# Great method I use to rank high & increase my KDP sales by more than 600%



## James Fraser (Mar 15, 2013)

Hi, I'm pretty new here, so I thought I'd try and get off to a good start by sharing one of my favorite Kindle marketing strategies...

The technique I am about to explain is very powerful. This simple method is little known, but one of the best ones I have come across to turbo-charge my Kindle titles.

I've been using it effectively for the past few months and it works every time.

Ok, here goes....

Firstly, I want to explain a little bit about how Amazon ranks items in their search results pages (you probably already know this, so apologies if it seems oversimplified).

By default, all results that are shown after a search are listed by *RELEVANCY*.

Amazon decides what is relevant by matching the keywords searched for with the keywords in a product or Kindle book's title, category, description etc. That should all be fairly obvious, and you should already know about getting your Kindle listings optimized as best as possible with your target keywords and phrases. If not, search around on Kindle Boards or on Google. Anyway, it's not exactly what this post is about.

The interesting thing that most people aren't aware of, is that Amazon attributes the *MAXIMUM* relevance to products & Kindle books when they are actually purchased following a specific keyword search.

To make this clearer, imagine that your Kindle book is already well optimized for the keyphrase 'historical romance', but is ranking on page 40. Further optimizing your listing for this keyphrase probably isn't going to have much of an impact to your ranking. What *WILL* make a huge difference is if a few people suddenly search for 'historical romance', skip to page 40 and buy your book. When this happens Amazon attributes *HUGE* relevancy to your book and will shoot you up the ranks for that keyphrase, most likely to position 1 (or near enough, depending on how competitive your niche is).

The question is, how do you get a bunch of people to undertake this seemingly impossible task?

The key lies in 'forcing' (probably too negative a word, but anyway) potential customers to search with your target search phrase whilst limiting the amount of listings appearing on the search results page to only one (being your book, obviously).

Let me give you a real example now...

If you search for 'historical romance' in the Kindle store you get 19,995 results (at time of writing). If I pick a random book from these results, 'A Viking's Love' (not my book and I'm not endorsing it. Purely random choice there, so sorry if you're the author of that book) wayyyyy down on page 40, grab its ASIN code, B0092FAEFU, and re-submit a search on the Kindle store with 'historical romance, B0092FAEFU' - being sure to comma separate those two terms - you get a results page that includes *ONLY* the book I'm trying to target.

Here is that URL:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?tag=kbpst-20&url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=historical+romance%2C+B0092FAEFU

*THIS IS THE CRUX!* What you want to do is drive qualified traffic to a URL like the one above, but with your own target search phrase and ASIN code. If some of the users from this driven traffic source then buy your Kindle book, you will notice your book will literally fly up the rankings for your target search phrase within 24 hours!

Again, here is that URL you've got to use to drive the traffic to:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?tag=kbpst-20&url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=your+target+search+phrase%2C+YOURASINCODE

Make sure to keep all other elements of this URL *EXACTLY* the same - including the plus symbols between your keywords.

It's up to you how you want to drive traffic to this URL. One of the best ways I find, is to create a small Facebook ad campaign and drive relevant users to your special URL. With the above example, I would use the book cover as the ad image, I would use 'Kindle', 'romance', and maybe women between 30 and 50 as my targeting options and I'd then run the ad until I got the desired result.

Providing you manage to rank your book well in a highly searched for niche, this amazing technique can make your sales go ballistic!

What's even more amazing, is that with Amazon, more sales beget more sales which results in your book holding it's high ranking for your target search phrase.... and on it goes!

I hope you find this simple yet amazing strategy to be as effective as I do?!

Thanks...

_~~ Edited to incorporate KB Amazon tag - Admin_


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## L.M. Pfalz (Aug 31, 2012)

This is really interesting! Thanks for the tip and welcome to the boards


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## James Fraser (Mar 15, 2013)

Thanks, looking forward to sharing ideas with you


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

That's actually one of the smartest things I've read on here, and I've read a lot of George's posts.


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## James Fraser (Mar 15, 2013)

Thanks Dalya!  Who's George?  I'd like to see some of his posts if they're full of juicy tips...


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## benji smith (Aug 21, 2012)

Very nice! Thanks for the tip!


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

bookgrow said:


> Thanks Dalya! Who's George? I'd like to see some of his posts if they're full of juicy tips...


