Ep. #1235 - What is Amazon GeoRank?

Andrew Morgans  0:00

Hey, what’s up, Hustlers, welcome back. It’s Andrew Morgans, founder of Marknology. Here as today’s host of Startup Hustle, covering all things E-comm, Amazon, entrepreneurship, you name it. Today we’re going to be talking about what is Amazon’s GeoRank. Today’s guest is Eddie Wheeler, actually calling in from Media in Colombia, which I’m excited about. I’m also in Colombia, here in Cartagena. So we’re both in the same part of the world, just different cities. But before we jump into today’s show, I want to give a shout-out to our sponsor, today’s episode of Startup Hustle is powered by FullScale.io. Hiring software developers is difficult. Full Scale can help you build a software team quickly and affordably. It has the platform to help you manage that team. Visit FullScale.io to learn more. Eddie, welcome to the show.

Eddie Wheeler  0:49

Matt, glad to be back.

Andrew Morgans  0:51

Yeah, it’s good to have you back. Why don’t we do just a little recap? For you. I know we’ve got a different topic today. But let’s give a little recap for our audience in case they didn’t hear your first episode on Startup Hustle. Just a little background on you know who you are, you know, your place, or your kind of history in the Amazon e-commerce industry and overall entrepreneurship.

Eddie Wheeler  1:14

Yeah, cool. Yeah. So I’m Eddie Wheeler. I’m the founder of Guava Listings, which is an Amazon SEO and listing optimization agency. I have been traveling around the world for the last six years, living in different countries, as I go, Vietnam, Thailand, Mexico, and now Colombia. So yeah, I’ve been in this industry for a few years now. I started off launching my own Amazon products, which failed, launched a second product, which did pretty well. But through that process, I realized, like, my natural skill in listing optimization and SEO and stuff, so I kind of just went forward with that. Freelance for a while, and then started the agency Guava Listings. And now I’m getting into the world of GeoRank.

Andrew Morgans  2:06

Yeah, I’m actually super excited to talk about that. I don’t have a ton of knowledge of GeoRank. So I’ve heard things here and there, but I haven’t really ever dug it into myself. So I think it’s gonna be super useful for our audience. Talk to me just about maybe your own definition of what GeoRank is and why it matters to Amazon sellers.

Eddie Wheeler  2:27

Yeah. So I mean, my biggest my biggest tagline here is that you’ve been lied to about keyword ranking, right? And that is because most of the major tools are only showing you one keyword rank, right? If you type in, you know, just the example from off my desk, a white water bottle. Let’s say you’re selling a white water bottle. You type in white water bottle, Miami, and you might be ranked number two, and maybe that’s one of the major tools, and you think you’re good. You’re getting your maximum organic sales because you’re ranked in the top, you know, two, three. White Water Bottle Miami, however, you could be ranked 27 in LA. You could be ranked 100 in New York even, right? You can still be ranked number two in Miami, and that might be what’s showing on the main keyword tool that you’re using. But that’s not reality because actually, it’s all these different. There are actually 1100 Different micro markets where you can be ranked differently depending on that market.

Andrew Morgans  3:27

Okay, so for me as a seller, and I know that this has existed. I think a big part of it has to do with FBA, right? And where your inventory is in that market. Talk to me why that matters and what that relationship looks like.

Eddie Wheeler  3:45

Yeah, so yeah, it is all about really where inventory is sent. So it’s, you know, it’s been around since 2018. There’s just been no good way to track it until now. But essentially, right, the, if you have a lot of inventory, if Amazon is sending a lot of inventory to the nearest warehouse to Miami or the warehouse in Miami, your products are because there’s more demand there. So it’s kind of like a chicken and egg thing with whatever reason your white water bottle has been selling well in Miami for the past year. So they’re going to send more inventory there. And because it’s going to get to the customer quicker and cheaper for Amazon, they’re showing your products, higher ranks, right, you know, higher up in the organic search results, then maybe some cad competitors that you know, don’t have as much inventory there. So what you need to do right is once you can get the information, right, that’s where you’re not doing so well or where you’re only doing like, okay, right it’s to try to drive up demand in that area. So that Amazon will send, you know, it’s it sends the signal to the Amazon algorithm for that for however they distribute their inventory, to send inventory to that. The next area, right so or to the area that you’re trying to focus on, which will over time, bring your product up into keyword rankings there.

