This is it guys, the only thing you will ever have to read to maximize how you make money with the Amazon Associates program. This article is going to be a whopper and probably the longest thing you have ever read on the Internet. Even longer than Grizzly on a good day. It is going to cover all the main aspects of learning how to use Amazon to make money through the art of creating great looking blogs using wordpress, although it applies just as much to static sites and many of the tips are just as suited to using any other affiliate program, if not even more so.
This is going to be far more involved than any of the stupid e-books you may have been suckered in to buying. They cost $40 or so. I am giving this info for free. But, if you like what you read then why not use the link and send me a dollar or 5? That’s fair isn’t it? Leave a comment telling everyone how kind you are, and how you made me rich 
Seriously though if everyone who likes this sends me a few dollars I may even get up to earning the price you paid for a single ebook.
Bet you tight folks don’t bother though, geez.
But wait, there is a free option. We all buy from Amazon right? So:
I love to shop via Dave’s Amazon link
Let’s get to it then shall we?
A Guide To Make Money With Affiliate Programs (Special Emphasis On Amazon)
Before we even begin to get in to this I want to make one thing blindingly clear, this took a lot of my time, an awful lot. This site is here to help people make the most from affiliate marketing and to avoid the mistakes I made which led to my first six months in this game being made up mostly of following the totally wrong direction and reading loads of crap advice from so called Gurus.
Step forward to the present day and I , along with my partner in crime and beloved lady make a very good living writing blogs that make affiliate sales. Amazon is not our biggest earner by any stretch but we regularly get a check every month that is more than most people wages. We have had an $8000 check and that is our biggest so far but every month we get a suitable amount of money. Other affiliate programs can bring us in an extra $9000 a month so we are doing something right.
I do not claim t have all the answers though. I am still what many Internet Marketers would call a “noob”. I did not even know what a blog was back in September 2008, but dire financial circumstances sent me looking for a way to make money on the Internet. I learned the hard way with lots of mistakes and wrong turns so this blog is here to help and is not what anyone should be writing if they want to maximize how much they earn on the world wide web.
So, if you find this post useful and do not have a dollar spare for my donate button then please see below
DAVE’s AMAZON AFFILIATE LINK
if and when you decide to buy something from Amazon. It is a small request and a fair one if I help you to earn more money, and I can pretty much guarantee that I will.
Okay, enough messing about, let’s get on with it:
How To Earn With The Amazon Affiliate Program
I will get in to all manner of tips and tricks as well as talk you through the basics of setting up links etc in a moment but first a reality check.
If you don’t get the traffic you will get nowhere. You need traffic and you need plenty of it. And I am not talking about friends or Twitter followers, they won’t be buying from your links. You need search engine traffic and you need it for terms that people who are typing them in are people who want to buy the item.
To that end we need to clear up some very basic problems first and foremost.
We need to have the right content on our sites so that we attract the right visitors to our blogs. I will explain all this soon. But the bottom line is that if you do not get the right traffic you are not going to get sales. Now, let’s look at one of the very important factors when we want to earn money with Amazon:
How To Set Up A Site So That People Will Buy
You may not think that the way a site looks is important but it is. And from my testing the nearer we can get a site to look like it is a store the more we will sell. Not always true but in most cases. This is because we are going to be writing blogs about products. Our blogs are going to be about a certain set of products and people who come to our sites via a search engine are looking to buy an item.
To that end we need to give them what they expect. This is true for all affiliate sales. This may sound counter-intuitive but the reality is that we do not want our actual blog posts to be the most prominent feature. Unless we are very convincing about telling people why they need to buy something to solve a problem, and this is hard to do well.
We want the products to be the most prominent thing. We want to attract visitors that are looking to buy a product and they expect to see a store. I cannot write about setting up e-commerce stores as I have never done so, I use wordpress blogs so that is what I am writing about. I find them very easy to use and getting keyword specific content on them is very easy. They are easy to change if we feel that a post is not optimized and there are countless other reasons why I use them, along with millions of other people. But mainly I am illiterate when it comes to technology and my brain will fry tying to do anything complicated. Hey, I am artistic not computer savvy;)
So, let’s get down to the way we need to make our site look.
Design
This is important. We do not want to put people off when they arrive. We need to give our visitors what they expect to see. That is a review if they are looking for reviews, more information about a product, or simply the best price.
Either way we want our site to look professional.
I am not going to tell you what wordpress theme converts the best, it will just end with copycat sites. But here are the best ways to pick a good free theme.
- A nice wide theme works best as we want the layout to be spacious
- Simple yet with a hint of color. Too bland and it will put people off
- Sidebars that are not too narrow
- A small header so that we can get our affiliate links above the fold (that means the visitors see them without scrolling down)
Pretty basic stuff but often overlooked.
Just get a nice looking theme that is colorful without being too over the top, unless you are selling items that fit in to that category. The best thing to do is once you have your topic and products look in the search engines to see what sites are selling the product and see what kind of layouts they have. You can then find a wordpress theme that is similar to the top search results.
How To Layout A Blog To Make Sales
Firstly, take bloody adsense off it. I have lost count of the number of sites I have seen that have adsense next to a product link for Amazon. Keep it all just about Amazon.
Now, what I am about to tell you is how to totally optimize a site for an affiliate program, not just Amazon. You will see much better conversion rates (the number of people who click a link and buy), your site will look professional, and you will be supplying your visitors with the information that they were looking for.
Here is what we should do to make a site to best please our visitors and to make sales.
Firstly we will have the name of our site at the top. This is usually our domain name but if you find the domain name does not actually get many visitors for that term then change the site name of your blog. This works within a few days and I have done it lots. Change the site name and you will begin to rank for that term.
Then we want a site description. Keep it fairly brief but describe in a sentence what visitors can expect. Use as many of your best keywords in the site description to further tell the search engines exactly what your site is about and to improve the overall authority for the site.
Now comes the important part: the layout.
This works best for nearly all sites where we are focusing on products in one area.
Rather than just having a blog post as the first hing that we see we should have a series of links that go straight to Amazon for the products. If you are about selling products then don’t try to hide that. You want people to find what they are looking for. People will be coming to your site because they want to buy something so make it look shop like, not like you have some dodge pot blog where you pontificate about nonsense.
Let’s say we are selling belts. Our site is about belts and we will be writing about cheap belts, lots of other general terms as well as individual belts and brands of belts.
At the top of our blog we will want a little bit of text, something along the lines of
Our Best Selling Belts
Have it a different color so it is interesting.
Then below that we will have a series of links. If it suits the site, or there are limited categories have 4 or so images centered that are links to the categories on Amazon. Below that we will have text links that also link to the same results on Amazon. Kind of like this:
Our Best Selling Belts
Please feel free to browse the various ranges below
··Cheap Men’s Belts··Cheap Women’s Belts··Bestsellers··
Browse The Full Range Of Cheap Belts For Sale HERE
All orders are process via Amazon for the best possible customer service
See the latest additions below:
And now we have our blog posts.
Note the use of suitable colors and text leading to our blog posts. People want a quick way to look at prices for items and they do not really expect to just see some weirdo who has a site where all they do is talk about belts. It’s weird. Sorry if you do have a belt fetish by the way, no offence intended, I like shiny stones myself. If you are simply going straight to your blog post that talks crap about belts and is plastered with Amazon links then you could do better with a better layout.
But how do I do all that with a wordpress blog?
Well, I just did it didn’t I.
Lay it all out nicely by using the way you normally write a blog post. Change the colors for some text, center stuff, add images etc etc. Get it all looking nice then simply copy the text from the html side. Next go to the Edit option in themes and paste the code before the text that is usually something like “if have posts the post” in the index template AND the single post template. It will then look the same site-wide and will do nothing but enhance the look of your site.
Just ensure that you save the code in the theme first in case you do something wrong.
You really will make the site look so much more professional and also provide quick and easy ways for people to buy. This is not suitable for all types of sites. For very broad topics that you will simply be writing a large number of varied item posts you may just be better with a text link and a little other text going to the full range of………….
You get the picture. Think a little bit more creatively and you will be inspired to continue as you make sales. And if it does not improve sales then it will certainly not lose you any and you may just get better conversion rates as well.
Next step and this is very important as sites age.
Get direct links on the sidebars.
After a certain period of time, usually six months plus, and with plenty of content and backlinks, you can rank your homepage for any text on the page. This is why for any affiliate sites it is important to get a series of various keywords on the site. Use the text widget and for the title put keywords. We would have a series of widgets all with various terms like cheap womens belts, kids belts for sale etc. Then direct links to the Amazon category pasted in to the text widget.
This allows our visitors to easily find what they were looking for and if they come for a term that is somewhere on the site they can easily find what they were looking for.
And you also want to have a section for separate brands and also by price etc. Adding a section where you have belts under $10, cheap belts under $20 etc will give an older site traffic for those keywords without you ever even trying to get backlinks for them. It takes time but you will get that traffic. And what better visitor is there than someone who is coming to your site for a real buying keyword?
The posts themselves………
For the posts themselves you will have to find what works best. Sometimes it is simply the post title then a big centred image and a buy link below that. Make sure the image is also a link to the product on Amazon. For some topics you do not want to be as bold. If it were for belts I would maybe have a line or two of text then a moderate image and link and then the rest of the blog post.
You do need to perform your own experimenting to see what will work best.
In terms of site layout that is about it. Don’t simply copy these ideas, be resourceful. See what will work best.
Maybe having an image of a credit card will give visitors peace of mind that they are buying from a legitimate site. Maybe a best price logo, maybe a satisfied customer review. Think outside the box a little and do not be a slave to traditional blog layouts. People want to feel that you are a legitimate site, which you should be, and not some nutter with a weird looking website that seems to just bang on about how great belts are. That is odd as we all know but it is what we do to earn a living. Well, I do anyway, just not about belts, although I bet one of you reading this goes for belts of some sort.
Now before we get any further along in making money with the Amazon affiliate program let’s take a look at the best domain names to buy. All just in my humble opinion by the way.
What Kind Of Domain Name To Buy
In all honesty I would not get to bogged down in this. If you have a main keyword term that you can buy a domain name for then get it. Use Webhostingpad to host the site on. If you already have hosting then get e new account as well. You want to host sites from different places as they have a different IP address. This means that you can then use existing sites to link to your new one and improve its rankings. See the banner on the sidebar to get cheap hosting.
Pick a main keyword and buy the domain. Something general about the topic the site will be about. But you may find that once you actually rank for it that it does not bring in traffic or make you sales. It is then that you can simply change the name of the blog in your wordpress dashboard under the general settings tab. This then tells the search engines what your store is now about and you can rank for that term instead, but as we are going for different keywords in every post we will put more effort in to getting those post high in the search engines rather than worrying about the main domain name term unduly, although we do still want to rank for that as well as it may well be a great earner too.
How To Find Something To Sell On An Amazon Affiliate Blog
Many people really struggle with what to make a blog about. The reality is that there are countless ideas all around you as well as online.
If you can write about something that interests you then all the better, but the reality is that you probably will not have that luxury. Hey, this is a job and it can’t all be perfect. If you think you can make money writing about socks then so be it. It beats going out to work so just suck it up and get on with it.
Use Amazon to find products
Go on to Amazon and browse around the various categories. See what is selling well. There are many ways to use Amazon to find products to sell and the same applies to other affiliate programs. Most will have a bestsellers list. On the Amazon homepage on the left hand side is a link to the bestsellers. You can use that link to see what is popular, although obviously this means more competition. But don’t be afraid of going for something competitive. My good lady goes for often very competitive terms and does very well.
She sets up blogs and also uses hubpages to write a post and can rank very well using them. There is money to be made with competitive terms so don’t always be too conservative.
Use the bestsellers link and also the movers and shakers link. Look at bestsellers in various categories and pick one. Then do some keyword research and get going.
And don’t forget that you can get ideas by simply typing stuff in to the Amazon search box. It brings up a list of what others have been typing in. This is invaluable. The same applies on google. Type terms related to something and a drop down list appears, investigate these terms and also look at the other results that are at the bottom of the page. Write about all these terms for your keywords, some will be real winners.