Mostly they're full of juicy sarcasm, snark, etc.

I'm likely too lazy to bother with this method, but I did save it somewhere for later.

I will note that the site you run (I assume you run) offers "services" which are generally frowned upon here. Exchange of reviews, for example. I'd suggest not making the mistake of publicly suggesting that anyone might be interested in such things.

You'd likely not last long afterward.


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## R.A. Hobbs (Jun 6, 2011)

Wow.  Great information!  Thanks Bookgrow!


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## James Fraser (Mar 15, 2013)

Mathew Reuther said:


> Mostly they're full of juicy sarcasm, snark, etc.
> 
> I'm likely too lazy to bother with this method, but I did save it somewhere for later.
> 
> ...


Hi Mathew,

Yes I do run the site and it does have a forum area where people can exchange reviews. That's not what it's all about though. I certainly wouldn't sell that as a service - the site is free anyway. I might phase that function out if it proves to be too contentious. Hoping to build it up into a really useful resource with all sorts of book marketing strategies.


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## Raquel Lyon (Mar 3, 2012)

Does that mean that, if we all click on that first link, the author of 'A Viking's Curse' is going to wake up to loads of sales tomorrow?


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## James Fraser (Mar 15, 2013)

Rlyon said:


> Does that mean that, if we all click on that first link, the author of 'A Viking's Curse' is going to wake up to loads of sales tomorrow?


Haha no. Only if everyone on here decided to buy it! Which I don't think is very likely.


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## David Adams (Jan 2, 2012)

Interesting!

Threw $64 for a Facebook ad for this link: keywords=paranormal+romance%2C+B00B3IOTLY (AKA Rakshasa book one).

Let's see how it goes!

_Link removed except for keywords used. No promotion outside the Book Bazaar, thanks. --Betsy_


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## scottmarlowe (Apr 22, 2010)

That is pretty interesting. Thanks.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Testing as we speak.

One of my books was already at #5 for my target search.

One thing I've learnt about blogging is that the best thing you can do for discoverability is to give your post/book a relevant title that's the same as the phrase you want people to search and find your post. With fiction, this doesn't or can't always apply, but say you were writing fantasy and you had the choice between something with the word "mage" in the title and and another title that didn't have this word, it's better to go with the title with "mage".


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## James Fraser (Mar 15, 2013)

David Adams said:


> Interesting!
> 
> Threw $64 for a Facebook ad for this link: keywords=paranormal+romance%2C+B00B3IOTLY (AKA Rakshasa book one).
> 
> Let's see how it goes!


Good luck David!

Provided you get some sales through that link, you will see a rank increase 

_Link deleted except for keywords used--no promotion outside the Book Bazaar, thanks. --Betsy_


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## GWakeling (Mar 23, 2012)

I'm going to give this a test too. Have been meaning to do a new FB campaign for a newer novel, so just threw some cash in their direction using this approach and will see what happens.

Thanks for the heads up and great info.  

Geoff


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## WillemThomas (Dec 9, 2010)

Is there a method to shorten these types of URLs so they can be added to book descriptions? Would tinyurl work for this?

Willem Thomas


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

WillemThomas said:


> Is there a method to shorten these types of URLs so they can be added to book descriptions? Would tinyurl work for this?
> 
> Willem Thomas


Any shortener works, yes.


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## HeidiHall (Sep 5, 2010)

Fantastic info, BookGrow! Thank you so much for posting. 

Man, I love the KBoards


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## JHall (Mar 7, 2013)

WillemThomas said:


> Is there a method to shorten these types of URLs so they can be added to book descriptions? Would tinyurl work for this?
> 
> Willem Thomas


Not sure if tinyurl allows for this, but I know if you use bit.ly you can get a shortened link that will track all the clicks it gets. All you have to do to see how many clicks a bit.ly link gets is add a + at the end of it in the address bar. I use it all the time when I am trying to track how popular my game reviews are.


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## cpasley (Mar 13, 2013)

Just tried this with a FB campaign I am currently running for my free weekend. Very interested to see if it works!


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## A.A (Mar 30, 2012)

Hi BookGrow - I tried a version of this when I first started self-publishing. Except that I linked with my keywords - such as 'ya horror', 'young adult horror' etc.
I know anchor links work well with Google, so I tried it with Amazon.
I tried to explain it here and ask if anyone else was doing it, but I think my explanation must have been bad.  

