The Complete Amazon Listing SEO Audit Checklist (All 12 Criteria)

This is the full 12-criteria checklist behind how to audit an Amazon listing for SEO, grouped by the same six categories, with what a pass actually looks like for each item rather than just a category name.

Title & Item Highlights

• Title is 75 characters or fewer, including spaces, in every category except media.
• Title leads with the main keyword and one differentiating attribute: Brand + Product + differentiator.
• No promotional terms, decorative characters, or ALL CAPS anywhere in the title.
• No keyword repeated within the title itself.
• Item Highlights filled in with attributes and keywords that didn't fit in the title.

Bullet Points

• Five bullets present, each under roughly 200 characters.
• Each bullet leads with a benefit clause, not a feature or spec.
• Secondary keywords appear in bullets without repeating anything already in the title.
• At least one bullet addresses a concrete spec or a likely pre-purchase objection.

Images & Video

• Main image has a pure white background, fills roughly 85% or more of the frame, and is at least 1000px.
• At least seven images total in the gallery.
• Gallery includes a lifestyle shot, a scale or dimension reference, and a specs infographic.
• A product video is present, if the category and listing support one.
• Text inside infographics is large enough to be legible via OCR.

A+ Content

• A+ Content is live, if the brand is Brand Registry-enrolled.
• A comparison table or FAQ module is present.
• A Brand Story module is present.

Backend & Attributes

• Backend search terms use the full 249 bytes without repeating visible keywords.
• Backend terms are space-separated, not comma-separated.
• Structured attribute fields (material, use, style, and similar) are filled in completely.
• The listing is classified under the most specific, relevant browse node.

Reviews & Social Proof

• Average rating is 4.3 or higher.
• Review count is roughly comparable to competitors ranking for the same keyword.
• No backlog of unanswered questions in the Q&A section.

What's checked separately, and what isn't checked at all

Stock consistency and Prime/FBA eligibility matter for ranking but sit outside the six content categories above. They're operational, not content, and worth a separate monthly check covered in how to build a monthly optimization routine. Conversion rate, sales velocity, search CTR, and competitive pricing all matter too, but none of them are checkable from outside a seller's own account, which is why they're excluded from this checklist entirely rather than included as something you can't actually verify.

FAQ

Is a 12-criteria checklist overkill for a small catalog?

No. The time cost scales with catalog size, not with the checklist itself. Running all 12 criteria against 5 listings takes an afternoon; the checklist doesn't get simpler for a bigger catalog, just more repetitive, which is exactly the case an automated audit is built for.

Which criteria should I fix first if I can't do all 12 at once?

Start with whichever category carries the most combined weight in the rubric you're using. On this site's own scoring, that's images, followed closely by title. Fixing the heaviest category first moves the overall score furthest per hour spent.

Do all 12 criteria apply to every category?

Mostly, with one exception worth knowing: media categories are excluded from the 75-character title limit, so a title-length check doesn't apply there the way it does everywhere else. The other 11 apply broadly across categories.