Let’s say we are going to be doing a blog about belts. Just by typing that in to the Amazon search bar we have belts, belts for men, belts for women, belts for belt buckles, belts women fashion, belts for teens…….
I assume you get the idea. We can write articles using all of those keywords and try to get ranking highly in the search engines for them. We can also go through all the top selling belts and write posts using the specific name and make of the belt. We are making an UBER site that is going to be the best resource online for our chosen topic.
I have success with large general sites and with smaller more focused sites. To be honest there are a number of different approaches and I would say get a mix of both. The keywords you select will depend on the size of the niche and you may well find some good general keywords with low competition. Use Wordtracker to look at keywords as well as the adwords tool.
Long term there is more scope for earnings with large sites that have a lot pf products but it takes more work to rank each post as the post titles will not reflect the main term for the site. The belt buckles is actually a very good idea for a site as each post you write about will have the word belts in it. This gives the site a real overall authority for the word belts and in time you will rank highly just by putting up a post that has belts in the title. Think ahead, how much do you think you would earn if in two or three years you were the top result for anything to do with belts? More than a dollar I would bet. As a site ages it gains authority and ranks high naturally for anything written on it. As long as early on you get backlinks to rank you will have to do less as it ages. And when you have the number one belt site in the world you will make lots of money I would think.
But there are plenty of other topics where the individual post title will not have the main term in them. Let’s say we are going to go for “cheap beauty products” as our site name. We can’t very well write posts with the title “Cheap Beauty Products L’Oreal skin replenishing cream” now can we? We can’t keep putting the site name in posts for all products like that as we lose the benefit of more buy keywords for our product. “Cheap L’Oreal skin replenishing cream for sale” would get us more traffic as no one would type cheap beauty products before the term so it is superfluous. But long term it would pay to go for individual product keywords across a broad category and to also write posts about the general cheap beauty products term as well. Mix it up. Use every buying keyword imaginable. Who sells, price compare, best price, where to buy etc. People type them all in and more.
A splattering of general terms in the site description and on the sidebars will see us ranking for those terms in time naturally. But for a smaller niche you can always go for cheap skin cream and then every post you do will be about so and so skin cream cheap and discount so and so skin cream and even cheap skin cream Amazon. Yes, lots of people go to a search engine and type in Amazon and keywords. This is what you have to get in to your mind, just how people use a search engine. They use it like a Q and A. They ask Google where to buy, who sells, price compare, where can I buy, who sells the cheapest, price comparisons for, and the list goes on.
If you are sensible you will jot down all the buy words for a topic or product and over time you will cover them all on your site. Whether every post title you wrote is done via keyword research is up to you but the time taken for that research can often mean you have written a long tail post title that will attract small traffic.
Just something to think about, I ain’t your Daddy and there are many ways to go about getting content online. I prefer to just write some keyword posts about a product and get on with it. I will simply try to rank my posts no matter what competition there is. If you go for hard and easy keywords you get good authority for a site. It is not just a site that goes for the low hanging fruit, the better quality fruit is higher up and harder to reach but it tastes better financially, but you need a strong ladder and a good mind set.
That got a bit fruity didn’t it.
But seriously, go for some tough keywords that tools tell you that are too hard to win for. Sometimes you will be surprised how well you can actually rank for them.
How To Make A Blog That Makes Money
We are using Amazon but this applies to other affiliate programs too. Try not to get too keyword specific for a site. Sure, go for the main term but try to think ahead and try to think of building a series of large sites as well as small ones. You need to mix it up and have various styles of sites.
Have some small blogs with 10 or 20 posts on them where you may be focusing on a small sub niche of belts. May be we do have a belts for teens blog. That should do well. But try to think BIG.
Go for cheap belts too. Begin to have a blog that will rank for everything to do with belts. Write posts that use general terms such as cheap womens belts and also for every top selling belt on Amazon. As we progress we will discover that many of our blogs posts get little traffic even if they rank well. But other terms we have written about will be very popular and will get us lots of sales.
We need the content to uncover the gems
If you get lazy, do not make a comprehensive site then you are missing out. Aim to be the biggest and the best for your chosen subject. Write about everything on the topic that may be for someone wishing to buy. Think big and think long term. If you have a few hundred posts covering many subsets of your niche do you really think you will make no money in a years time? Of course you will. But you need to get busy, very busy indeed. And the on site content is only the beginning of how to make money with Amazon.
There is so much more dear reader and this is where many people simply give up and never learn how to make money from the Internet. But first we really need to know how to write our posts so that we will make money from them if they rank well in the search engines.
How To Write Content To Attract Visitors
There is nothing more important than the post title. If you are going to make money from blogging the post title is the most important factor. Search engines use it as the anchor for what your post is about and it is what is most important in terms of where the post will end up in search engine results.
We need to remember how people use search engines and what they type must be what we type. If I am looking for cheap pink belts then that is what I will type in to Google. The top results will all either contain those words in the post title or they will be very well respected and old sites that can rank without using the term. We do not have that luxury. Maybe in a year or two your belts site will rank for terms without them being in the post title, but to try to compete with the competition we must use keyword specific post titles.
What you want traffic for you must use in the post title. This is very important. And it must be exact. You will be doing this a lot so get it right. Use the right terms to get the traffic. If you want to rank for cheap pink belts then that should be the title of your post. Do not assume that because your site is about belts you can simply write a post title that says pink or any term that assumes people know what your site is about.
Don’t try to be clever with your post titles either. If you want to get traffic from visitors that actually want to buy something then don’t go banging on about leather or fake leather belts who is right? unless you know that post title will make a sale. You want to use all the buying words in your post titles.
So many people overlook this and it is the most important thing. As your site grows you will have a larger and larger collection of words that people have used to come to your site. Most will be for the post title terms. Only with an older site will you get traffic for terms that are contained in the posts on a much more regular basis so if we want results as quickly as possible then we must start out on the right foot.
If this does not appeal to you then you need to find something else to do to make money. It is how it works at the moment. So now let’s look at just what words we should use to get our visitors.
How To Write Buyer Specific Post Titles
We have kind of covered this briefly already. The way you go about it is entirely up to you. Many will not write a thing without checking with a keyword tool, evaluating the competition in quotes and seeing if it is obtainable easily. I have pretty much given up on all but very rudimentary keyword research. Sure, I do check out main terms to see if I can rank for them,, and pick a site name that will get good traffic. But for post titles I no longer bother. I simply write around my topic using buying keywords.
We want to write a post title that does not encourage people to buy but is a post title that is for a buyer already. We want our visitors to come to us as they are looking to buy and want some help finding where they can get it. We are not trying to convince unless we write a review site and even then they are basically a buyer looking for confirmation. For a reviews site just simply write about items that have good reviews and conform this and send the visitor to the appropriate link.
Reviews site are very good ideas and you can make them for many affiliate products.
But buy keywords also offer a lot of scope, if not more. You need to go through every buy word for your general terms and for specific post titles you want a few buy keywords in the title. In time you will be able to look at your stats and pick up more and more buying keywords on a daily basis. Then use them to write a post title and link it to the post the search results brought up and link that post to the new one.
Over time you will find that your site has an amazing number of double listings and this is when you really begin to see a very good return for your site. There is a real beauty to this as the keyword research is from your own site and you know it brings traffic. You will be pretty amazed at what some people type in, just go with it. This is why getting your content up and lots of it is so important. You then have your very own, topic specific keyword research tool, i.e your stats. There is no argument about whether or not it brings traffic as you have had it. If you look at your stats regularly and see how many visitors came for a keyword then see how high you are in the search engines for that terms you know whether or not to pursue it or not.
But for me, if I get a visitor or two a day for a term and I have not already got a post with that title I will write one. How long does a post take to write? Not very long if you are doing it right. This really enforces your site and makes you the authority you should be.
So, buyer specific keyword post titles.
It is not difficult, I have gone through it quite a few times already in this post. Just think about what someone would type in if they wanted to buy something cheaply. Obviously for a single item you will not get them all in there, and the main actual product is what more people will type in than anything else. And this is always the goal, to rank for Calvin Klein belts, not best price Calvin Klein belts. And you can’t put too many buy words in a post title.Just pick some and see how they go. After a few other posts you can always go back and wrote a new post with different terms and also link to the other post for the main Calvin Klein belts terms.
This internal linking structure is very important and will improve your rankings overall in time.
Try to not look like and idiot
We have seen many spammy sites taken down recently and we need to be sensible. Get good quality on your site.
Don’t write posts one after the other like:
Best Way To Make Money With Amazon
Make money with amazon best way
Make money with amazon tips.
Tips to make money with amazon
It looks spammy.
But interspersed with other topics and over time getting all your posts like that is much more natural and is more how it should be.
Just make sure to use some buying terms and also go for the main term itself. And don’t forget that if you think a different buying term works better you can either add it to the post title or write a new post to cover it. We just can’t ever cover all of them straight away but in time we can and this should be the goal unless it is a very focused and smaller niche topic.
How To Make A Blog Post That Makes Sales
The layout of a blog post will depend on the market you are trying to attract and what their expectations are. If it is for kids stuff like toys or for funky mobile phone covers then big bright and bold may well be the best way.
This would mean something like the post title then a big image in the center below the title. This image will link to Amazon and below that there will be a text link with some appropriate terms. It may be as simple as BUY NOW, or it may be “Read more customer reviews HERE“, or something along those lines.
Just experiment to see what looks best.
For more sedate items like our belts example then an image that you align to the left and a buy link beneath it may be best, or put it in a div wrap. Whatever looks right and appropriate to the topic.
You may also need to include a “Browse the full range” link as well, it will depend on whether the keywords of the post title are specific to a product or are more general terms like “cheap belts” or “cheap leather belts”. Those terms would do best with an image of a belt and a link to the search results on Amazon.
We will get on to how to get the links shortly.
The actual content of the post should be as long as is needed to cover the post title. But it should not be too short. Use 300 plus words and if it needs lots more then give it lots more. Try to naturally get the post title in the first paragraph and lots of other terms about the item. But don’t force it or try to be clever. Just write what needs to be written about you post title.
Forget keyword density, related semantics etc. Just be natural. If the keyword appears ten times then so be it. If it appears once then cool.
I AM NOT A ROBOT
and neither are you. So many people bang on about keyword density etc etc, we are simply writing to help out our visitors. If you write a post about the best leather belts under $10 then simply write about what you think they are. Provide helpful links to them on Amazon with easy to click links for them to take a look or read reviews. Same goes for any other affiliate program. We are being genuine here and simply providing what people are looking for, there is no deception, we are simply a middle man for a products.
Just be helpful and talk about the product or give your reviews if you have one.
And for God’s sake don’t go filling the post with widgets and all that stuff that is so tempting, keep it sedate and make a decent site you are proud of to look at and with the information that you provide. You want to be a help.
If people are looking for cheap womens belts then that is what they want. Write a post talking about what the best ones are and where to by them, that is all that an online store does and you are being more helpful by telling them where to buy them. In most cases Amazon really does have the best prices for almost everything and if you know that they do then tell your visitors. Now, I touched on the widgets that Amazon have and many other affiliate programs too. Let’s see how to use Amazon widgets properly:
How To Use Amazon Widgets
Don’t bother. Seriously, I have tried them all. Those slide-shows, the scrolling ones, astores etc etc. By the time the widget has loaded most visitors will have already gone. They are annoying for people, they load slowly and they are not the best way to get people to click on an item.
This applies to any affiliate program. Don’t get all clever and flashy. What proper online store have you gone to where they have scrolling images and weird widgets? They don’t. They have links to the products with a price maybe and an image. You should do the same. If “I am so clever, look at my shiny widget that fades in and out” type designs worked well don’t you think all the online stores would use them? Of course they would. Keep it simple.
Have a nice layout where people come to the site and the first thing they see is what looks like a store. With a few small images and some links to either popular products if it is suitable, a list of the products available, or a browse the full range link. Then below the fold the blog post. Or maybe the blog post will begin above the fold, it really depends on what works best for your product niche.