Yes, it worked to a degree (although slipped when I didn't keep it up). But for me didn't result in more sales.
I think that my keywords are just not popular enough. If you search 'ya horror' or 'young adult horror' most of the results on the first pages don't have good rankings (i.e sales).


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## Mip7 (Mar 3, 2013)

These kinds of tricks are always fun to learn and mess around with. I wish everyone trying it the best of luck with it.

Those of us who have been professional internet marketers for years know that this kind of thing is usually short-lived. There used to be tons of interesting quick-ranking booster tricks for getting websites ranked high in Google. Sooner or later, Google always changed algorythms and punished all the websites using the tricks by burying those sites extremely deep.


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## jimkukral (Oct 31, 2011)

Great tip James! Thanks for sharing.

Site looks great too.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Amazon stopped using keywords in description for relevance. A few of us did a test. Google, however does use them. Amazon uses title, subtitle, your category paths and seven keywords, that you pick when uploading your book.

However, I could see them linking search phrases to click throughs on books; that information would be valuable as are also boughts. Thanks for pointing it out. It shows how you could make a campaign elsewhere work for visibility on Amazon.


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## LG Castillo (Jun 28, 2012)

bookgrow said:


> The interesting thing that most people aren't aware of, is that Amazon attributes the *MAXIMUM* relevance to products & Kindle books when they are actually purchased following a specific keyword search.


does it matter if you use a popular versus a less popular keyword search?

For example, would it make a difference if my keyword search phrase was "paranormal romance" versus "new adult paranormal romance"? Is one better to use than the other?


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## Adam Poe (Apr 2, 2012)

Going to try it out with a shortened version of the url so that I can track it. No idea how I will drive any traffic through the link though 

_Please, no links. Promotion not allowed outside the Book Bazaar. --Betsy_


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## Lizbooks (Mar 15, 2013)

Really interesting info. For all of you trying this out, please keep us updated on the results!


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## LG Castillo (Jun 28, 2012)

Adam Poe said:



> Going to try it out with a shortened version of the url so that I can track it. No idea how I will drive any traffic through the link though


I clicked on the link and downloaded a copy. I also posted the link on a couple of my personal facebook pages. good luck!


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## Alan Petersen (May 20, 2011)

Thanks for the share. I just setup a Facebook Ad for CIA Thrillers and my book (one week, $50 lifetime budget to test it out). I'll report back on the results. I like trying new promotional strategies. 

_Please, no links. This is not a promotional thread. --Betsy_


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## Routhwick (Apr 1, 2012)

Here's mine for the _Gadsby_ re-issue:

keywords=Gadsby%2C+B009NH9RGE


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## Colin (Aug 6, 2011)

Sounds like a great tip - thanks.

I'm trying it using a Tiny url for the book, Mad Hannah Rafferty which I have reduced to 99 cents until Tuesday. 
It will be interesting to see if it works using the Tiny url method.

I'll report back with my results.



_Please, no links! That would be promotion which is limited to the Book Bazaar. --Betsy_


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## theaatkinson (Sep 22, 2010)

i can't believe I didn't think of this. What a great idea. I gave it a whirl with a bitly link with womens fiction because it's not a category I foresee ever hitting on my own just to test it. Not sure it's the best test category, but I'd know if I climb into the relevancies for it.

I've had 12 clicks within 5 minutes....most from Japan...so if I get a sale there, I'd DEF know. grin.

thanks!

_Please, no links; that would be promotional. Thanks! --Betsy_


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## James Fraser (Mar 15, 2013)

jimkukral said:


> Great tip James! Thanks for sharing.
> 
> Site looks great too.


Thanks Jim, appreciate it. You seem to be doing great stuff with all your author marketing properties too. Perhaps there might be an opportunity to pool our resources?

Best,
J


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## jdfield (Oct 4, 2011)

Very interesting stuff here. Thanks for sharing this.


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## M.A. Thomas (Dec 31, 2012)

I'm not sure if it's coincidence, but I implemented this last night.

Just One Golden Kiss was on page 7 for the key phrase: vampire romance

This morning, it's on page 6.  I had one sale overnight.  I will keep tracking this and report results.


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## James Fraser (Mar 15, 2013)

M.A. Thomas said:


> I'm not sure if it's coincidence, but I implemented this last night.
> 
> Just One Golden Kiss was on page 7 for the key phrase: vampire romance
> 
> This morning, it's on page 6. I had one sale overnight. I will keep tracking this and report results.