Andrew Morgans  5:11

And I would think that’s mainly driven by the fact that Amazon wants to win. It’s like power suggestion, right? So if they have, if they have three other brands like yours in stock in that area, it’s going to be cheaper for them to show a customer, those competitive products so that their shipping fee is lower on FBA because, right, as a seller, your FBA fee is set. And so for them, it’s a lower distance or shorter distance, so to speak. And then we get the product to the customer. So they’re saying, hey, in our best interest, let’s show them these products. Yeah, I’m trying to push these products.

Eddie Wheeler  5:45

Exactly, exactly. So what you know, so that’s what’s in their best interest, right? So and so they’re seeing for whatever reason, let’s say like, it’s, like I said, your product has a history of selling well in Miami, they’re going to send more inventory there, and you’re going to show up better there. But you might be in Texas, you might be ranked number 20. Right. So how, how do you get, you know, we’re, you know, for your main keywords, you might be ranked 20 through 30, let’s say? So it’s like, how do you get Texas to? You know, how do you get Amazon to send more inventory to Texas? Well, again, it’s about generating demand in Texas, and really even specifically, like, what what sort of demand do you need to generate in Houston? What sort of demand you need to generate in Dallas? Right? So first off, you need the data, right? So like I said, until now, there hasn’t been a way to, to track this because all the major Amazon tools have only shown one keyword rank. But my well my partner has developed is a GeoRank Tracker, where you can actually now go in and see the different, you know, where you’re ranking for certain keywords across the whole country. So now that you have that, yeah, go ahead.

Andrew Morgans  7:04

Super, super interesting to me, I will say that I’ve used some of this data in a different way. In the past, in the past, in regards to like, let’s say, let’s use this as an example. So if I’m able to get the zip codes of my customers, like, let’s say over a year’s worth of time, and let’s say I’m selling a food product, okay? I’m then able to use those zip codes as information for me to approach specific grocery chains, or retail stores in that area. So like, let’s say, for example, I’m selling a bunch of 90210. In California, I can then use that data approach grocery stores in that area, say, Hey, I’ve already built a big presence here. You can see a lot of my Amazon customers are coming from your zip code, I think you would, I think my products would do great in your store and kind of use that as a data point for conversations. Not necessarily attached to the keyword ranking on Amazon, but definitely using, like where we’re ranking or where our sales are coming from, as a way to help us in a different part of our business. Get into trying to understand exactly how you would now grow your rank in those cities, let’s say Houston or Dallas to say with your example. I would have to assume that that in order to do that you’re gonna have to employ off Amazon strategies of some sort to grow your market share there. What are your thoughts?