Just ditch the clever oh so shiny widgets. Make a site that looks like it is professional.
You want to look like a store or a proper reviews site. This means no shiny gadgets. They simply will not add anything to your site and will not be the best way to make sales.
How To Make Amazon Links For A Blog
It is very easy to make links from Amazon and all other affiliate programs, they normally supply them for you and you just paste the code to the html side of your blog. Here is how we get an Amazon link. Both text and image links, which often cause some confusion for people as it is a little fuzzy around the edges.
It can be a little confusing using the Amazon links so let’s go through them in turn.
How To Get Text Links From Amazon
Text links are the easiest ones to do and offer the least problems. We need to be signed in to our associates account first.
Then we go to the main Amazon site.
Then we go to the page we want to link to. It could be a search results page or a specific item. The boxes that will show up will vary depending on if we are on a specific product page or a search result. It is always best to link to a specific product and a general search result if you can and allow people to easily navigate to the full product range as well as a specific product.
Let’s say I want to put a Browse the full range link on mys site or in a post. I would go to Amazon and simply type in um…. let’s say Affiliate Marketing. I type that in and then select the books section. Now at the top left of the page I select “link to this page”.
All very simple.
The HTML code box now appears. I would select my tracking ID, which you should add for each site so you can keep track of which site makes money.
I then type in what text I want to show in the “name your link” section. I would then copy this code and then in the HTML side of your blog post editor you click paste. And you get this: Browse the full range of Affiliate Marketing books HERE
But you can then jazz it up and make it look different. Bigger text, centered, or whatever. I prefer this quite often:
Browse the full range of Affiliate Marketing books HERE
Which is done by simply highlighting the text and clicking bold and center.
So, that is all very straightforward. It is the image links that cause people problems usually. I am only going to cover text and image links as I really think that you should not use anything else. They look cheap, they don’t convert well, trust me I have tried many, and they load so slowly that your visitors may well be gone from your site before they even see the shiny widget anyway.
How To Add Amazon Image Links
We can actually do this in a number of ways. We can use our own images or those served by Amazon. The process is fairly similar. So, lets say that I want to sell a book in a post, or on the main page of the site or in a sidebar, wherever. I first need the image to link to. Once we have an image we like we will save it to our computer. We then want to have it in our media library on our blog.
So, I will use an Amazon image. I will navigate to the specific product on Amazon. Then click on “link to this page” on the top left. Now my options will come up for creating a link. First I will click the “image only” option, then right click the image and select “save as”. Then I will give it a name I can find on my computer and save it.
Next I want it in my media library on my blog. If you are writing content it may well be worth opening up a new window and having your site open twice so you can do this easier, Go to Media and click add new below where it says Media on your dashboard. Use select files and navigate to the image on your computer and click on the image and then on open. It is now on your blogs media library. Scroll down to where it gives the file URL.
You want to copy this location.
Now, we go back to the Amazon link box. We have already selected an image only link. In the code you see there will be a section that says src=”" in between the “” will be some numbers followed by a.jpg. We want to insert our image url over what is in the “”. So, simply paste the image location url there instead of what is there. Then highlight the whole code and paste it on to your blog post like this:
We can then center the image, put text below it or whatever. What you may find is that you want it wrapped around text on your post or above the text ow whatever.
Here is how it looks nice in a post sometimes if you do not simply want the image before your posts. It can look nice on occasion.
To do this we simply add a little code on the html side. We put in
<div style=”float:left;padding-right:10px;”>our amazon code</div>
this allows us to wrap text around an image. You can change the float and padding the other way round and then it would float to the right instead.
All of that may sound a little complicated but once you have done it a few times it becomes second nature. And if you want o make money with Amazon you will be doing this hundreds if not thousands of times. But there is also an easier way to do it. But I am not totally sure if it is OK or not with Amazon. I have tried to find out but to no avail so this is on you if it is not really allowed although I can’t see why it would not be. Rather than having the image on our own blog we can use Amazon to serve the image.
We go to the code options like usual and select image only. But we then right click the text below the image. We select copy link location. we then paste this in the src= section. Then we copy the whole code as before and use it on our site. It is much quicker but usually it then serves up a slightly smaller image. Not always a bad thing.
That is a very handy and quick way to get the images and may be preferable but as I said I am not 100% sure it is OK. An if you find that the image does look too big on your site it is easy to make it smaller anyway. In the visual side of your blog post simply click on the Amazon image and use the edit function. You can then re-size the image by a %. Simple and easy and it all still works just fine. No problems at all. This is also the best way to get a number of small images next to each other that you could use at the top of your blog above the fold. simply re-size them all to the same size and center them. It looks really good.
So, that’s that done, what’s next?
Oh yeah:
Don’t help the competition.
You will be using lots of affiliate code links if you are to succeed, an awful lot. And the last thing you want is the site that gives the code to beat you in the rankings. This is tough with Amazon as they basically rank well for everything. So we don’t want them or anyone else even tougher to beat. When we get html code we must add rel=”nofollow” in the code somewhere.
The links will still be followed but they wont help the destination page to rank higher. This is very important and should always be done for every affiliate link you ever post, image or text.
Always add it so that you are not helping them to rank higher. We are the ones who want to be at number 1 in the search results to make the most sales. If you have not already done this then go back and do it, it is very important. I am sure it is part of the reason why Amazon rank so well for basically everything, they have tens of thousands of affiliates all using their links. Hey, that is cool as it makes them very trusted as they rank so well, we just don’t want to help them for our specific product as they will more than likely be high on the front page or number 1 already anyway.
Quick update: A few people are unsure how to add the rel=”nofollow” to affiliate links. If you do not do it you are giving them a backlink and giving more competition for yourself. Here is how to add the nofollow to a link. Once you have made your link you will have to switch to the html side of your post. So let’s say I want to add it to a link for the Kodak ZX1. Here is my code I get from Amazon:
<a href=”http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001OC5L2A?ie=UTF8&tag=makingmoneyontheinternet-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B001OC5L2A”>Kodak Zx1 HD Pocket Video Camera (Red)</a><img src=”http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=makingmoneyontheinternet-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B001OC5L2A” width=”1″ height=”1″ border=”0″ alt=”" style=”border:none !important; margin:0px !important;” />
To add the nofollow attribute I will of course have that in the html side, but whatever it looks like you simply add rel=”nofollow” in it. To ensure you do not mess up links I would simply put it after the ” and before the > where you then have the link text. Like this:
<a href=”http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001OC5L2A?ie=UTF8&tag=makingmoneyontheinternet-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B001OC5L2A” rel=”nofollow”>Kodak Zx1 HD Pocket Video Camera (Red)</a><img src=”http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=makingmoneyontheinternet-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B001OC5L2A” width=”1″ height=”1″ border=”0″ alt=”" style=”border:none !important; margin:0px !important;” />
All you need to do is ensure that after the ” you make a space and then add your nofollow attribute, same goes for images, put it anywhere after a final ” before a >, it should cause you no problems at all. So, let’s actually paste that code in the html side:
Kodak Zx1 HD Pocket Video Camera (Red)
Now, when you click on the link to buy this great little HD camera you know that at least as far as Google is concerned I have not given a backlink to make my work harder. Right, back to work for me, stuff to do, busy busy all day long.
Oh, ensure you have the free SEOQuake installed so that you can then check that your links are nofollow, it puts a line through them so is the easiest way to check that your site is not helping out your competition. Back to the original content of this article now:
How To Insert The Links Correctly
The links you generate will all work properly as long as you follow the above guidelines. Just check them to make sure and ensure you simply paste the code in the html side of your post editor. If you are going to use the text and image option, which sometimes can be best under a some rare occasions, yes I know what I said but I do use it now and then when the product calls for it, then you may find it problematic.
You put the code in the html but when you publish it the box has gone. A weird quirk that can be gotten around easily. For it to work you can never go back to the visual editor. You must stay in the html side until the post is published. It will then work out fine and dandy.
Get Serious And Make Sites Look Professional
No offense to Courtney Tuttle, his Keyword Academy is the best around but I am sure he recommends his blog themes to many users. Running an article directory I get to see an awful lot of websites, and I have now lost count of the number that have the same theme. Often it is a very general adsense type layout. But many people use boring and bland themes to try to make money with Amazon. It ain’t gonna work.
Adding a widget on the side rather than giving a proper first impression is how to waste your time. Let me give you another proper example of how a site should look if you want to sell products in the most efficient way possible. Let’s pretend that what you see below is what you see when you first arrive at my blog. Let’s say I’m to try to compete for the term cheap camcorders. We have seen the header and then this is what we would see on the home page:
Welcome to Cheap Camcorders Reviews. Here you will find cheap digital camcorders and cheap HD camcorders as well as the best camcorders reviews.
Our Top Picks Today
Prices Start At Under $40 For A HD Camcorder
Please see the latest Reviews below:
Kodak ZX1 Reviews: Cheap Zx1
Kodak Zx1 HD Pocket Video Camera (Black): Click for more reviews and to buy
I was looking for a cheap still camera that I could take out in bad weather and something that would fit in my pocket easily.
What I found was pretty amazing. The Kodak ZX1 came up in a search on Amazon and I was amazed. The reviews were all pretty glowing and what I found was that as well as being able to get a cheap camcorder I got a cheap still camera as well. Once I received it I couldn’t wait to give it a go. It is extremely impressive. The photos it takes are of the greatest quality and the camcorder itself is brilliant.
There are options to either record in HD or of a lower quality to save space. I bought a memory card at the same time so I can store hours of film on the card if I am away from my computer. What I also really love is that it comes with movie making software and with a single click of a button I can upload to youtube.
If you want a cheap camcorder then this is about as good as it gets. It is waterproof and frankly I cant believe how good it is for the low price. If you click the above link to read the other reviews you will see some people moaning about the hiss in the background. I noticed this too but just followed the instructions to upload the firmware, which was easy, and it solved the problem. My camera is now totally up to date and works like a dream. The sound recording is now amazing and for a camera the size of a mobile phone I don’t know how you could possibly do better.
End of example.
So what do you think. Would it have been better to simply go to an ugly looking site that had that post straight away, or would it be better to have a professional looking layout first that looks like you are a store selling the cameras or a store that offers reviews and links to where to buy them.
The sites you have should look professional and do away with widgets and the like and get a good them and modify the single post and home page template so they look professional.
Oh, and by the way, the ZX1 really is brilliant. I just got one and that review is actually real. It records amazingly well and the quality for the price is brilliant. Sorry, I couldn’t resist
I am not saying to fool people, but the point is that the above took about ten minutes to do. You need to get into the swing of making nice sites that are helpful and informative and that look right. People are put off by ugly adsense sites and click the blue links to get away from the site.
They are not going to click a buy link the same if they want to buy a product, they will simply leave. They are much more likely to click a link in your review or much more likely the links at the top of the site above the fold if it looks right.
You are not trying to fool people you are simply providing them with what they are looking for. A cheap price for a camcorder or a review of a specific brand.
Now, off everyone goes to buy a cheap camcorder and build a site about them.
Just don’t forget that the commission rate for electronics is fixed low on Amazon so you need to think about what you try to sell before you make a site. Always check the commission structures for affiliate programs to see what your earnings potentials are. Some are very good, and others not so. But if you feel you can rank well then even a low commission can bring in some very good money.
How To Make The Most Money With Amazon
There is a tiered structure to Amazon’s oh so fleeting cookie. You only make a commission if someone buys within a day of clicking a link. The profits you make are tiered depending on the number of sales you make. Not the total value of the sales you make but the number of sales. This is very important and should not be overlooked.
If you cannot write about very cheap items with the niches that you have then you should start a site that is aiming at selling very cheap items. Even a single cent. This is often overlooked but extremely important. Unless they change the system then you need to sell as many items as possible. Starting off at a very low commission rate means that you need to get it as high as possible as before the end of the month. Think of the difference to the money that you will make if instead of getting a 4.5% commission you got an 8% or a 7.5%. That is an awful lot of money you are leaving on the table.