Good luck! I can't say that this technique will last forever, but it works very well for me. Look forward to hearing how it goes!


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## SEAN H. ROBERTSON (Mar 14, 2011)

Thought-provoking...thanks!


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## Michael_J_Sullivan (Aug 3, 2011)

Nice tip. Thanks for sharing.


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## strath (Dec 31, 2012)

I'll add my thanks to you bookgrow.   Will definitely give it a try.


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## whatdanwrote (Oct 18, 2012)

This is very clever. Thanks, bookgrow! I'm going to try it!


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## Victoria J (Jul 5, 2011)

We definitely need more threads like this. I'm going to try this out this weekend!


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Interesting!  I'll test it out later this afternoon and track my results.


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## ClaireMarie (Feb 23, 2013)

That's a great idea and I'm trying it out right now.  Trouble is, I can't get the link to work in the final review.  So I'm not clicking 'pay' until I see that happen.


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## SEAN H. ROBERTSON (Mar 14, 2011)

Found my link and trying it now. Will report back. Thanks again!


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## Amyshojai (May 3, 2010)

Oh my, what an elegant suggestion. Yes, trying the link for my thriller on a FB ad but will also include on my blog tomorrow. If it works, expect some furry-ous activity for the pet books, too. Thanks!


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## EdShull (Mar 1, 2013)

I'm curious to see the results for those running campaigns. My concern is that if a page gets a lot of traffic, and few sales, you may actually become less relevant for the term. But it will be interesting to see the results of the tests.


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## cpasley (Mar 13, 2013)

So far doing this, my ranking for "zombies" has actually gotten worse. However, the facebook ad I'm using isn't doing very well - only got 4 clicks so far, and I can't say whether any of them converted.

_Please, promotion must be done in the Book Bazaar. --Betsy_


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## 60865 (Jun 11, 2012)

Ok, so here's my result after a few hours :
- I started at 107.556,
- a couple of hours later I was 120.662
- now I'm at 132 938 ....


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## CEMartin2 (May 26, 2012)

Someine just searching for your book raises it within the category?


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## 60865 (Jun 11, 2012)

well mine dropped ...


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## James Fraser (Mar 15, 2013)

Lady_O said:


> well mine dropped ...


Did you actually track any sales? You can drive all the traffic in the world, but if no-one buys through the link it won't impact ranking.


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## Alan Petersen (May 20, 2011)

Here are my results. Of course, I can't say 100% this strategy is what helped move me up or not. But I haven't done any other promotional stuff in the last 24 hours, but what suggested in this thread.

For CIA Thrillers in the Amazon.com "ALL" category my book was on page two when I started this. It's now #3, on page one, so I'm happy about that!

Under CIA Thrillers in the "Kindle Store" search category, I was already on page one, but at the bottom. Now I'm #2. So that's a nice bump there too.

I've gone from un-ranked in my sub-genre to #84 in Amazon's Top 100 list. Not total, just in my sub-sub genre, but, hey, still makes me happy. Before that I had cracked the top 100 one other time, right at #100. So this is the highest I've climbed so far.

Total Facebook Ad spend just $5. Click through rate isn't even that high at 0.062%. It didn't take that many sales for the bump.

Caveat, I don't know how much I can attribut to this or just coincidence. But I'll for sure continue trying this strategy using Facebook Ads and the search string recommended by the OP. Seems to add a nice boost to things.


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## 54706 (Dec 19, 2011)

I'm giving it a go.  3 days, $100, paying for click throughs only.  I have book 4 in the series coming out, so if I can get more visibility on book 1, that's a win for me.

Thanks for the tip!  We'll see what happens.


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## Alan Petersen (May 20, 2011)

Another suggestion I would like to add. In my opinion (and this is just that, opinion), you should also use your target search keyword in your book description. I'm thinking Amazon's algorithm might see keywords like Google's search does. If someone is searching "CIA thriller" and they match my book to CIA Thriller, then the visitor clicks on my books (ding, a match), then they buy, like the OP laid out, ding, ding, ding, match. So I have my keyword bolded in my book description:










Amazon says hey this guys has CIA thriller in there, lets show it to the searchers, if they then click on my book link and then buy it, Amazon will give me that nice boost.