Eddie Wheeler  8:29

Yeah, that’s, that’s exactly right. So now once you have the data, right now that you can make informed decisions of where to kind of where you’re going to market, right, so obviously, unfortunately, Amazon PPC at the moment does not allow for geo targeting. But essentially every other off Amazon PPC platform does, in fact, allow you to like pick locations, right, for your ads and stuff. So you wouldn’t be able to target Houston, you wouldn’t be able to target Dallas, right? So whether it’s Facebook, Google, TikTok, Pinterest, right, whatever, whatever that you’re using, and whatever is relevant for your audience, right? Or whatever you’re good at already, right? Of course, you know, if you don’t have any of those skills, you might have to still you, you know, you’re gonna have to learn how to do Facebook and Google ads, etc. But if you’re already good at one of these things, like, there doesn’t really need to be that many changes, right? However, you were ranking your products before it still works. It just needs to be like specific at a certain location, right? So running the Google Ad directly to your your ASN, right? Now you’re gonna get now you know, once you generate demand, right, you’re going to get in you’re sending you’re sending people right to your listing right from the ad directly. That is and they buy let’s say they had to cord they buy from that that’s a third order ranking impact. So that’s kind of spreading out the ranking juice, let’s say, across all of your your keywords. So it might not be enough to like get you from page, you know, get you from rank 50 to the top 10. But it can still it can push you up certainly from page two to page one, from the bottom of page one to the top of page one, that those type of things. Now, I’m not advocating for this, right, because obviously it is super gray area. But if you’re somebody that still does search, find buy or anything like that, and you want to take on that risk, right, you can run a search-find buy through like a Facebook ad in Dallas, right? And then that’s where you can really like, you know, really jump up in the ranks quickly, right, that’s just you know, a side note that you still do that sort of thing. But in the end of the day, even if you’re getting a third rate, order ranking impact by just sending your Facebook, that Facebook traffic directly to your Amazon page, and it’s all in one specific area, well, then the algorithm is going to recognize that there’s demand now in Dallas, and therefore they’re going to send more inventory to Dallas. And you know, over a certain period of time, you’ll see that you start to your that product starts to rise in the keyword ranks in the Dallas area.

Andrew Morgans  11:07

That makes a lot of sense to me, Eddie, and just thinking with you on these on this strategy, not just like how it works, but how you would, you know, change the impact in that area? I would assume that how many different areas would you say there are.

Eddie Wheeler  11:20

So there’s there is like 1100 micro markets, I don’t want that number to scare anybody, because it’s still, right, a bunch of you know, one bigger city can have maybe even different micro markets, and they tend to be pretty close, if they’re in the same city. Really, what you want to do is like maybe just like focus on the big population areas, you know.

Andrew Morgans  11:44

That’s what I was thinking as well would be like, Okay, so let’s say, you know, you get the new app coming out from your partner, where you find a way to track geo ranked for your different keywords. I would assume different products do better in different areas, number one, for sure. Number two, you know, like sunscreen is going to do better in hotter states, right, for example, or different things like that as a silly example. But also it would seem that, okay, the Dallas market, a big market, you know, California, you know, a big state lots of people in some of these states are to be number one, you know, let’s say in Delaware, it’s not going to be as impactful as being number one, and, you know, California. And so if you’re targeting those areas, maybe harder competition to get that keyword ranking than if you’re going after a sub-market and ranking number one, in a smaller area. What are your thoughts on that kind of? Maybe it’s too early to tell because you know, these things haven’t really come into play where people are really, you know, and in a big way across the entire Amazon industry, people going after, like how to improve these ranks. But just thinking in theory, it’s almost like a long-term, longtail keyword versus the short tail. Yeah. And also in the markets.

Eddie Wheeler  12:59

Yeah, I mean, yeah, I think it really depends, like, I think, with, you know, with this app that’s being released, right, it’s really just to get you the data, and then, you know, you’re gonna have to experiment with different ways, right? To you know, what, you know, now you’re gonna, you know, experiment with different strategies. You know, I was on a podcast earlier this morning, where we were already, like formulating other ways to use the data. So it’s really gonna depend on you what your marketing budget is. So like, that might be a sound strategy, right? If you are a smaller Amazon seller, well, maybe it’s easier to go in and dominate the areas like Wilmington, Delaware, and down in South Carolina, maybe it’s easier and less expensive to start ranking there. Were California might be you know, LA and New York might be really expensive. So, you know, and I think it also depends on your product. Right? I don’t want to say that whatever, what, you know, what I just said as absolute facts. Yeah, I think the main point is just like, you know, getting the concept out there that GeoRank exists, and then kind of letting people come up with different strategies using the data, you know.