You could actually double what you earn on Amazon each month if you get the number of sales up. Even as I write this on mid May I am on 7% commission but I only need to sell 21 more items to up the rate to 7.5%. Think that even if you are at say $800 earnings so far for the month and you then get to the 7.5% rate and no higher, that is extra moolah. That is not much but think if those earnings were from a few items and you were on the low 5. Bumping it up from 5% or so to 7% would make a huge difference to earnings. You MUST get the commission rate as high as possible. The bump in % is for the cost of the items not a bump in your commission on your earnings so it can be very significant and of prime importance.
Even if you only sell one item a month of any value and everything else is for a cent where you do n0t earn anything, you will have doubled your commission if you sell enough small and cheap items. You must look at it not like you are wasting your time to sell cheap items. All you are doing is raising the money that you earn overall.
This is so important and something that most people never even think about. They will simply keep trying to sell more and more of the items that they get decent money for if they make a sale.
But if you had a couple of sites selling very cheap items then you are literally making a lot of money from those cheap sales. It pushes up the overall earnings. You should seriously think about this and strive to rank well for very cheap items to supplement the money you make from more expensive items and to really make some serious money.
Don’t say I didn’t tell you how to make the most from Amazon. This also often applies to other affiliate programs in a different way. They often will up your rate if you make a certain amount in a month so take note of what it is and if you see that you are getting near to the earnings where you get a bump in the % then go all out to ensure that you reach it. It will make a vast difference to what you really earn. But for Amazon it is crucial that you make the most of the commission structure so sell some really cheap stuff and bump up the rate to at least 7% if you possibly can.
How To Get Visitors To Click On Links
The fact is that there are a few tips and tricks to get your visitors to click on links. There is no point trying to fool people though. If you want people to buy and they want to buy, which is why they are there then they will click if you simply provide the information. You should give very clear instructions on how they can buy.
Let me tell you a story.
We run a few popular sites where we have a very simple layout. People come to the site and below a little text and some images there are simple lists of products with prices next to them. For ages we got emails from people,( it is very important you have a contact form, you can lose sales otherwise), saying how do I buy, and I want to get so and so how do I get it, etc etc.
We really could not understand it. There was a set of simple links with prices on them. They came to a site where they had typed in a buy keyword and saw a list of prices. Now, many would use the links and buy stuff. But people would also email asking questions.
We re-did the sites saying please see below for the best so and so.
Still we got emails asking how to buy.
Gee.
So, finally, in nice bold text we added
Please click the links below to buy or for more information
Or something very similar. You really do need to be obvious and not discreet if you want to do the best with affiliate marketing. Don’t be shy, don’t try to be something that you are not.
If you get the right traffic then it is for buying keywords or for advice you are giving where you convince people that they need a product, if they do. Either way you need very clear instructions on a site so that people are in no doubt about how to buy a product and what they need to do.
You can use a Click for more reviews or to buy link or any number of cool variations. But you do need to be obvious.
We looked earlier at using images to make a link. You can use images as part of your clear instructions.
Here is a good one right here. You can use it in posts and use the text you get from Amazon and simply use the url of the stored image in place of a product.
If you simply go to google images and search for buy buttons and for visa images etc you can make your site look right, and look professional, and also provide a convenient and helpful image for people to click on when they want to buy a product.
It is not rocket science but so many sites look exactly the same it gets boring as hell.
You will find that if you follow the advice on this article that you can make a site that looks good, is what people expect to see when they want to buy something, and that is easy to navigate.
You don’t want to try to fool anyone, you want to test different images and text links to see what makes people want to click on them.
Try adding prices if it is an affiliate program. Don’t add prices if it is an Amazon affiliate site as it is against their terms to provide misleading information, and prices can change at any given moment so don’t be stupid.
Test where you put images, where you put links, the colors, the call to action, everything.
You will find that you will make sales once you have a site that is what people expect and this is easy tio navigate. Ensure that give clear instructions on how to buy and make sure that this happens above the fold. That means before people scroll down with their mouse.
A Special Note On Christmas
You may pretty much despair of making any sales even when you get the traffic. You may get lots of visitors and no one buys. This happens but don’t despair. If you get traffic then there is an answer to your prayers that comes once a year.
It’s Christmas time.
We have had our first experience of the Chrimbo craziness in 2009. Man, it was bonkers.
You get a click to Amazon for someone looking for a cheap toy and they buy a wide screen TV, 20 books and a Rolf’s wallet. It really is bonkers.
The reality is that if you build Amazon sites and you get traffic that come Christmas time you will make money whatever your subject is. People from September to Christmas are beginning to get in to buying mood. And most people will have to buy something. They will be scouring the Internet looking for good prices for items and if you win the cookie contest and get someone on to Amazon last then they are likely to buy something, or lots of things.
This means that sites that make next to nothing all year can make you a fortune at this time of year. The more related to Christmas buying your site is the better money you will earn.
You will find that if you can select products or topics where people buy them for presents then you can make an absolute fortune. Maybe even enough to be a years wages in a few months. And I am not exaggerating. We now have sites that we are building or putting lots more content on that make almost nothing at the moment but know for a fact that at the end of the year they will make lots of money.
Everyone who reads this should set up at least one site where you are not concerned about making money from it now but at the Christmas period. Just use your imagination about what you will write about. What do you buy for people? What do people buy for YOU?
See, it is very varied isn’t it? It’s not just socks is it?
People buy guitars. Computer games. Nunchucks. Dog beds, nice rugs, shiny pretty things with no purpose.
Just think about it seriously and you will do very well from lots of different niches.
There is a real problem with building blogs and it is that it is very disheartening when all of your work is not paying off now. But this is simply not how affiliate marketing works. It takes time to be trusted by search engines and it takes time to get ranked high and it takes lots of clicks to get sales.
But I can tell you that if you do get all the content you can online then you can make lots at the end of the year even if you do not make a lot the rest of the year.
Everyone knows Amazon and everyone knows they are trusted. Many millions of people buy from them. At Christmas time many people do their shopping online. Just get that content online and you will make sales. But most people do not put in enough work.
Most people will see that at Christmas time there is more competition for their topic and think they cannot win. They are the ones who fail. We are not going to. If we see that we begin to rank for items at Christmas time then we will never give up. We will write more content on our site and link it all together. We will get backlinks after backlinks until we win in the search results.
And the outcome will be that we are a true worker who knows the merits of hard work and who makes thousands because of it. We will dominate our niches and this is how we make money and stay successful.
Most people won’t though. And let’s hope they enjoy their day jobs.
Keep Christmas in mind and ensure that you think to the future.
I Don’t Get Any Visitors To My Blog
You need backlinks. All of what has been written so far is useless otherwise. You need to get more and more other sites linking to your posts and your homepage. You can do this in a variety of ways. But this is the reality. While all that is written above is good and helpful you won’t make any money unless you get plenty of people coming to your site, and people that are coming for the right reasons.
Quality of traffic is very important so ensure that you get traffic that is looking to buy. You want the post titles to be about buying keywords. Or you will need to be able to write about subjects very convincingly and make people realize that the only solution is to buy something. Either way you need the right traffic and for traffic you need lots of content and backlinks to rank well.
How To Get Backlinks
I am not even going to go in to how to get backlinks in real depth here. It has been covered here in other posts before and basically using a selection of the tools on the sidebar is the best way.
I was very loathe to spend any money on tools as I have had good results simply by writing articles for article directories. For those new to the game this is definitely the best way to get backlinks without spending any money. But the reality is that if you want to make serious money then you need to notch up your efforts and rank really well for your sites.
You need to rank your sites high in the search engines and you need to rank every post on your sites highly as well. I am not talking about getting an odd backlink here and there I am talking about trying to dominate for every keyword rich post that you have published. I really cannot get this across enough how you need to begin thinking about this seriously and properly. What is the point of writing content if it is not on page 1 of the top search engines. How much are you realistically going to make?
Let me show you what it really takes to make plenty of money every day with Amazon or any other affiliate program or any monetisation method for that matter. I mean in just the last half an hour I got myself a hundred backlinks that will appear over the next month or so. It is all on autopilot and I need to do nothing more. I used this service. I used an article spinner and I then submitted 50 articles that were made from 1 to it. With 2 links in each article. That service is nigh on $100 a month and only accepts new people now and then.
This is the unfortunate reality of this business. I get 1000 links a month with that site. How long would it take you to write that many articles for backlinks? You really need to get serious if you want to make more money. If you write your blog or website and then do not put effort in to getting everything ranking highly then you need to take a real look at what you are doing.
What I finally realized when I bought the tools I now use is that I was an idiot. I mean the money I now make means that with all the stuff listed on the sidebar that is used, and yes I do use it all, it is still less than what I now make a day. Yes, a day. A few hundred dollars a month or less is what I pay to have totally transformed what I earn.
What other home business where you work your own hours can be set up for that cost?
I am not saying you should go out and buy all these things. I would use The Keyword Academy first. You hand write guest posts and use their system of blogs owned by hundreds of different people to get links from. This is much better than using article directories only and for a dollar you would be a fool not to use it for a month even if then you quit your subscription.
All this is really just to get the point across that whatever you do and however you do it you need to find a way to get all of your content on page 1. You need to seriously knuckle down and do the work. If you just mess about with an odd link here and there you will not get the traffic to your sites and you will not then get clicks that equate to earnings.
This is really at the heart of it all and the main reason why so many people never make good money with Amazon or anything else. If you are lazy or will not find ways to get all of your content getting higher in the search engines every day then you may as well not bother. This is how people are successful with Amazon. They get lots of people to their sites and then they make sales.
That is more than enough about backlinks but this little section is probably the most important part of this whole article. Get high rankings for lots of posts and you will make money with Amazon.
Common Questions about affiliate marketing:
What products should I promote?
What do you want to? There are countless items out here that you can promote. You need to do some research and see what people buy. There is nothing else to it. Choose something. Look at the bestsellers lists on the categories on Amazon and pick some stuff.
And then do it again for something different.
What are the best things to promote in affiliate marketing?
Items that are very hard to find online or anywhere else. Sexy stuff that makes people blush in shops. Things that people have to buy regularly and simply want the best price for. Items that people simply have to buy, no question about it.
The answer to the problem they are having that they had never even thought about buying. The list goes on.
Can you get penalized for too many affiliate links?
Not in my experience. We have sites that have many on them. They are all no-follow but they are still seen by search engines. You should put on what you need to. Of course written content needs to be there as well for the site to make sense in most cases but do n0t worry unduly about it.
I get lots of clicks but make no sales, what am I doing wrong?
The chances are that you are either simply in a niche where people window shop and don’t buy or you are getting the wrong kind of traffic. If you are not getting visitors for the right terms they are not really in a buying frame of mind. Look at stats and see. You may simply need to abandon the whole thing and move on to something else, or you may need to write new posts that attract the right kind of visitor.
I am getting desperate, no one comes to my site.
You need to keep working. More content, more links, more keyword research and a lot more high rankings in search results.
Do I have to tell people they are going to Amazon?
Not for every link no. But you absolutely do have to put:
(insert site url) is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
or .uk or whatever somewhere on your site. This is overlooked by some but you should certainly do it without fail.
What Can You Expect To Earn?
Get links to posts for the post titles. Change the titles but not the url if they do not convert. Link with keywords to the home page. In time you will become a total authority for your topic. You will get rankings for anything on your home page and for terms that are not even there if you continue with your work.
Don’t just go for super tight niches although these are easier in the short term. Have a mixture of small and large sites.
Never build a site just around one keyword, go for at least a handful as the main term may not succeed.
If you built a handful of sites like this some of them will result in very good earnings. Some simply will not make it. Either the site attracts only window shoppers, not people really looking to buy, or you simply cannot justify the time you spend working on it for the results you get. As time progresses you should build out your sites and concentrate on those that work the best.
Get another hosting account like from the sidebar link and make smaller sites honed in on the keywords you know work for getting sales. You can then use these sites to inform your visitors of your main site. This will give you extra traffic, allow you to make more sales, and give yourself a backlink at the same time.
Sounds like hard work doesn’t it?