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## KBoards Admin (Nov 27, 2007)

Just a note that we encourage the use of KB affiliate tags for links made here that go into Amazon. So, I edited the example tags in the OP to reflect that.

-Harvey


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## Alan Petersen (May 20, 2011)

Harvey just provided a great idea! If you setup a tracking id via your Amazon Associates account and you tag that to the link, then you can easily track any sales generated from the traffic you're sending. Adding the affiliate tag doesn't mess up the link as laid out in the OP.


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## darrenpillsbury (Jul 10, 2011)

Thanks, Bookgrow, and everybody else who has chimed in with helpful tips! Can't wait to try this out.


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## James Fraser (Mar 15, 2013)

Alan Petersen said:


> Another suggestion I would like to add. In my opinion (and this is just that, opinion), you should also use your target search keyword in your book description. I'm thinking Amazon's algorithm might see keywords like Google's search does. If someone is searching "CIA thriller" and they match my book to CIA Thriller, then the visitor clicks on my books (ding, a match), then they buy, like the OP laid out, ding, ding, ding, match. So I have my keyword bolded in my book description:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Exactly, Alan. This is something I failed to mention in my original post. Sorry.

You have to use a keyword / phrase that already exists within your title, description or KDP selection of keywords. If you don't have the keywords you are trying to target, there is nothing to target and your book won't even show up in your "target-keyword-selection,ASIN" target URL.

Hope that makes sense?


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## jasonzc (Dec 23, 2011)

sibelhodge said:


> Thanks so much for the information. I must be doing something wrong, though I can't work out what.
> 
> I've tried putting in:
> womens fiction, B006JFIA84 and it doesn't work.
> ...


Did you include the plus sign between keywords?


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Alan Petersen said:


> Another suggestion I would like to add. In my opinion (and this is just that, opinion), you should also use your target search keyword in your book description. I'm thinking Amazon's algorithm might see keywords like Google's search does. If someone is searching "CIA thriller" and they match my book to CIA Thriller, then the visitor clicks on my books (ding, a match), then they buy, like the OP laid out, ding, ding, ding, match. So I have my keyword bolded in my book description:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Amazon *does not track keywords in descriptions*. (Google does though.) This is a myth. They only track title, subtitle, your categories you selected, and your seven keywords. A group of us tried this and proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt.


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

You can set up a tracking ID on your associates account to further track these sales in specific.


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## Lissie (May 26, 2011)

OK this is strange. I thought the OP sounded reasonable - so I found a term one of books that isn't selling well, should rank for but doesn't. It's not a terribly competitive term - so this may not work if you are after "romance fiction" 

I did the search, ASIN a few times. I chamged logins on Amazon - did the search with my affiliate ID - an wow - I was showing about #2 on the search already. 

Doubled checked logged out of Amazon still there. 

Tried with pagewash.com (anon proxy) - still showing. 

Asked friends in the US - ranking #3 over there. 

All for having run the search a few times and clicking through to my book  

Not sure how long it will last - but the FB ad is on hold for the moment


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## cpasley (Mar 13, 2013)

Ok, I've gotten 24 total clicks on the ad, and it seems like my position improved by 1.  Of course, I can't tell how many converted.


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## Alan Petersen (May 20, 2011)

LisaGraceBooks said:


> Amazon *does not track keywords in descriptions*. (Google does though.) This is a myth. They only track title, subtitle, your categories you selected, and your seven keywords. A group of us tried this and proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt.


That's why I said it was my opinion, twice. And sorry, but unless you're an engineer for Amazon, you can't really prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt. That's just your opinion. Plus, Amazon changes their algorithms, so what works now, might change and not work tomorrow, and what didn't work when you proved it, might now work. We don't know what the Amazon engineers are up to or what changes they might make. In the end, it doesn't hurt to put your keywords into your book description if it helps your prospective reader.


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## 54706 (Dec 19, 2011)

Alan Petersen said:


> That's why I said it was my opinion, twice. And sorry, but unless you're an engineer for Amazon, you can't really prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt. That's just your opinion. Plus, Amazon changes their algorithms, so what works now, might change and not work tomorrow, and what didn't work when you proved it, might now work. We don't know what the Amazon engineers are up to or what changes they might make. In the end, it doesn't hurt to put your keywords into your book description if it helps your prospective reader.