Andrew Morgans  14:10

Yeah, there’s something else comes to mind. Little bit, a little bit off shoot, but I’m really pulling in, like, kind of this concept of geo rank and thinking of all the things that it affects, right. And one thing that I’ve noticed, I think, Vanessa Hyung. I know they’re a thought leader in the Amazon space. was talking about this, we were discussing, essentially, like in certain areas of warehouses, you know, you can get items that are they’re not necessarily following the protocol at first in, first out, right? And so you get inventory in some warehouses that’s moving slower, because let’s say it’s in Delaware versus, you know, a big city in California. And so you’re starting to get long-term storage fees, or different things like that, because the inventory is not moving. And if you’re aware of this, you could actually like Oh, have been cases with Amazon presented to them that, hey, you need to move this inventory or hey, you should be selling this inventory first. So I’m not getting hit with these fees. And a lot of that can kind of go under the radar. If you’re not, you know, if you’re not very aware of your inventory because the GeoRanking is really an offshoot of the FBA inventory and then wanting to move or not move that inventory. Right. And so while it hasn’t been, how do I ranked number one for these keywords in this areas, instead, it was my inventory is sitting in some of these sub-markets much longer than other areas. And that doesn’t make sense to me. I’m just sending it to the warehouse that they’re telling me to send it. Yeah. And then it’s on Amazon and moving around. So why should I be penalized for the moving a bunch of my inventory to a slower market, right? Yeah. So that’s one of the things that I’ve learned through the years, especially, especially if you’re moving large quantities of inventory, like, you’re a big seller, it’s happening a lot more often than if you’re like a small seller starting to figure out your markets. was super, super interesting stuff. Because I think, I guess to the point of the myth, like there’s no, there’s no myth about it. I 100% believe, and it’s more a matter of like, what data do we have access to? And how do we utilize it? And how do we, you know, force Amazon’s hand in some regards to, you know, to make that happen? There’s so much there’s so much intentionality around how do we rank well for these keywords and to know that it may be your ranking in one market versus you know, the other 1099 is, is a little insane to me?

Eddie Wheeler  16:29

Yeah, yeah. But you know, it’s so again, like, I don’t want that number to scare people, right? Because it’s really, I think, like, if you can kind of just think about it in clusters. Right. So you have court? Yeah, there are 1100 different micro markets. But, you know, there’s, you know, there’s obviously different population clusters that are going to have similar ranks because, you know, they’re all being served by the same warehouse or warehouses, right. And, yeah, so it’s just, it’s just really a matter of like how you want to slice and dice the data, right? You do want to double down because like this, this app, right, we’ll show you there’s different like ways to view the data, there’s a map of the US where little bubbles pop up to show you where you’re ranking for a certain keyword for one product. There’s other ones that show you like the range, right, on a certain day, you know, how, you know, so for example, right, your product could be ranked again two in Miami, but 107 in New York, and it’ll show you that range, right? So it’s like, do you want to focus on the keywords that are ranked 10 to 15? You know, what’s the range and get them all up to, you know, one through five? Do you want to, you know, oh, you’re doing really bad in Texas, do you want to just focus really hard on, you know, getting your rank up in Dallas, Houston, Austin, these types of places? So it’s really you know, how you want to slice and dice the data and, you know, figure it out from there.

Andrew Morgans  17:57

Super interesting stuff. To me, I’m a little bit of a big part nerd. So just understanding like how to leverage it and what to do with it, but really pops into my mind, as I’m not the one having to make the app. So I don’t have to think about that, I’m more into thinking about how I use this software, and how it’s going to be advantageous for, you know, for our customers. I want to, I want to transition just a little bit to some of the myths out there and some of the things like you have, you have a very powerful newsletter. I think we should talk about. Before I do, I’m gonna give a shout out to our sponsor, once again, finding expert software developer doesn’t have to be difficult, especially when you visit FullScale.io where you can build a software team quickly and affordably. Use a Full Scale platform to define your technical needs and see what available developers testers and leaders are ready to join your team. Visit FullScale.io to learn more. So talking about these myths, and your newsletter, you know, starting an SEO and just like really pushing, I’m getting more and more impactful in our Amazon space around SEO. When did geo ranking first come on your radar? Is it something your partner brought up to you that some of you guys stumbled across? Like how did that gig get on your radar?