It bloody well is. Anyone who tells you there is an easy way to do this then they are lying and have an ulterior motive. It takes dedication and a lot of work. More than you can really imagine. But in a year you may just be able to have more money than you thought possible and work your own hours.
Very few who read this will ever succeed. Most probably won’t even get this far down the article. Their loss. If you stay motivated, build a number of sites, and never only use Amazon you will be one of the few winners in this difficult yet very rewarding field. You must use a variety of different affiliate programs and resources. Anything can happen so you need to always have various sources of income. It is all too easy to concentrate on one thing and for something to happen. Hedge your bets and use various sources for your income.
Anyway, I digress.
How much can you earn with affiliate marketing?
I think we did a few hundred from Amazon yesterday. I know we did over $300 from other affiliate programs. I know we earned $55 to $60 from adsense.
I know it is bloody hard work.
What you can expect to earn is simply vast. You can earn a fortune or you can earn absolutely nothing. If you do not write good post titles that draw the right traffic you could get hundreds of people a day and make nothing. If your site is full of widgets that don’t load before visitors are gone you can earn nothing.
If you have the wrong niche you can earn nothing. And you only find that out after lots of work. This is unavoidable and you just need to move on to the next site and do it all over again. This is why you should always work on different topics at the same time until you find one that is a real winner.
But when you have followed all the above and have lots of content, I mean thousands of blog posts, not a hundred or two, and get all of those posts high in search results then you can earn hundreds if not thousands every day.
I am no there yet and have a very long way to go. Some days are good and some not so, but I won’t give up until a thousand dollars a day is earned. You can get there too. If you are new to trying to make money on the Internet I would say that Amazon is about the best possible place to start. And frankly I really can’t believe how much more I have earned over the past few months since I really began to concentrate more and more on ranking for difficult terms and sending out more and more backlinks. Tools help is the bottom line, but if you are low on funds then get those fingers really busy writing articles for directories and getting guest posts and blogrolls wherever you can find them.
Adense is tough, it requires a lot of keyword research and is definitely not for the majority, although it is the majority who try it, and fail. But if you really want to make a lot of money then you need to be dedicated. It will not happen overnight, it will not happen for months.
Just keep building sites and pages and getting backlinks for them. Eventually some form of magic begins. Your posts start getting visits. It can take months though. You start getting sales. You begin to get more backlinks and write more content. And it keeps getting better and better and you gain in confidence and then you realize that it really does work.
It just takes more work than most people will ever put in.
This is a good thing as it means there is less competition for you and me dear reader. And we both know that we won’t give up and we will be one of the few people who make good money with affiliate programs like the Amazon Associates program.
Worth a dollar?
At over 13300 words I hope so.
This is like the equivalent of over 40 articles I could have put on my own sites each targeting a specific set of buying keywords. How much a month do you think each of those articles would make over the course of a year?
Get busy Dudes.
Very busy indeed.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
wow, I haven’t read it yet but thanks for the effort!
Yep! Definitely worth a buck…in fact, I hit your PP account with a couple more! Thanks again man (and to your girl as well).
Took me nearly an hour to read. This is by far the best MMO post I have ever seen.
What other affiliate programs have you had good luck making money with. I’m asking purely because I cannot become an affiliate of Amazon because I live in Colorado. Rather than setting up an out of state LLC I have been looking for other affiliate programs. This is partly because I’m not sure I want to support Amazon after kicking us to the curb.
I am a member of commission junction but the main reason I joined-overstock- turned me down automatically for the same reason. The rest of CJ is an absolute clusterfuck of a billion programs each of which wants to carefully review you…
I then tried to become an affiliate of Target.com through google affiliate network and they turned me down presumably because of the site I used. They were definitely nitpicking, I’m told this isn’t uncommon.
So, if you are willing to share(and to be honest you have shared quite enough already), what other programs have you had success with?
Thanks Dusty, much appreciated. Hope it gives you some inspiration.
Josh,
Glad you liked it. It is a real shame about the whole weirdness with the affiliate situation. And I am sorry to say that it is CJ that we work with the most apart from Amazon. Sometimes approvals are slow or we get denied. I would just contact them again or keep applying if you get turned down by someone. Can’t you re-apply to Target with a different site?
We do a little bit with shareasale, but you should find that there are tons of programs on CJ that are on auto approve. We have joined a number of them.
To be honest I found CJ completely overwhelming, I imagine you can understand why. After overstock auto-denied me I only looked around for other stores a bit and…went back to working with adsense.
I will give CJ another chance, but that will be a project for the second half of next month.
Thanks!
You’re now $5 richer Dave! Don’t spend it all in one place.
Thanks for the mega post. It pretty much confirms I have been on track for the most part.
Hey thanks Chris,
It is really nice to see people giving me a nice tip for the post. I am glad it has helped you to know that what you are doing will succeed, a little confirmation is needed by us all from time to time I think.
Thanks for all the tips so far for those who have donated and not left a comment, real kind. And just a few hours after I published it too. Better than any e-book ripoff, although, damn, why didn’t I do that instead? Just kidding guys
Wow, that’s fantastic – thanks for sharing this info. I’ll have to read it again to really take it all in.
Do you have an Amazon.co.uk affiliate link? I live in the UK & buy quite a bit from there, and would be happy to go through your link from now on (especially as they won’t let me use my own lol)
Hey Cat
Sure I have a UK Amazon Link. My UK Amazon Link for all your UK purchases, and thanks for the kind offer.
I don’t know how much you do with Amazon but the difference between UK and US shoppers always intrigues me. Us UK folks really do not spend like others
Dave,
Great post. Are you an Amazon marketeer who turned to CJ and found it easier or is it all the same really? I’m interested only because I very much had the impression you were all Amazon with a sideline in CJ but here you seem to be saying that Amazon is not the main show.
I’m also interested in whether you find sometimes you set up sites that are too broad in scope; say books, and you have found it tough to make an impact on the SERPS?
Anyway, thanks again for the post. Interesting
Ben
Isn’t Dusty nice!
Ben,
Amazon is not our main income at all. We use various programs through mostly CJ but it is all the same. If Amazon have what we want to promote then we use them but some things they do not stock. People are much more inclined to buy from Amazon as they have heard of them if not been to the site before, so trust factor comes in to play.
Ben, I am a firm believer that you can rank for anything you want. It just takes time. Our broad sites rank for lots of the individual things on them as we get lots of backlinks. A domain name for smaller niches would bring money quicker, but think about when it is Christmas and we have a few real authority sites where we can get straight on page 2 just by writing about it. Then with backlinks we would rank well. No way anyone setting up a site in Sept or so would beat us. But broad sites are more work for a long time. I would go for both types.
Yes Dear,
and so are a few other people too. Cheers guys.
Thanks for the link Dave.
I have Amazon UK links on some of my sites too (I’ll normally post both US & UK links if the products are available on both sites). I hardly get any UK sales though – nearly everything I make on Amazon comes through the US site. Which is fine, since their commission structure is much better anyway!
If you don’t mind me asking, how do you pick your advertisers on CJ?f
Josh,
We pick a niche, see if there is someone that sells the items and apply to them. You can also just browse through categories there and apply to advertisers. See who accepts you and build a site around their products.
Oh, and try to use someone that has a products section for product links, much better than just using banners etc.
Dave,
Thanks so much for this loooong post!
I am a part time internet marketeer and currently have earned over $1000 from clickbank but have always wanted to try Amazon.
This post has really opened my eyes! Am so thankful and will now take “ACTION”
Dennis
Dave, this is a long post. I was skimming through it.
I wish you could post a link to a blog post that has all this recommendations. You are explaining how an amazon should look like. Someone with not too good visualization cannot grasp. But with a link, the person can understand it better.
Thanks for the post
Seo,
I gave examples in the post. You can see what I mean I am sure. And we need to add our own persoanl touch in any case. A full on whole site example will simply result in copycats.
Hi Dennis,
Those are some decent clickbank options. I always find it difficult myself but have never really done more than a few squidoo lenses for clickbank. Glad you are going to take ACTION
Dave-Thank you for this post, I linked to you on my blog so others can read it!
I did have a question for you though, it might seem kindof stupid. As far as the rel=”nofollow” code, I am unsure of where to put that. I know it needs to go between the opening < and the closing > tag. (I edited that as html code won’t work right in comments)
I have tried it in a few different areas, but some of the places make the link non functional. I am just curious because I really do not want to compete w/ Amazon! Thank you for this post!
-Kelly
Dave just curious, how many visits do you get or what is your daily statistics on those sites?
I am asking because what matters in making money with adsense or affiliate marketing is traffic. if you don’t get any traffic, you don’t know what strategy is the best.
For instance, in terms of adsense, I would rather have a site with 100,000 monthly visit with a keyword of $ 0.20 per click. than a site with 50 visits that pays $20 per click
err… how about, what is your average eCPM with amazon/CJ sites?
That is, if you are allowed to discuss it.
I think most people agree you will have a $10-$20 eCPM with adsense. How does it compare to that?
Also, you were right. A lot of the CJ affiliates with auto accept you which is incredibly refreshing after messing with google affiliate network. I’m getting started on a couple of long term authority sites next month. Thanks again for the article.
Kelly,
just put rel=”nofollow” anywhere in the code before the end of a > or look at the code for a link in one of the examples in the post. Or you can simply put a space after an ” in the link then add the nofollow code, that always works.
That should make it work OK.
SEO,
traffic depends. One site gets 100 people a day with no real backlinks but makes like 20 cents a day. Another site gets about 300 to 400 a day and makes about $300 a day quite often, and is always at least $150. I have loads of failures and some successes. Build sites and see what ones work.
Josh, glad you found some advertisers with CJ, they do run a good business there. A CJ site we have may get about an average of 50 cents plus per visitor per day. The pàrticular program is about $60 EPC for a 7 day period. That is with a buying rate of about 5%.
Here are some Amazon stats. Our main account for May up to the 29 has 13724 clicks to Amazon from our sites. A buying rate of 4.87% and we are on the 8% commission rate. Earnings are not amazing but the money is not to be sniffed at. Plus my other half has done very well on another account with over an 11% buying rate which I am very jealous of. But the money we make from CJ far outweighs this and it is where I have been concentrating for the most part anyway. But all using the same guidelines as in this article.
This is just to show people that you really do need a lot of traffic. Think how many visitors we must have had to sites for those numbers. If we had over 13K clicks that would have been an insane amount of visitors that never clicked and then those that did only 4 odd % actually bought anything. But for some niches the numbers are lower and for one of our CJ sites they are higher. It is all about a lot of traffic for buying keywords at the end of the day, and my stats are pretty normal.
A 4 or 5% buying rate from people that actually click a link is average. But then I have a few lucky adsense sites where it is 30%, but I normally find adsense hard and the research very time consuming. It is actually weird when you look at it as you would think you could make more with adsense as you get the money for a click and with affiliate programs you get those clicks but then only make money from 4% odd percent of those clicks. But if it is for good prices products it works out well. But if you can sell an item for $100 and get a 10% commission you don’t need many people to buy to make good money. But an Adsense site may only give you 20 cents for someone trying to get the traffic, experimenting to see what is most profitable for things is the way to go. CJ yesterday made us over $300. Adsense like $50. Plus Amazon and a few others. It is all down to getting visitors for buying keywords.
Hey Dave,
Just make a donation. Wanted to donate more but realise you have fixed the price. Guess I have click on the button a few more times : )
Have not read it yet though. I will be flying to US from Singapore (15 hours flight) so saving this for the flight.
Anyway, maybe after a couple of weeks, you can write a post saying the effects of such a long post on your traffic and whether you manage to mine some cool new keywords that you would not have though of.
I am still struggling along, getting my 3-5 adsense per day. However, my amazon seem to be picking up. Last month, I earned a miserable 0.40. This month I manage to have 16 Amazon sales that totaled $25 fees after optimising my sites for Amazon. I am sure I can improve further after reading this post.
Take care and keep them coming!
