages and get the upper hand by scaling to other potential sales channels with Litcommerce!
Walmart SEO is short for Walmart search engine optimization. It involves the process of optimizing different aspects of your product listing for better visibility and more organic traffic as you sell on Walmart. In other words, you make it easier for Walmart search engines to find your listings and rank them among the top search results for specific queries.
By understanding how Walmart search algorithm works, you can make necessary adjustments to help your listings become more Walmart SEO-friendly.
How does Walmart search engine work?
According to Walmart, it looks at three core factors (Walmart optimization triangle) when determining top-performing listings for Walmart SEO rankings. The list includes
- Content. Your product category, title, descriptions, images, and other attributes must be as descriptive as possible.
- Offer. This aspect concerns matters of price, shipping cost, delivery time, and in-stock rate.
- Performance. This involves customer experience factors such as Seller Order Defect Rate (ODR), policy adherence, and prompt customer response.
With such requirements on product listings, it demands more than just using the right keywords for search queries.
A friendly reminder: Don’t forget to check out how to advertise on Walmart Marketplace if you are new to the field!
Walmart SEO: 7 Best Practices to Master Walmart Search Algorithm
Below, we include 7 best practices you can adopt for higher-quality product listings!
#1. Optimize product information
Product information is the most important part when doing Walmart SEO. According to Walmart guidelines on listing optimization, it all boils down to how descriptive your Walmart product listings can be.
Overall, optimizing product information includes deciding on product titles and writing effective copies for product descriptions. The general rule is to adopt keywords that match the search queries in both titles and descriptions. There are two types of keywords you should consider:
- Short-tail keywords. These are short and general search terms such as “women’s sock”, “men’s t-shirt”, etc. They are necessary identifiers that indicate product categories and signal shoppers and search algorithms. However, these words are highly competitive and too generic to accurately target users’ search queries.
- Long-tail keywords. These are search phrases that are in longer and more detailed forms, such as “blue Disney T-shirt for men”, “Christmas women’s high-neck sock”, etc. Since these phrases are more effective in addressing users’ search queries, they offer a better conversion rate and less competitiveness.
You can use a variety of Walmart keyword tools (i.e Google Keyword Planner) to generate a list of SEO words for Walmart. From there, you can filter for keywords with high search volume and low competition. Another cost-saving method is to enter seed keywords into Walmart’s search bar and look at search term suggestions.
For all the newbies to Walmart, it is always essential to stay updated about Walmart Marketplace fees. Read our latest details on this topic now!
Nevertheless, there are a few things to note when writing product titles and descriptions.
Product titles
Keep it concise and clear within a length of between 50 and 75 characters. The formula suggestion for a product title is
[Brand + Clothing Size (if any) + Defining Quality + Item Name + Style (if any) + Pack Count].
Additional details may include model numbers or color.
Product descriptions
You can consider this space a place for a sales copy. Therefore, it should be readable, be in bullet points, and highlight your products’ outstanding features. Including keywords is important yet it’s better to avoid stuffing and rather make it sound natural and helpful to readers.
A fascinating product description should be placed on a Walmart best seller. Check out the best selling Walmart items in 2023 right here!
#2. Map your products to the right category and attributes
Alongside optimizing Walmart titles and descriptions, it’s essential to organize the listings into categories and fill in matching attributes. In comparison with other popular marketplaces like eBay or Amazon, Walmart may have fewer requirements for product attributes.
Nevertheless, you can better address user search intents with product attributes. They are especially useful with product characteristics that you can not include in your product titles and descriptions (i.e UPC). With specific product categories and attributes, Walmart search engines can determine the relevance of your listings when buyers search for specifics that aren’t in your title.
Categories and attributes also help when users adopt the product filter feature for their online shopping. Sometimes, users may narrow down search results to look for products within certain categories and have specific attributes. In such cases, your listings will have better visibility compared to your competitors.
#3. Use rich media and high-quality images
Images help users visualize products better, and listings with high-quality images tend to drive more clicks. As Walmart algorithms favor listings that are click-attractive, rich media and high-quality images are must-haves to improve Walmart SEO ranking.
Aside from an exceptional hero image, you’ll need a set of other alternative images. These images should be capable of showing the product sharply from different angles while highlighting its key features.
If customers often have issues learning how to use your products, providing a video demonstrating the process is also a great idea. To add such rich media, you can use Walmart’s certified third parties like Syndigo, or WhyteSpyder.