Eddie Wheeler  19:07

Yeah, so I mean, geo rank itself has actually been around since 2018. Amazon is just more it’s even just getting more and like doubling down on it even more. And there’s several articles out there where Amazon has kind of didn’t they don’t call it geo rank, right? They they call it the you know, they just talking about how they show products to customers, you know, that are, you know, they show the products that are closer to them, right? So that’s what they’re kind of saying about it and how it’s, you know, making their inventory costs and shipping costs more efficient and everything like that. But yeah, it came up with my radar. Yeah, my partner who’s been working on this, this data and this tool for a few years now. He approached me about it because, yeah, he just kind of saw my work with Amazon SEO and listing optimization and just kind of wanted to get my opinion on it and kind of help with getting the word out there about geo rank in general and then about the actual tool. So we’re working with him very closely over the past few months. I have, like you mentioned, a geo rank specific newsletter that I’ve been sending out. And you know, guys, like, I’m, I’m still learning a lot about this myself, right? And I’m sure once the tool is released, people are going to come up with all different ways to use it. So I’m going to be using that that newsletter, you know, to just, you know, bite sized education, about your rank about the tool about how you can use the data. And you know, as more stuff comes in from people, like, hey, like, I use the data like this, right, I’ll get it in my newsletter. So yeah.

Andrew Morgans  20:44

Awesome. How can people you know, sign up for this newsletter, engage with the newsletter, what’s the best spot for them to find you and sign up for that?

Eddie Wheeler  20:52

Yeah. So, you know, perhaps there will be a link on this episode, I’m not sure. But if not, you can go to GuavaListings.com, where we will have a page dedicated to talking about geo rank, and then the signup link will be at the top of that, and also, most likely a pop-up on the website about signing up for the GeoRank Newsletter. And then you can also always email me at Eddie@guavalistings.com, that’s GuavaListings.com. And yet, we’ll get you all sign up for the newsletter. And then, you know, we can always hop on a call about it as well.

Andrew Morgans  21:12

Of course, and we definitely have the links in the show notes in the show bio, just wanted people to know that are listening, like where they can find. I think that’s one of the best ways to digest information. Um, definitely are dissipating quite a few newsletters that I think are just, it’s a great way of getting a bite-sized information and learning more about it as you go. Because even just the way we’ve taken this conversation several directions, I think there’s a lot of ways there’s going to be utilized and things like that. So talk to me about the timeline for the tracking app, where it’s going to come out? What when we should expect to be able to, you know, to see that to use it, to utilize, to sign up?

Eddie Wheeler  22:06

Yeah, so it should be coming out within a few weeks, just still just some bugs that are being worked out by my partner. So you know, it’s early for anyone listening to this at a different time. It’s early are November 2023. So we should have that out within the next few weeks. Hopefully, maybe by the time this podcast is actually released. But I will be you know, I’ll be I’ll be signing, I’ll be like hosting several webinars teaching people how to use the tool, what they can do with the tool, and all that information, you know, the information for those webinars will be sent out via the newsletter as well. So

Andrew Morgans  22:46

That’ll be fantastic. I’m personally excited to use it. I have my own brands as well as like, you know, customers of Marknology that I’m sure would be very interested in this information. So you know, we’ll have to do, I’ll have to do a podcast after the fact after I’ve prepped drive actually simple to software and seeing some of the things that we can do for it and really talk about some of the ways that it’s impacting, you know, our businesses, currently. Talk to me, I mean, just as, as we round out, you know, as we round out the show, you probably know this better than me, but what are because I obviously I definitely believe in geo rank. I think it can be affected all these things, even though I haven’t necessarily tested them out. I’ve played with them on the FBA inventory side or open cases with Amazon to get reimbursement, things like that. Talk to me about maybe just one or two of some of the most common myths that you’re you’re getting pushback from as you’re as you’re bringing this to market.