Hey Aaron,
You can just change the total, I think. But hey, click away
That is a nasty flight. My trip to NZ was so long it almost killed me, I am not good at long distance at all. My traffic is nearly non existent so far. Make money sites are very hard to rank and I won’t be getting backlinks for a long time, but others linking is cool and helps loads. I am not doing this site to earn money really as it would take too much time. Just when I want to entertain myself and help others hopefully. I do rank for “Grannies for Money” though which is worrying. Wonder what that is all about.
Glad the cash is improving. Just think, ten times as much traffic or content and you will be on $250 for Amazon, and on and on it goes. And in a year it will be thousands and thousands.
This is my aim with this site, good content that can age and mature for a year and then I will begin to get backlnks. Old content is much easier to improve the rankings for, it kind of settle in to its natural resting place and then you can improve it with backlinks. This is why I keep banging on about getting as much content as possible online as soon as possible. Think what 1000 Amazon posts would bring in around Christmas time. Scary money no doubt.
Hope the flight is not too bad. Rather you than me.
Thank you for your answer Dave, I am gonna try that today! In a month or two I plan on doing a follow up on my site. I am pretty sure it will turn around!
Well the big man promised a monster post about making money with Amazon and the big man certainly delivered. Jesus – what a big read- I had to come back to this post quite a few times to take in all the info.
It is nice to see that I am going about things the right way. I have already wasted a ridiculous amount of time trying to figure out why those Amazon picture link boxes kept disappearing after pasted the code in – sooo frustrating.
I didn’t know about the “no follow” thing so I went and tried adding it to some of my links – just couldn’t get it to work. At one point it was showing up in the actual address.
Would it be possible for you to actually show a complete link with the “no follow” in it. I tend to work with the visual editor where i highlight my keywords, add pretty colours etc so that when I copy links I only take the “http:……” part and paste it into the box.
Going over to the html side is like going over to the dark side – seriously- looking at that whole lot of image & colour & god knows what link coding stuff is a bit confusing. Not sure where to add something so that the link doesn’t break.
This would be very much appreciated.
Cheers m’dear.
Dave,
Great article…very information and certainly well-worth the weight!
While I do make money with Amazon, I haven’t really put too much effort into it until I got hit the Amazon Associates bug at the early part of this month.
I’ll definitely be taking some of these tips with me as I build a few niche websites this month.
Hi Yolanda, glad you liked it. I am sure you will do well with your new sites, content and backlinks plus time and some are sure to pay off well.
Hello Tiptopcat,
I updated the post special like so you should find how to add the code in the post where I originally talked about nofollow. Sorry, but you will have to go to the dark side to do it
Those picture boxes are annoying and I wasted time too, now I just use an image link with a text link below anyway, except on rare occasions.
Any nofollow probs give me a shout but as you are responsible for getting Amazon to rank so well I don’t know if I should help really
Cheers me dears.
Hi Dave,
Great guide. Thanks for posting it. I’m working on a sprawling CJ affiliate site atm and will put your ideas to good use. One question I have is do you link direct to your main money site with BLS and other tools or do you link to your supporting sites and pages? I’ve heard varying opinions so I’m not really sure. Thanks again!
If you don’t mind me asking Dave, have the search algorithm updates hurt any of your sites? All I have been hearing about the updates is that they are hurting everyone’s mini-sites, how is it treating your large authority sites?
Jay
The way I see it is if you are going to use backlink networks to link to other sites to build their authority then you can use them to link to your own sites too. I use Backlink Solutions to very good effect straight to money sites and also to boost backlinks.
But I would never make a network my only or even main source of backlinks just in case, I would always get a good mix from many sources. At worst a good quality backlink network will simply not boost your site, I don’t think it will harm it, as long as you use a good network and never anything obvious or really dodgy.
Josh
No problems here. All bigger sites are as good as before. I have a few smaller sites that have gone through the mill a little, with rankings going up and down, but just the usual stuff as sites find their true positions. I don’t think it is anything to do with the new algorithm. But, this is another reason why lots of posts covering many keyword variations around a topic is the best way to go, you hedge your bets and are seen as a proper authority too.
So, it’s all goo here, how about you? Any problems?
Dave, great post – don’t spend your dollar all at once!
Hey Tony,
I sure won’t, cheers Dude. As always it is much appreciated.
My mini sites aren’t drawing the weird long tails like they used to, but it is making very little difference on my income because that traffic rarely clicked ads anyways. The changes seem to favor authority sites, so I thought it would start giving your large sites noticeably more traffic because you could easily outrank pages like amazon which have very little content on them. Atleast, thats what I think Matt Cutts was trying to say….
Also, I just signed up for webhostingpad under your affiliate link. You should include somewhere that you get a better deal if you press back at some point during the buying process. I ended up getting a year for about $35. Not bad. Thanks for the suggestion!
Hey thanks Josh,
Webhosting pad have given me no troubles at all. Sorry you are getting less traffic. But all my sites do seem roughly about the same, we shall see what happens. What happens today can always change by the next.
Your clickable images sound very much like the method Tiffany Dow uses, except she uses paint to create the images, and they have text in them (click my signature for an example – the clickable image is the one that says “order now” – the whole thing including the text is an image, and all the images further down the page are also clickable with an affiliate link). She also recommends using the Amazon logo and those yellow customer rating stars in your image, to reassure the customer (’cause they trust Amazon). It definitely works, you get clickthroughs and sales on very low traffic.
Her set of YouTube videos can be found in the Squidu forum: http://www.squidu.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=318214#p318214
All free of course. I don’t know if you have time, but it would be interesting if you could view the videos and give a critique.
What I’m particularly interested in is that you don’t mention Amazon at all in your images or text below them. Methinks I need to do an experiment, with one page mentioning Amazon and another without giving the customer a clue where they are being directed, and seeing which converts best. Do customers need to know where they are being redirected or not? That’s the question!
Teatree
Dave,
Thanks so much for the edit re the nofollow placement. Definitely will be able to implement this on all my future posts. I certainly do not want help the monster that is Amazon to rank higher than my own sites.
Teatree
That is a good lens. I like your Amazon image link, looks good. I guess a part of me is too lazy to do this and another part thinks that maybe it is not necessary, but without experimenting it is all conjecture.
It would be great if you did a test to see if there is a difference mentioning Amazon or not. I have done both, saying buy from Amazon etc and also just a click here, I did not see much difference really and it will also depend on the niche. What I do always do is mention somewhere on the site that items are processed via Amazon. For me the best conversions seem to be when you add text with a click to buy or for customer reviews type of wording. I do this from seeing how my mum uses the internet.
Many people are paranoid about just clicking a buy button, they think they are then under an obligation, weird but true. It will depend on the niche but I always for the most part try to make it clear that it is not just a buy button but it will link to more info before they buy.
I will take a look at the vids when I get a bit of time, thanks.
nice post you got there sir
I have one question: don’t shiny colors in the text abstract attention from the ads?
I am using a link cloaker. Do I still need to put the no follow code in my affiliate links?
Thanks for this excellent tutorial. I donated last night
Cathy, firstly thanks. And secondly, ummmmmm.
Anyone else?
I would assume that you still need them nofollowed but to be honest I am not certain. Hopefully someone will come along with a reply.
You should keep in your nofollow.
Otherwise you are potentially passing juice to the cloak URL for your keyword, which you don’t want to be doing. I’m sure Google is clever enough to work out what a cloaked URL is and it probably does not take it too seriously, but other search engines might not be as clued up. Better to err on the side of caution.
Thanks Billy, I have never used a cloaker myself, I see how my Mum uses the T’Internet and it makes no difference to her, not something many pay attention to for certain types of shopping online, but for certain niches, probably this one, a cloaker may be a good idea.
Thanks Billy and Dave.
One more question Dave. Actually a few more questions:
1) How many sites do you have?
2) In your section “Get direct links on the sidebars.” I love this idea by the way! So do you wait 6 months before doing this or do it as soon as you build your site? And since it’s in the sidebar, I’m guessing you have these links first and then a little lower, you have your post links, am I right?
Cathy, I guess we have a hundred or so sites between us but the money comes from a few only. As soon as a site shows promise it gets all the attention. I work any site that makes money very very hard, no point banging your head against a stinker.
I put up all affiliate links as I feel like it. Sometimes straight away, sometimes once a few visitors have arrived. I have found it makes no difference at all. Really the sooner you have affiliate links up the sooner you can make a sale. Putting say direct links for price ranges right at the top is a great way to go, even in the main content above the posts, if people are just coming for buying keywords what would they want to read? They want to buy for the best price.
Thanks Dave. I guess it’s that 80%/20% thing.
Dave, I am in the process of setting up my first site like this. When you are making a CJ affiliate site how do you go about setting up the images/buy buttons that you discussed in this post?
I as going to steal the link out of the HTML code they give you but then I noticed the “You must include all the above html in your links. Any missing html etc…” message.
Josh, if the program has a product section then I just take the code for the image or the link and use it straight, but always adding a nofollow. But if you want to use different images then do what you were going to do, they really do not mind. Use your own image and link it with the code you can get from the program. I can’t see it as a problem and do it all the time. That message you refer to is just so people do not mess up their links.
Dave,
All I have to say is…. wow!! This post was absolutely an eye opener for me and with this much information, there’s absolutely no reason why anyone should fail. Seriously. I was going to give a donation, but then I figure I’m going to sign up for a hosting account through your affiliate link and you’ll probably make more from that anyway
I did have a few questions though if you don’t mind:
1. For site design, would you recommend something like a magazine style similar to the Revolution themes or just a simple theme like the one you have on this site?
2. Do you make the home page static or will each new post get placed on the home page?
3. What do you think of using a plugin like Reviewazon to add in Amazon review content pages?
4. Do you differentiate between using Posts and Pages when adding in new content?
5. In a previous post, you mentioned that you would write post after post about buying keywords but doesn’t this start to get really redundant? I mean, you might have a post about “Buy Cheap Pink Belts for Women” or “Discount Pink Belts – Where to Buy” or “Discount Pink Belts” or “I Want to Buy Women’s Pink Belts”. When you do this, are you just repeating the same information over and over again but just in a different way?
6. Are a majority of your authority sites on one hosting account or do you spread it out? I was thinking that I should purchase different hosting accounts so that not every single one of my general sites are on the same IP address.
I’m probably over thinking things here but I just wanted a bit more clarification. I’m going to go through CJ in the next few days to pick out a few advertisers I’d like to promote. I’m thinking that I can maybe build five or so big sites a month and then just keep at it for the next year or so.
One thing I’m going to keep in mind is Pareto’s 80/20 law where 20% of sites will likely account for 80% of earnings. I wish I had learned this before I started churning out site after site. When I finally did calculations, I found that 10 of the 70 some sites I had were making a majority of the money but rather than focusing my attention on those 10 sites, I was still building out more and more!
Anyway, lesson learned but I’m hoping that by building out more sites in different areas I can start to really focus on those ones show promise.
Thanks again for the great information!
Hann
Yikes Hann,
Lots of questions. Well here we go.
1. It depends on the niche. Colorful for kids stuff, plain for meds, you get the idea. I would always go for simple though. Think how much testing amazon must have done for their site and it is all white with related products. I use YARPP to at least have links to other products at the bottom of posts. I don’t use magazine styles, but only because my young (ish, 37) yet addled brain seems to melt at how to set them up properly!
2. I have each new post on the home page. But for adsense I may also have a sticky post as well. But many of my sites have lots of price or category links to the affiliate product above the fold first, but that is for smaller category sites. For sites with many different products I go for maybe a direct link to Amazon at the top for a full range of ……….. and then a post with the image link and text link and then text.
3. I tried Reviewazon and fell flat on my face. I have not returned to it, but it seems to work for many people. But it did not increase my conversion while my sites were still ranking with it on. But many swear by it. I think my problem was I went in to 80 odd posts and added it and it screwed up how the site may have been crawled. I had to do an inclusion request for google, I took it off and my traffic returned.
4. New content is always posts. Easier to set up for site navigation for me personally. Plus gives you the easier option if you change themes as many show page navigation differently.
