How to find what buyers search for in a language you do not speak

Why the dictionary is the wrong place to start

A translation gives you the correct word. A shopper types the usual one, and the two are often different.

Every language has words that are right and rarely searched. German has a perfectly good word for a mobile phone, Mobiltelefon, and Germans say Handy. Japanese has a native word for a scale, はかり, and a kitchen scale is usually sold as キッチンスケール. Spain says zumo for juice, and Mexico says jugo. A translator or a translation engine working carefully produces the first word in each pair, because it is the dictionary's word. The search box shows what that costs.

Out of ten requested, read from each store's search box on 28 October 2026.

One suggestion back is the search box telling you it has almost nothing to complete that phrase with. That is the signal this whole method rests on, and it costs nothing to read.

The method Amazon recommends

Amazon Japan's seller guide puts keyword research first among its seven steps, and the method it describes is free.

Amazon's US seller blog says the same from the other end: do your own keyword research, or use Brand Analytics, whose Search Query Performance and Top Search Terms dashboards show what customers search for. The rest of this page is those three sources, the search box, the competition and Brand Analytics, used in a language you cannot read.

Step by step

For one product in one store. Repeat per store: the research does not travel between them, even between two stores that share a language.

1. 1Find a starting word on the store itselfOpen the store's own site and browse to your product's category. The category names and the Best Sellers list in that category are written in the store's language, by and for its shoppers, and Amazon's own expansion pages point sellers to each store's Best Sellers lists to see what is popular there. Copy the noun the bestsellers share. That is your head term, and it did not come from a dictionary.
2. 2Type it into that store's search boxOn that store's domain, type the head term slowly and record every phrase the dropdown offers. Then type the term followed by a space and record again, and again with the first letter of each attribute you care about. The phrases that come back are the long tail: size, capacity, material, use, compatible models.
3. 3Translate the suggestions, not your listingNow use a translation engine, in the safe direction: to understand what shoppers typed. "küchenwaage aufladbar" is "rechargeable kitchen scale". You are reading evidence, and a translation is good at that.
4. 4Read the titles that rankSearch the head term and read the titles of the first page of results. The nouns and attributes that most of them share are the vocabulary of that category in that store. Note which attributes lead, because that is the order shoppers there expect.
5. 5Check Brand Analytics if you have itIf your brand is enrolled in Brand Registry and you are its Brand Representative, Top Search Terms shows the searches themselves with the top three products, categories and brands for each, and Search Query Performance shows the queries that find your brand. It is the one source here that comes with Amazon's own numbers.
6. 6Place each phrase in the field it belongs inThe head term and the one or two attributes most suggested go in the title, at the front, within 75 characters. Attributes that need a sentence go in the bullets. Variants, synonyms and second spellings go in the backend search terms, measured in bytes, with no word repeated from the title. The free listing checker measures all of it.

One product, five stores

A digital kitchen scale, researched the way the steps describe. Each store's head term, and some of what its search box suggested.

Read from each store's search box on 28 October 2026.

Three things are visible in that table without reading a word of any of the languages. Precision to a tenth of a gram appears in Japan, Germany and France. Rechargeable appears in Germany, France, Spain and Mexico. And brand names appear in every store's list: タニタ (Tanita) in Japan, WMF in Germany, Tefal in France, Cecotec in Spain and KitchenAid in Mexico. The concept a shopper adds is often the same across stores. The word for it never is, and the number is written differently too: 0.1g in Japan, 0 1g in Germany, where the search box drops the comma, and 0,1 g in France.

The traps

Each of these produces a keyword list that looks finished.

• Researching on the wrong storeSuggestions come from the store whose search box you typed into. A German word on amazon.fr brought back two suggestions; the French phrase brought back ten. Research for amazon.fr happens on amazon.fr.
• Treating two stores with one language as oneamazon.com.mx and amazon.es share Spanish and disagree on the words for a phone, a computer and a juicer, and on what a playera is. Mexico versus Spain works through it word by word.
• Reading position as volumeAmazon does not say how it orders the dropdown. A phrase appearing is evidence that people type it. Which of two phrases is searched more is a question for Brand Analytics, not for the order of a list.
• Missing the second spellingJapanese writes one word in kanji, hiragana and katakana; German shoppers type kuechenwaage for küchenwaage. Amazon Japan tells sellers to register the spelling variants. Selling on amazon.co.jp shows the four spellings of はかり.
• Forgetting that the budget is bytesA keyword list built in a language with accents or a non-Latin script fills the search terms field faster than its character count suggests: two bytes for é or ü, three for every Japanese character. Search terms are measured in bytes.

Where you still need someone who reads the language

The method finds the words. It does not tell you whether the sentence around them sounds right.

Search suggestions are phrases, not prose. The title can be built almost entirely from them; the bullets and description cannot, because a bullet is a sentence and a sentence has a register. Before a listing goes live, someone who reads the language should read it once, start to finish, for the things no search box shows: a formal and informal "you" mixed together, a unit written the foreign way, a word that is right in the dictionary and odd in a shop. How to translate an Amazon listing covers that check as part of the whole job.

How Utlista does the research

Briefly, because the method above is free and works without us.

Utlista runs steps one and two for every product in every store you choose. It proposes a head term in the target language from your existing listing, reads what that store's own search box suggests for it, and writes the title, bullets, description and search terms from those phrases rather than from a translation of your copy. The keyword evidence is Amazon's, from the store the listing is for, and every field is measured against its limit before it can enter the upload file.

Where this comes from

So you can check it rather than take our word for it.

The recommended method is quoted from Amazon Japan's public seller page "Amazon SEO対策" on sell.amazon.co.jp, read on 2026-10-28; the English is our translation. The Brand Analytics access rules and dashboard descriptions are from Amazon's Brand Analytics page on sell.amazon.com, and the advice to use Best Sellers lists and Brand Analytics from Amazon's Global Selling pages and seller blog, all read the same day.

Every suggestion on this page was read from the completion service behind each store's search field on 2026-10-28, with that store's own marketplace id. You will see different suggestions on a different day; the method does not change. The marketplace pages list the language and marketplace id of every store.

Short answers

The questions sellers search for about keyword research in another language.

How do I do Amazon keyword research in a language I do not speak?

Start from the store, not from a dictionary. Find the word that store uses for your product in its own category names and best seller lists, type it into that store's search box and record the phrases its dropdown suggests, then read the titles of the products ranking for it. Amazon Japan recommends the core of it: use the search box suggestions and compare the keywords competitors use.

Can I use Google Translate for Amazon keywords?

To understand a keyword, yes. To choose one, no. A translation engine returns the correct word, and the correct word is often not the searched one: on amazon.de "mobiltelefon hülle" brought back two search suggestions and "handyhülle" ten. Use translation to read what the search box suggests, never to produce the list.

Who can use Amazon Brand Analytics?

Amazon says you need a Professional selling account and must be a Brand Representative for a brand enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry. Its Top Search Terms dashboard lists the keywords customers search with and the top three products, categories and brands for each, and Search Query Performance shows the queries customers use to find your own brand.

Are Amazon search suggestions ordered by search volume?

Amazon does not publish how it orders or selects the suggestions under its search box. Treat them as evidence that shoppers type a phrase, not as a volume ranking, and use Brand Analytics where you have it for real query volume.