^^ Yup. Why not, especially if it doesn't hurt? Plus you can never rule out the human brain's algos. Some words just jump out at me when I'm searching for something to read in genres I like. It makes sense to try and figure out what those trigger words are for your readers and include them.


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## Mathew Reuther (Jan 14, 2013)

Alan Petersen said:


> In the end, it doesn't hurt to put your keywords into your book description if it helps your prospective reader.


As long as it's not disruptive to the blurb I can't see any reason to not toss them in. Some people style their blurbs differently than others, and some books will be more conducive to this kind of seeding, so it won't always be equally effective.

As for what was tested, it was recently, and it was relatively thorough. There's information about it floating around on youtube as it was done as part of a webcast. So I'd suspect it's safe to say it's likely to not work on a backend level.

Which says nothing for people's eyes, of course.


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## WG McCabe (Oct 13, 2012)

I was 171 in 'stalking'. I clicked my link, then clicked my link again trough pagewash.com and it bumped up to 170. Interesting.


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## SBJones (Jun 13, 2011)

Interesting in theory. I think for this 'trick' to be legit would be to use a keyword search + asin link that resulted in sales where the keyword search *did not* originally bring up your book at all. For example the word "twins" does not bring up my books even though the main character has twin daughters. But if after a few linked sales it suddenly does start showing up for that search term, I would be sold.

So far my experience has been that a sale of any kind increases the relevancy of any search that leads to your book. I can find my books if I search for "steampunk" or "time travel". When I used my select days I often times watched my books climb to the top search result for those terms. Sales made me relevant, not link-baiting.

Even if this doesn't work for Amazon as some have tested, what about other retailers like Barnes and Noble or Kobo?


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## Lissie (May 26, 2011)

LisaGraceBooks said:


> Amazon *does not track keywords in descriptions*. (Google does though.) This is a myth. They only track title, subtitle, your categories you selected, and your seven keywords. A group of us tried this and proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt.


Oh duh - that was it - I added a keyword!


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## matthewturner (Aug 1, 2012)

Wow, how clever. Love it!

Going to have to try this for a few keywords me thinks. In an age where there so many quick fixes kicking around, this seems like a genuine good way to gain some leverage. Thanks for sharing

Matthew


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## Graeme Reynolds (Jul 8, 2012)

This could have quite a bit of potential during free promotions if it really works. I've got a big promo coming up in about ten days where I'll be giving away copies of the first book in my series, ready for the launch of book 2. I've already amended the buy now links within my ebook to reference the search terms, so hopefully every giveaway and every sale of book 2 will push my rank up. Currently sitting at #51 under the Werewolf search term. Shall be interesting to see how this affects things.


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## cpasley (Mar 13, 2013)

So I need to revise my statement.  Today Cages has gone from being low on page 11 for "zombies" to middle of page 8.  The FB ad I was running now has 32 clicks, and the bitly link has a total of 39, the difference perhaps being where I posted it in the Bazaar.  

I don't know if this is directly attributable... this is also during my free promotion when I'm #1 in SF series and #4 in Horror and #181 overall.  That could also have something to do with it. 

All in all though, I think I can tentatively say the results make this method seem plausible.  

Also, the #1 zombie book?  "Sex With a Hot Zombie."


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## James Fraser (Mar 15, 2013)

cpasley said:


> So I need to revise my statement. Today Cages has gone from being low on page 11 for "zombies" to middle of page 8. The FB ad I was running now has 32 clicks, and the bitly link has a total of 39, the difference perhaps being where I posted it in the Bazaar.
> 
> I don't know if this is directly attributable... this is also during my free promotion when I'm #1 in SF series and #4 in Horror and #181 overall. That could also have something to do with it.
> 
> ...


Good luck. Keep us posted!


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## James Fraser (Mar 15, 2013)

Running a new campaign using this method on one of my own books.  Will keep you informed of results...


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## cpasley (Mar 13, 2013)

Whoa.  Ok, so maybe this does work.  Over the weekend I moved from page 11 for "zombies" to now page 3.


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## James Fraser (Mar 15, 2013)

cpasley said:


> Whoa. Ok, so maybe this does work. Over the weekend I moved from page 11 for "zombies" to now page 3.


Nice one cpasley! Hope you make it to poistion #1 !