5. It gets boring as hell
But currently I have found so much weight is placed on post titles. I want searchers to find exactly what they are looking for so I write the post titles. I have found that with a handful of buying keyword post titles for a product the search engines pick certain ones to rank for the main keywords. I then amend the post title for the results I get. Interlink them all and get double listing galore. But I do not always do this as you pointed out it is repetitive and I don’t have the time. But never do them all in a row, this is why broader sites work. You can do 2 or 3 buying keyword posts around 1 product. Spend a few weeks on other products then mix back in new posts about the 1st one. Less spammy and more natural.
6. Gosh, feeling tired now!!!
Ours are getting there. But the oldest ones are all on our first hosting account. Not ideal but you live and learn. A reseller is best but pricey, well $25 a month. We have that now too as well as 2 normal hosting accounts. If I started again I would have just got a reseller where you get a handful of IPs. Best for backlinking with new IPs. But, as usual it is down to money. It does not matter for us now but not so long ago I really needed the $25, or so I thought, but now I am making sites on the reseller that are all in unique IPs and will be used to get more page 1 listings and for backlinks to the main site.
And we actually have very few sites as main earners. As you say most do not pan out. I would recommend never trying to do too many sites. Run with the ones that show promise. I spend an awful lot of time on only a few sites as they make the most money. They get built up most days and get links too. There is no reason why you cannot make a good living off 2 or 3 sites. If one makes the most money the easiest then go full out on it. With a bit of age you can really boost rankings quickly with tons of backlinks once a week or so or a good number every day.
I insert my disclaimer here
Best advice, if you have niche that makes money the easiest build new sites around it and really work it hard. There is noting wrong with making all your money from one niche. You get to know it better and can be more helpful to searchers by really honing in on what they want.
Right, that is about 4 buying keyword posts you owe me. Back to writing postrunner articles for me.
Ahh, the joy.
p.s No tip required, especially for a hosting sign up!
Hi Dave,
Wow, thanks so much for taking the time to answer all my questions in such detail! I know what you mean about the whole magazine layout too. I had a sample version of one of the Revolution themes and it took me a while to customize it so then I just decided to stick with simple themes.
I think what I’m going to do then is to have a sticky post on the home page with images linking to the affiliate products in addition to having a good call to action as well. I’ll also link up to categories within the site as well to make it more user friendly.
The way you laid it out makes perfect too since these people likely aren’t there to read a story about how you bought pink belts for your good lady (though that could be an interesting story….) and are more likely to click an image of the item they want. It seriously doesn’t get much easier than that and now I have a much clearer idea of what I need to do.
Anyway, I actually purchased Reviewazon recently to bulk up some of my adsense sites and I did read your post on the make money online forum that you had to request reinclusion since it tanked in the search engines. I think I’m going to build my new sites without using it and see how well that works first. It’s just kind of weird though that your site reacted that way. Oh well, live and learn!
What you just mentioned about interlinking two posts that are targeted towards similar keywords is a great idea too. And actually, I think Grizzly does this all the time where he’ll write a post targeting a specific keyword and then he’ll target a new post and interlink them to get double listings. I have no idea why I never implemented this before. I guess it just seemed too boring to write about the same stuff which is why I was always writing on new keywords.
I actually do have a Resellers account with Hostgator but I’m thinking of downgrading to just a regular account now. I would build my new sites on that hosting but I somehow get a feeling that since all my adsense sites tanked in rankings that the IP addresses must have been flagged. Anyway, look for an affiliate commission on Web Hosting Pad real soon and hopefully it will pay you back in the 4 buying keywords posts that you could’ve written if it weren’t for all my questions
Again, thanks so much and I truly appreciate all your help. I’ll be sure to stop in once in a while.
Hann
PS. For those wanting to save on Web Hosting Pad, “pretend” to leave the site as you select a hosting package and a popup will display with a “one time” offer of additional savings. I was able to knock down one year of hosting from $42 to $35. I would’ve bought it on the spot actually, but I’m sure this technique will stick work in a few days when I make the purchase.
Just curious. How long do you wait until you end up using Amazon. Meaning, how many clicks with no sales do you let go by before you conclude that people in that niche just don’t buy? I have a site using the suggestions you gave with over 125 clicks but so far no sales. Wondering how long I should wait. As long as people are clicking, I’m assuming the layout is fine.
Oops, sorry about the last comment, I meant: “how long do you wait until you end up using Adsense”
Private first I would play around with colors, layout etc to see if you can improve conversions before trying Adsense. But that many clicks with no sale is obviously not very good. But also remember stuff can be seasonal. I have a site that gets plenty of visitors a day but hardly any sales but at Christmas it made good money, the rest of the year people simply do not seem to buy, so bear that in mind too.
Whatever you all do remember to NOT use the Amazon loggo unless it comes automatically embedded in on of their widgets/banners. Copy pasting their logo and putting it on your site is against their TOS and may get your account terminated.
Obviously, you can start a new account but when the account is killed, the funds in it are lost.
Dave,
If you can’t keep rambling on about belts on a belt site that needs hundreds of posts… then what are you supposed to write about?
I’m currently filling that domain I registered half a year ago around Christmas time (the one you recommended to me) with regurgitated reviews on the product that I sell on it.
Are you saying I also need to work in some non-review posts in there that just give information related to the product?
If I write posts that don’t center around a product, then it becomes kind of hard to pick a centered product image to show at the top of the post, doesn’t it?
Thanks Mike, good tip, and I hope everyone has declared on their sites that they are member of the program too. It is always worth reading terms and conditions properly.
Blackthorne I would just mix it up with product specific posts, then buying keywords for the general item and “Cheap …….for Men”, women, children, “Large …..for Sale” etc.
I would just go for general buying keywords mixed with product specific items, for the general terms just use a relevant image and text that links to the general search result on Amazon. Just upload the image to your site and link it to the general search term. Get a load on and you are bound to sell.
I think I’m already doing a lot right, Dave. I got a good theme and I’m making my posts the way you are.
If you still remember which domain we are talking about, have a look at the site.
I don’t have all that stuff you advise for the sidebar, but that’s okay… the site’s not doing any traffic anyway. I’ll fix that a little later on.
So when you put price ranges in the sidebar, exactly where do they link to? Product specific pages? Because I don’t recall seeing any ‘price range’ pages on Amazon that I can link to.
Blackthorne usually on the left sidebar somewhere on Amazon there are price ranges for the general products, click one and then link to that page. It us usually there for most general item categories.
The site looks cool but a few tips, and for anyone else who reads this. When writing review posts use Reviews as well as Review. Many people type in so and so reviews. And when you are writing a specific product post title with review or reviews at the end then stick a buying keyword at the beginning. Best price, cheap, discount, inexpensive etc. It will give you more longtail traffic once you begin to rank, which we all know can be some time. Some of my post titles here and on my proper sites may look a little odd bu they get traffic, well, not here yet
As far as I can tell a long most title that is almost a double title does no harm and will bring in more visitors.
i.e Cheap White Socks For Sale: Best Price For White Socks
But at least go for Cheap White Socks Reviews rather than just White Socks Reviews, you get an extra keyword.
Great advice mate.
You’ve mentioned you do a lot of regurgitating yourself. As you’ll notice, I do this as well. This won’t stop me from having success right?
About the number of articles to pump out to expect reasonable success in a reasonable timeframe:
I work 3 days for somebody else and 4 days for me. On a day, I can pump out 20 articles with relative ease. These will either go on my own website or they will go on the PostRunner system. I want to spend 25% of my time on providing content and the other 75% on backlinks.
With that amount of articles (320 per month) distributed at said percentages, what kind of results can I expect after 3 months, 6 months and 12 months?
Blackthorne, who knows? Honestly it varies so much from niche to niche that results are impossible to gauge. I have done more than 10 articles myself this morning, even with your interruptions
What you get back depends on just what the niche is like. I have tons of sites that get easy traffic, 100 plus a day with little work and never make a sale. Just the way it goes. As soon as one site makes some money then go flat out on it and then you can make good money. 12 months is really a good time frame to look at as that is when a site seems to really settle down to its position. And if it is a site that converts to sales then you should be able to make a living off just that one site. We now have a good few sites that are each a full time wage in their own right and in another year when we have a handful more I expect to be on the $30K a month that is my goal.
But hey, I will probably make a load of stinkers too that waste my time and never make anything. Just gotta keep trying to find the winners. And I hate to say it but Hubpages can earn god Amazon money too. The good lady does more than me as they do my head in but they are great for testing the waters so to speak. A run with Backlinks Philippines (on the sidebar) will see them jump in the SERPS in a few weeks and you can see how it converts.
This particular site you’ve just looked at made 1 sale with almost 0 traffic. It wasn’t a sale for the product I’m promoting… it was a cook book instead!
Other Amazon sites I have have also made a few sales with almost 0 traffic.
Those are good omens, aren’t they?
I’m just going to keep on pumping those articles man. I’ve got awesome domain names and I know I can rank the bastards.
Hello,
Thanks so much for your information. I hope you won’t mind a few questions/clarifications?
I’ll summarize them first…then expound a bit more following it (so anyone can skip over it as i do tend towards long-ish posts,lol;)
a) How might we accomplish this with the free WP and/or Blogger (or Squidoo too?) versions. Can everything you rec’d here be applied to the free blogs we can set up?
I know the domain names will be subdomain..do you think it would affect things a lot, even if the template/layout is as website-y as possible? (or should they be ‘review sites’ as more in line with blog subdomain presence & not go for anything storefrontish?)
b) What do you think about the free website & hosting platforms, like DevHub & Yola (& Weebly etc) for your Amaz store type of setup? Altho DevHub & Yola are simple, their minimalist themes seem suitable fore storefront site approach. Plus they’re free, while I stumble around & experiment;)
c) What do you think about WP AmaNiche plugin? Would you advise this for someone new to WP & Amaz sites?
I did check out your hosting rec–it looks great! They seem to offer 1 Free Domain name too? — that’s even great-er;) BUT even with just a year subscription, it’s over $54…That’s alot if it doesn’t turn out & I’m fairly certain I’ll end up messing up alot at the start. & What if I want to do a bunch of sites?
wait. even as i type this, a lightbulb!~when they mean ‘unlimited domains’ that means i can try out an ‘unlimited’ number of different domain sites…it’s just the hosting that is $54, like a ’1 time fee’ (for 1 year)? right? — of course i’d have to buy the domains separately, but if i get low cost .info domains it shouldn’t be too much a financial burden to add onto, yes? no? am i correct in thinking like this? what do you think of .info domains–are customers leery of them, is it better worth it to try for a .net or .biz instead?
I’m new & all this hosting, ftp, etc. stuff is abit intimidating! It took quite a bit of research & reading just to get to this point where I can read what you & others here write & actually make sense of it (most of;)
I don’t have any money for anything…I don’t mind adding to credit card debt if it truly will level out the learning curve for me (& that the card could be paid off within a reasonable timeframe while learning all this;). I know the say newbies should try free resources first–but that can take quite along time (i kno!) & you basically have to figure everything out yourself & manually…it’s really alot of google searching (ie, reading, research=Time!) to cross check ur other google searched info for xyz, repeat repeat until u can reasonably be certain it’s legit info, so then fiiiinally, actually *do* that xyz thing. ugh, alot of time & brain pain with very little ‘tangibles’ to show (usually bc ur worn out by then, heh)….
Sooo another lightbulb when I came across MAR & MAS–those seem ideal for the newbie & it really helped me understand things even better…which got me thinking now that perhaps I do need to buy some professional level ‘tools’ for me to get going…else I’ll lose another 6+months fiddling, learning,trying to get up speed about WP & hosting & templates & all those doodads. So if I can get something up now with a bit more ease with the help of these tools, then it might start some seed money coming in, at which point I truly can focus on the marketing & research aspect of it & learning up on all things internet…?
I hope this made some sort of sense…I’m starting to get a bit panicky now as I have to find some way for income asap for family & health reasons & can’t really leave the house for long periods (not trying for a sob story, just sense of urgency for turnaround something, anything…sigh;)
Thanks again for everything~~you’re truly the bees knees!:)
p.s. i dont have a website per se, might the signature link be used instead for? (feel free to remove if it’s not ok!):
http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com/clickToGive/home.faces?siteId=3
Rodori, yikes !!!!