Eddie Wheeler  23:39

Yeah, so one of the common ones is that GeoRank normalizes over time, and that like, you know, after a few months, or even like a year of selling a product that your rank normalizes, which is just is completely, you know, untrue. So one of the case studies that we have, my partner took a look at, you know, really, really like, you know, it’s a really well-known brand, Clean and Clear, but he showed that even you know, over two week period, right, there was one of the main keywords acne treatment, right, for this product, there was a range of ranks from like, six to 107. Right. So, you know, in that this product has been on the market for ten years. It sells 7000 units a month, right? So if there’s any product that was going to normalize rank, it would be something that’s been on Amazon for ten years, has 1000s of reviews, has, you know, selling 7000 a month, but it’s still, you know, even for one of its main keywords, right, there’s some keywords that it does well across the country short, but one of its main ones acne treatment. It’s not doing well at all, not at least not all across the country. Right? So, there is really there is no normalization of georank. You have to, you know, go in and, you know, kick butt and all the areas of the different country of the country separately to have any quote, unquote, normalization.

Andrew Morgans  25:03

I can see people, you know, thinking that that would happen and saying that they want to know why Amazon would do something like that. And for me, it’s pretty clear. I’m sure they have a database of keywords across their catalog and a monetary value attached to those, like, what type of revenue comes into Amazon through those keywords. And let’s say it’s acne treatment. And that product is out of stock in that area. Well, it says showing customers and out-of-stock profit products on a major keyword that drives sales for them. They’re just gonna replace other products and give them another chance, to be seen. And so if you can understand and think like Amazon, and what’s best for them, and what’s best for the customer experience in some regards because you might be like, well, the best customer experience is for them to see my product because it’s the best product. Well, unless you’re out of stock, and then that’s a bad experience. Right? And so maybe that a sock is not your problem, maybe that’s Amazon’s problem. But when you come full circle with it, to me, it makes a lot of sense. Once one other myth, as we round out that you’re hearing a lot of pushback from?

Eddie Wheeler  26:06

Yeah, that seller can’t affect their GeoRank, right, which, you know, again, like you’ll be brought up earlier in the podcast, if you just if drive demand in that area, Amazon will start sending more inventory to that area. And therefore, you, over time, we’re going to start ranking higher across all your keywords, right, because now you’re, you know, you’re closer, again, like, say Dallas, right, and let’s say there wasn’t that much inventory at Dallas at one point. But now your whatever, whatever method works for you, whatever method of your choice to direct drive demand in that area, you will start to see a, you know, your rank goes up there.

Andrew Morgans  26:49

I’m gonna have a lot of fun, you know, testing these, these, these things out and really watching, you know, watching the needle move. I’ve done so many things through the years where we’re watching, you know, ranking change. And that’s been with the tool that’s probably giving us one ranking. And it’s probably why the tools vary so much from tool to tool in regard to the keyword, the keyword ranking, or the keyword search volume, especially if it’s, you know, if it’s able to pull in, it’s changing dynamically. And it’s not the same from location to location, or whatever the data is, you know, all the same across the board. So, it’s super, super interesting to me. Eddie, thanks for coming back on the show and sharing what you guys are doing there, with Guava Listings and with Amazon GeoRank. It’s been absolutely informative. And I’m excited to see see the finished product when it’s available.

Eddie Wheeler  27:43

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me again.

Andrew Morgans  27:46

Awesome. Thank you, Hustlers and thanks again to our sponsor FullScale.io. They have the people in the platform to help you build and manage a team of experts. If you’re looking for to hire software engineers, testers, or leaders, FullScale.io is the place to be. All you need to do is answer a few questions about the plan format you have with fully vetted a highly experienced team of software engineers, testers, and leaders. At Full Scale, they specialize in building long-term teams that work only for you. Learn more when you visit FullScale.io. Thank you, Eddie. Thank you, Hustlers. We’ll see you next time.