Rakuten SEO Measures - Latest Information

*This article on Rakuten SEO measures is updated based on the latest findings from our EC consulting business. As Rakuten's search algorithm is frequently changed, we recommend adding it to your bookmarks and checking it regularly. We hope you will find it useful as a way to increase your Rakuten sales, as it covers a wide range of topics from the basics to advanced techniques.

Rakuten SEO (Rakuten Search Optimization)

is an initiative to ensure that your company's product pages are displayed at the top of the list when consumers search for products on Rakuten Ichiba. Which products are displayed at the top of the list is automatically determined by Rakuten's search algorithm.

 

Rakuten's search algorithm (Rakuten SEO evaluation system)

Rakuten's search algorithm determines search result rankings by comprehensively analyzing information such as product titles, product descriptions, reviews, prices, stock levels, and sales. Unlike Google search, which can take several months to take effect, Rakuten SEO measures can produce results relatively quickly. However, since the algorithm is frequently changed, you need to check your rankings regularly, and pay close attention to the correlation between sales and rankings, and steadily work on Rakuten SEO measures.

Rakuten SEO is important for increasing sales on Rakuten

Basically, search rankings have a big impact on sales on Rakuten. The most common purchasing behavior among Rakuten users is to search by category, manufacturer or product name, and then add items to their shopping cart. Generally, when search rankings improve, the number of customers (the pie of impressions and accesses) increases, and sales also increase.

Specific measures for attracting customers using Rakuten seo measures

The basic premise: what consumers are looking for

You need to attract consumers who are likely to buy your products from your search results. Even if your products appear at the top of the search results, they won't sell if consumers aren't looking for them. The basis of this is to work out what kind of purchasing behavior people who are likely to buy your products will take, how you can express the appeal of your products, and then adjust your keywords and content accordingly. One approach is to log in to Rakuten accounts with different user information such as gender and age among employees, and analyze the differences in search results, recommended advertisements, and email magazine subscriptions.

You can also analyze changes in keyword search volume using Google Trends to grasp market trends. A good example is women's apparel that ranks in the Rakuten rankings. There is a tendency to start pre-orders about two months before the season starts, and to aim for products with high search volumes on Google Trends.

Keyword selection for Rakuten seo measures

Depending on the characteristics of the product, in general, increasing search rankings in categories will lead to increased sales. For example, if you are developing a brand of chairs, you should aim for high rankings for words that consumers are likely to search for when buying office chairs. Specifically, this could be office chairs or high-function chairs. You can search for keywords like these using “raccoon keywords”, or you can analyze the keywords that are driving traffic to your store on RMS and use this information to implement a PDCA cycle.

The “big words” that have a high search volume are often the target of competition, and the products of stores with high sales records tend to rank highly. For this reason, we will implement Rakuten seo measures using “middle words” and “small words”.

In general, the total number of people accessing a site through multiple-word searches that combine middle and small words is higher than for single-word searches, and the conversion rate is also higher. You need to research compound words that include your main keywords and select which ones you want to aim for.

Special demand keywords

Pick up keywords related to events and seasonal keywords such as “Valentine's Day”, “Christmas”, and “Year-end gift-giving”. Since these measures will not produce significant results if implemented at the last minute, it is a good idea to start implementing search engine optimization measures 2-3 months in advance, and to raise your search rankings as much as possible by the time the event arrives, so that you can take advantage of the opportunity to significantly increase sales during the peak period of demand. In addition, keyword search rankings are automatically stored and analyzed as data.

(The automatic keyword acquisition tool is introduced below under “Data Collection and Analysis”)

Rakuten seo countermeasures: Keyword placement

Place the keywords selected above in the product name, catch copy, product description, and sales description.

For food products, we recommend setting the product name based on the following. For other genres and details, please check the “Product Name Registration Guidelines” on the Store Management Navi.

【Manufacturer name_Brand name_Product name_Specifications_Content volume_Quantity】

Nissin Cup Noodle Seafood Noodle 75g 20 pieces

Japanese Black Beef A5 Grade Marbled Sirloin Slices 500g from Kyushu

In addition, the catch copy, product description and sales description should be written in sentence form, rather than as a list of keywords or words. Include more keywords than the product name in a natural way within the text. The way to include keywords is to refer to the trends in the catch copy, product description, and sales description of the top sites that appear when searching for the keywords you are aiming for. In addition, the product name is the title of the product page in Rakuten seo measures, so it is the most important keyword. If the product name includes keywords, it will be easier to appear in search results, but if there are no keywords, it will be difficult to appear in search results.

・Character count method

You can enter up to 127 characters in full-width characters. If you use half-width characters, you can enter up to 254 characters.

You can check the number of bytes using the LENB function and make adjustments. If you register in CSV format, you will get an error if the number of characters exceeds the limit, so please check that the number of bytes is 254 or less using the following.

=LENB(character string)

For more information, please check the Google Spreadsheet function list (LENB).

Selecting a category

When registering a product, you can select a category that matches your company's products. This makes it easier for people to recognize the category name you have selected. On the other hand, if you do not set a category that matches your product, it may not appear in searches.