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

Alan Petersen said:


> Thanks for the share. I just setup a Facebook Ad for CIA Thrillers and my book (one week, $50 lifetime budget to test it out). I'll report back on the results. I like trying new promotional strategies.
> 
> _Please, no links. This is not a promotional thread. --Betsy_


I was testing CIA with my books as well, and I recall seeing your book pop up when I checked the link. Ultimately, I went with other phrases, but just thought you might like to know it was on the first page there.


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## James Fraser (Mar 15, 2013)

Alan Petersen said:


> Another suggestion I would like to add. In my opinion (and this is just that, opinion), you should also use your target search keyword in your book description. I'm thinking Amazon's algorithm might see keywords like Google's search does. If someone is searching "CIA thriller" and they match my book to CIA Thriller, then the visitor clicks on my books (ding, a match), then they buy, like the OP laid out, ding, ding, ding, match. So I have my keyword bolded in my book description:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Hi Alan,

I see you're now ranked #2 for "CIA Thrillers"!  Where were you before the promotion?


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

This is a great tip, thanks. You might want to remove the bit in the OP that says the link has to be used exactly like that, given that there's now an affiliate code in your second example link that doesn't have to be there. That link doesn't even to link to anything specific, but now has a code in it. 

If a person goes to Amazon and searches  

keyword keyword keyword, book's ASIN, 

they only then need to copy and paste the URL that appears right then, without clicking through to their book. Pretty simple. 

I've given this a try today on a freebie. We'll see how it goes.


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## James Fraser (Mar 15, 2013)

shelleyo1 said:


> This is a great tip, thanks. You might want to remove the bit in the OP that says the link has to be used exactly like that, given that there's now an affiliate code in your second example link that doesn't have to be there. That link doesn't even to link to anything specific, but now has a code in it.
> 
> If a person goes to Amazon and searches
> 
> ...


Thanks for pointing this out Shelley. The weird thing is that the Associates tracking tag wasn't even in there when I first posted it and it isn't even one of mine. Judging by it's name, 'KB1', I'm certain that some sneaky moderator at Kindle Boards has gone in edited my link and is creaming profits off everyone who had used this link to promote their books.

If your reading this, moderators, I'd say that's a pretty underhand tactic right there! You could have asked me if you wanted to do that and I probably would have let you. Shame on you...


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Actually, Harvey the board owner did it. He did actually leave a note at the end saying so.

But it doesn't need to be in the raw example link that shows people how to format the link _on their own_. You could make the link not clickable to illustrate this if there's a code formatting here. Or use an image.


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## James Fraser (Mar 15, 2013)

shelleyo1 said:


> Actually, Harvey the board owner did it, and left a note at the end of the post saying so.
> 
> But it doesn't need to be in the raw example link that shows people how to format the link _on their own_. You could make the link not clickable to illustrate this if there's a code formatting here.


Ahhh so he did. Sorry Harvey! Didn't see your note there. If that's how it goes on here I'm sorry for rashly jumping to conclusions.


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## intinst (Dec 23, 2008)

From the Forum decorum, which I am sure everyone read when they joined  :
- Use of affiliate tags. We reserve the right to add links, or update links, in your KBoards posts with links that contain KBoards affiliate codes. We may delete or modify posts that contain outside affiliate links. Posting of outside affiliate links is against forum rules and may result in banning.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

Just to be a wet blanket, this is probably against the Amazon TOS somehow.   They have a bit about not attempting to "manipulate" the site. Now, having a big sale on your books or advertising them or having a big launch might be interpreted as "manipulating" the site. It's really up to the lawyers' interpretations.

Just felt the need to be a wet blankie.


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## The world would be prettier with more zebra strip (Apr 20, 2011)

Ah, I remember this back from 2011. It's not going to work as well as you think.

http://www.novelrank.com/blog/top-amazon-search-rankings-only-200-copies/

Novelrank sold the book explaining it. It was great, I was ranked 6 in my category! It was worth the fifty bucks. I got up high. Saleswise, not much difference though. But, now, obviously...

What goes up, comes down. And the less people that knew it, the better it worked. Now that it's on KB, I wouldn't expect super terrific results for long. However, you will see it go up...and shift down...and down...and then up a little...and then further down and...

I don't use it anymore. Number one, Amazon doesn't like being played with, and I won't play with it anymore. Number two, the more competitive the word, the more money you have to waste to stay above others. (A different tactic from the book not covered here, resulting in getting higher without any sales). That is all I will say about that. If it had worked, I wouldn't be reading as a hobby, and surfing KB. I'd be out there writing lots more books and making a living off of them. 