In addition, there are a few tips to jot down as follows:
- Upload a minimum of 4 high-resolution images for every listing;
- Use images of at least 1000×1000 pixels to enable the zoomable feature;
- Select images with backgrounds and RGB values of 255, 255, and 255;
- Ensure all of your images follow Walmart’s image policy.
#4. Opt for free two-day delivery
This is another factor reflecting Walmart’s preferences for listings that drive conversion. Therefore, offering faster shipping for a better Walmart marketplace SEO is highly recommended. According to the guideline on SEO for Walmart marketplace, items with a two-day shipping tag witnessed a significant increase in product views and conversions.
What you can do is enable Walmart ThreeDay and request access to Walmart Twoday. You are only eligible to request such access when you’ve been a seller for more than 90 days. Otherwise, you should so far fulfill over 100 orders on the platform.
Nonetheless, qualified Walmart sellers for two-day shipping tags must guarantee free nationwide delivery without minimum spending requirements or monthly fees.
#5. Price your products competitively
A prime important factor when it comes to striving for better SEO in Walmart is pricing. According to Walmart, this channel will unpublish or remove listings that don’t offer a competitive price both on the platform and elsewhere.
If shoppers can find a better price for the same item from another seller on Walmart, or your store on other marketplaces (eBay, Amazon, etc.), your Walmart listings can be removed.
Multi-selling Made Easy
Manage consistent product pricing across platforms effectively with Litcommerce!
With a commitment to “helping people save money”, the marketplace always advises its seller to offer a competitive price with other listings. This is not only for driving positive customer experience but also for winning the Buy Box – an effective sales booster.
There are two things you can do to price your items competitively
- Set up Reduced Price and Clearance tags to drive more visits to your promotional pricing.
- Browse the Pricing Opportunities dashboard in Seller Center to identify price improvement opportunities.
#6. Optimize your inventory efficiency
Efficient inventory management means there are no published out-of-stock listings. Such listings can affect the overall ranking of your items on Walmart. Therefore, keeping items in stock is an ideal Walmart SEO strategy. You should make sure that your inventory is updated constantly, especially with your popular product listings.
To ensure the correct uploading of your item counts, you can always check your Inventory Feed Status. Monitoring your inventory regularly will help you avoid having items run out of stock. You can also prevent such incidents by predicting sales and preparing accordingly, especially during peak periods.
#7. Focus on customer service
The last thing on the list is to provide exceptional customer service for every customer shopping with you. Since customers always go for items with great pricing and good shipping options, you should stay as competitive as possible.
This Walmart seller SEO tip counts in 3 factors: Customer feedback, order defect rate, and policy adherence.
- Customer feedback. You should always encourage your buyers to leave positive feedback and order ratings. Joining programs like Walmart’s Spark Reviewer or syndicated offerings from companies like Bazaarvoice can help you gather more ratings and reviews.
- Order defect rate (ODR). This is a compilation of Cancellation, Return, and Shipping Defects. The lower your ODR is, the better your ranking is. You can check out The Seller Scorecard in Seller Help to learn more about the criteria that help you maintain a low ODR.
- Policy adherence. To keep your listings in good standing, you must ensure compliance with Walmart standards and policies. You can find more details about the marketplace’s policy on Walmart.com, under the section Marketplace Policies.
Walmart SEO – FAQs
- Does Walmart use SEO?
Like other popular marketplaces such as eBay, Amazon, etc., Walmart adopts search algorithms to determine which listings come up first in each search query.
- How do you rank organically at Walmart?
To rank organically on Walmart, you must ensure your product listings meet up all the requirements of Walmart listing quality. These requirements are also known as the Walmart optimization triangle with 3 key factors content, offer, and performance.
- How do you rank up high on the Walmart Marketplace?
Your listings can rank high on the Walmart Marketplace by adopting the following best practices:
- Optimize product information
- Map your products to the right category and attributes
- Use rich media and high-quality images
- Opt for free two-day delivery
- Price your products competitively
- Optimize your inventory efficiency
- Focus on customer service
Wrapping Up
As the Walmart marketplace expands and attracts more sellers, it’s important to stay ahead of the game by adopting the best Walmart SEO practices. Identifying room for development and improving your listing rankings on Walmart can help you boost your visibility and conversion rates significantly.
You can also leverage your available resources by scaling to other marketplaces with the help of Litcommerce. Interested to learn more? Just drop us a message and we’ll get back to you in no time! In the meantime, you can check out our dynamic eCommerce community where we’ll be sharing countless useful tips for growing your eCommerce business!