It will probably work for awhile longer, but Amazon knows this tactic too. So if you want to use it, use it_ now_ before everyone else does. But, I don't like to play this game anymore. I'll just continue writing and let things progress the way they need too.


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## KOwrites (May 23, 2011)

This prompted me to re-evaluate FB ads which is a bit like playing the slot machines in Vegas. Your money just goes...

I took some time to check out the key words via search. That was time well spent as my key word selections were innocuous at best and I found better searches with better words so I updated those. Thanks!

Hmmm... - I'm not seeing the problem with doing a key word search and my ASIN which zeroes right in on my book and having a link to that (no affiliation- just brings up my book and if they want to go to my book page on Amazon click away). Nice!

Obviously, potential buyers do have to click again to get to my book and buy it, but it will be interesting to see how this tracks. Thanks for sharing the information.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Alan Petersen said:


> Plus, Amazon changes their algorithms, so what works now, might change and not work tomorrow, and what didn't work when you proved it, might now work. We don't know what the Amazon engineers are up to or what changes they might make. In the end, it doesn't hurt to put your keywords into your book description if it helps your prospective reader.


Amazon does change what it includes in searches. They use to allow for meta and used to track that in descriptions, now they don't use meta and don't track it. However, I've said several times to put as many keywords in your description as you can, because of Google searches. My character name "Dr. Julian Lone Wolf" will not pop up in Amazon search; however, it does in a Google one with my book as the top result.

The reason I point it out is some newbies may have used a keyword in their description assuming it will lead to visibility on Amazon when instead they should go back and it as one of their seven keyword phrases in their KDP book set up.


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## RuthNestvold (Jan 4, 2012)

Fascinating. I'll be curious to see what results other folks get from this.


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## GWakeling (Mar 23, 2012)

Just a quick question.....is there a way to discover what page a book is one without having to go through every single one? My search query brings up 600 pages!


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## KOwrites (May 23, 2011)

GWakeling said:


> Just a quick question.....is there a way to discover what page a book is one without having to go through every single one? My search query brings up 600 pages!


Not that I know of...my first inclination would be to say that your search is too broad. Thus, you get 600 pages.

Also, I pay attention to the search terms that Amazon brings up and try those suggestions as well. In my case, I wanted to be on a page/list/what-have-you where the books were similar to mine (in style and genre) not erotica as an example, because I'm not writing that. So, it took a few uninterrupted hours to come up with key word searches and useful lists that I wanted my books to either be on or appear on (or, they were there but ten pages in). Hope that helps...

This has several components to it. The FB ad is getting some hits and I've gotten a few sales which I can attribute to it because I had the deadest weekend ev-ah and I KNOW this changed things for me driving traffic to my book. However, I also tweaked my description page big time because my clicks to sales ratio was not that great so we'll see if that helps.

Best,
KO


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## GWakeling (Mar 23, 2012)

Katherine Owen said:


> Not that I know of...my first inclination would be to say that your search is too broad. Thus, you get 600 pages.
> 
> Also, I pay attention to the search terms that Amazon brings up and try those suggestions as well. In my case, I wanted to be on a page/list/what-have-you where the books were similar to mine (in style and genre) not erotica as an example, because I'm not writing that. So, it took a few uninterrupted hours to come up with key word searches and useful lists that I wanted my books to either be on or appear on (or, they were there but ten pages in). Hope that helps...
> 
> ...


Thanks Katherine,

I'll have a look at some keywords and try to wittle down the search a little.


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## jimkukral (Oct 31, 2011)

Anyone actually prove that this works? Bumping this thread for examples/proof?


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## KOwrites (May 23, 2011)

jimkukral said:


> Anyone actually prove that this works? Bumping this thread for examples/proof?


It got expensive with FB adv. and I found it quickly spinning out of control $$$-wise-to-ratio, so I stopped the FB ads before actually seeing a benefit long-term in terms of a search boost. As often as Amazon tweaks things, I can't afford to throw endless dollars at this particular tactic. So, there you go.


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## CLStone (Apr 4, 2013)

I've got $50 coupons to use up at both Twitter and Facebook. Might as well see how this works.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

I've been using this on some of my links since March.

It does not do one iota of good.


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