Okay, here we go:
The way I explained will be fine for blogger and other free sites you can modify the themes of, although forget wordpress.com as you are not supposed to have affiliate stuff on them. I don’t keep up with my blogger sites any more either as I lost 3 of them to google and can’t face losing a years worth of work again, but they are good if you have no money, just never rely on them long term.
I used to do very well with both devhub and yola and still make some money from them. Devhub is great for a doing a small site although in my recent experience they did not rank like they used to but they may be back in the search engines good books again now.
I would not use any plugins like that, I would just get the code manually from Amazon and put it on, I have tried a few and to be honest I sleep best knowing I am not using a plugin that may go out of favor and I have alsready had to re do a 100 post site to get rid of reviewazon, but that is just my experience, others have had great success with the plugins so I am a little biased.
With the hosting I think you do get 1 free domain. You can then have any number of sites hosted with them, no extra charge. You just buy the domains and host them with them. I have great success with whatever extension the domain is, .info, org, .com, it makes no difference to me. Get what you can for your keywords. But small sites will not work well, build up something large and the domain will not matter.
You don’t need ftp for hosting. Get an account, use fantastico or simple scripts on the cpanel to just install wordpress and get a theme. At least that is what I do as I don’t even know how to build a static site, ahh the shame
MAR and MAS will simply allow you to spin content and submit it to article directories for backlinks. Personally I would not get too caught up in it right away. Try just making some sites first and see how you go. You don’t need lots of backlinks for new sites anyway, and it may just confuse you even more. Talked myself out of a commission there, damn
Pick some keywords, or products and make some sites. Add a load of posts then get a backlink a day or so to them for the first month then try things like MAR and MAS once they have a little age. Personally I think you may like the keyword academy, it is a $1 for the first month, link on the side, and you can then use postrunner to write articles for backlinks every day. Just don’t get too caught up reading forums there etc. Too much information is worse than not enough sometimes.
But don’t forget hubpages. Totally free and you may like it. Write product posts and put the amazon box top right then also an amazon affiliate text link in the first paragraph of text, do a load of them and you will sell some stuff. Do that combined with a link from them to your own sites and some money will come in. New sites take moths of work to make any money so begin building them as soon as possible and use things like hubpages to make money from amazon in the meantime. But make sure you really do a lot of work if you want good money, it will pay off believe me.
Right, back to work for me, hope this helps and let me know if you have any other questions, but it may be a day or so before i reply as I am starting some new sites and need to get busy.
All the best
Dave
Zow~! Ty ty ty!!!:) – just wht i was hoping for to clear thru some of the brain scramble…bc it really can get too much info!
I really don’t want to bother u–I have a quick Q!: What do you mean “WP doesn’t allow Affiliate Links”??? Isn’t this what we’re supposed to be making these things for…?
I have MAR & MAS-tho only a week so far…bc i’d mentioned aaallll those hours reading up&figuring things out?–well that’s cuz i had been trying to do affiliate marketing with articles. alas alas–nada fm all that, so far.
Anyhoo I’ll trot off to try my had at DevHub & Yola too…Tho i risk being overly brain-commited (which can be many the Int Mktr downfall, no?) Perhaps I shall focus on setting up 1 site on …. WP?!!~Cuz guest wht!:
I bit the bullet & got hosting (thru u…i think? it’s not exactly a super informative site, so i dunno if it ‘went thru’ or such. but of course i’ll be using ur Amaz link whenever;) (hmm, does Amaz have a ‘click ur own link’ penalty like adsense? i imagine it does..i’ll look it over).
So!~You seemed so genuine I decided to got for it even bf ur reply back…& I’m right now downloading WP! (do u buy into all those “xfactor” theme sites? Altho~~those are more for Adsense, I’d think Amaz aff site/blogs would not nec have same theme advantages, yay,nay? Well i’ve printed out ur mega Amaz post & will follow that to set up my~very first site!:) awww…:)
Thx soooo much!! (ur the 1st place i’ve really written any comments to;)
Hi Dave
Thank you so much for this post. I have just discovered your site, and I’m off to read some more!
I have a question about setting up the sites: how many posts do you do initially?
I know you go flat-out on one when it shows promise, but in the testing stage, how many on-site posts do you make? (I am asking because I’m planning to do a crazy 100 Amazon sites in 30 days test, mwuhahaha!)
And I know I’m being a bit thick here, but in the testing stage, are all your posts about products? Or do you have general posts like “how to clean your white socks”?
Also, regarding general vs specific would you suggest starting out with a site about white socks? Or just socks in general?
Wow, I meant to only ask one question! Thank you again.
I’m sorry, I’m an idiot, you’ve already answered all my questions in your previous posts
Thanks for having such a great blog.
Rodori,
With wordpress a self hosted site is fine, it is just if you use the free wordpress.com that you cannot put affiliate links on really. But for a self install you use wordpress.org. No commission showed up for you get hosting but no worries.
I don’t do the xfactor style at all, not my way of working. And many people have been totally gutted to have lost all their earnings from lots of those type of sites recently as small sites simply will not rank very well any more. Better to go for a large site and really put some work in to it. A nice simple WP theme where you can get aff links and images above the fold is always going to work best for sales.
Good luck setting up the sites.
Ash, no worries but if you found your answers I means I can have a little rest. Good luck with the 100, sure to be some winners there.
Hann, glad you got the hosting cheap but I just found out I don’t get a commission if you buy that way, so if anyone else wants to save a bit then email me after you buy normally buy buying straight after just clicking on my affiliate link and I will send you $10. Better than no commission for me!!!
Hi Dave, I’m about to sign up for Backlink Solutions – do you have an aff link I can use? I’m also signing up for reseller hosting through you
Ash, here is the backlinks solutions link. It is much appreciated, as is the reseller hosting. Definitely worth doing though, no doubt about it.
You should get some good results with BS. All the best, and thanks again.
Hi Dave~
I was waiting to hear back from WebHostingPad…I wrote them & asked very very nicely (& rather persuasively i thought;), to have my purchase commission be credited to you. They got back to me after the wkd, & seemed truly to wish they could comply, saying they “appreciated my diligence” on your behalf, but unfortunately my “commission had tracked back to another affiliate”….?!…?…I dunno what happened as I explained that-seriously-I’d never heard of WHPad til I read your blog~so i’m not sure how I could have gotten their thru another’s link….? Well just thought you might want to know ~ altho I’m sure it’s more than likely due to my techno-bumblings that might’ve tossed my cookies (ha..(sorry;). I’m sorry I couldn’t get u the commission tho:(
Re: XFactor–yes, i agree in re ‘adsense only’ sites, they’re not the way to go at all! I was only wondering about such as what i’d read seemed to indicate those templates (or whatever they are..’system’?) are all “set up to go,” ie., no ‘cleaning up of WP code’ (whatever that is), do-follows link sets, seo-blah blah codes redirects, etc…I’m no techy AT ALL–& lil intimidated doing all this imputing myself (hey, i don’t mind experimenting around w/new stuff, but if I don’t even know what the implications of anything are, I can’t even make an ‘educated guess’ as to what’s the best xyz for option 123 should be, etc etc..i’d have to go do google researching & reading & there goes a whole lot more addl time lost…!) ~ So i’d thought maybe some sort of template or such, for my ‘starter/’baby-step’ sites at first, so I could just worry about writing content & marketing it in the beginning (kinda like a blogger or squidoo setup, u kno?)…& let all the ‘backend’ techy whatnots seep into my learning as I go along (as well~u kno~time is of the essence for me, eep.)
Anyhoo, I will follow ur advice & began working on a general topic-y ‘authority’ site…But!~I’m really worried about quantity–this is just *1* site!!…since the learning curve is so steep, how on earth can I get up multiple sites, let alone oodles & noodles of ‘em (100 Amaz sites in a month??! really??…oy.)
Since I have done content writing before for affiliates (which i’d started that way bc…I wouldn’t have to make web site/techy stuff!;) & with all the new ‘user friendly’ hoo-hahs in techy stuff these days – I wasn’t expecting it to seem this much behind the curve…alas….any thoughts? Hows about a good starting number for sites…I kno most IM will always be a numbers game, but hows ab just something reasonable, an ‘ok-for-now’ number to focus on right now, hmmm~dave?…what say you?;)
Well ta for now ~ I wish you well on your new site-building!:)
Rodori, don’t sweat the affiliate link but I really appreciate the trouble that you went to.
Don’t worry about the techy stuff at all. Simply install wordpress, get a nice theme. Then go to permalinks settigns, use custom, and /%postname%
Then install google sitemaps and get writing. Then backlinking.
As for how many sites, you don’t have to go for lots, just what you can handle. Just try out a few different niches and see what works best. it may be worth doing some Hubpages to test out new niches first and if they make sales then you have a few links you can put in the Hubs to your new site.
I don’t have 100 sites myself, and only work a few really hard. It is just about finding that good niche in the first place. Just do a handful and see how you get on. But don’t worry about themes etc at the beginning. Just put that code for the permalinks so the urls are search engine friendly from the start and you can change the theme to your hearts content in the future, it will be months before the visitors arrive anyway.
Hope this keeps it simple, just don’t think too hard and get the content online as soon as you can. The older it is the better it will do.
Let me know if I can help with anything.
Dave,
Thanks for answering my question on another post. Now I’m wondering about product layouts.
Let’s say you have a page on your blog, perhaps a category, that covers a broad subject. For example: printers. Would it be wise to put a grid with say 30 different products on the page to cover this huge umbrella term? In my mind, a product grid would make the blog look more like a shop.
I guess the minimalist way to go would be to put like 3 popular products above the fold. However, this would only allow you to cover 3 different printers out of many types. (Ex color/laser/black and white/inkjet/photo). Your input is appreciated.
Preston, I keep it to just a few products, partly because of the time taken to add the links and I am not sure about using plugins anymore for Amazon. When it covers a broad category I usually have 1 or 3 items with a link to the whole range on Amazon. But I am not saying this is better than your idea, yours may convert a lot better.
It certainly will make it look more like a store, if you find a good plugin to do it then it would certainly be worth trying, even manually if you can.
Thanks for that Dave. Not sure if you could use this, but I found an online program which can create grids of products on your posts:
http://shawndolen.com/amazon
After selecting products in the trial, select “showcase”. You have to sync your wordpress blog up with it first.
One more question for you- Would you suggest putting the prices under each image? I notice you don’t do this in the guide.
Thanks Preston,
I will take a look at that later today. As to prices, if you put them in by hand then be careful. You will be going against the T and C if the price is ever wrong so you need to ensure they are always correct. If you use a plugin like Reviewazon it is different as they make calls to the API to ensure they are always right.
I thought I posted another comment here? And now it’s gone?
Dave,
I wanted to ask if you are still using Reviewazon or if you’ve completely stepped back from it?
Blackthorne you posted a few comments a while ago but nothing in the last few days has come through.
I still have Reviewazon on a few articles on a few sites but I don’t use it anymore and don’t have any sites that use it for lots of pages. I had a bad experience with it so stick to manual inclusions now, but other people swear by it.
My bad then… maybe I merely intended to post but forgot to actually do it.
Either way… that was my question.
I used Reviewazon on 1 site to see if it could get trickle traffic with just 20 Reviewazon posts.
It doesn’t really. So I put up 20 hand written posts. Still not much, but I’ma keep on goin’ strong!
Reading your July 9th post now on how to make a living online. That post answers another one of my questions I had.
10 Articles per day at least 5 days a week, eh? That equals about 50 articles per week, while I’m at around 30 now.
I will find a way to get up to 50 per week and stick to it religiously.
Thanks for the great post Dave.
Hey Dave,
About the reply you gave to Preston’s post;
“As to prices, if you put them in by hand then be careful. You will be going against the T and C if the price is ever wrong so you need to ensure they are always correct. If you use a plugin like Reviewazon it is different as they make calls to the API to ensure they are always right.”
I couldn’t find this stated anywhere. Not trying to be an ass or anything, I just realized there has to be a place with T&C that I haven’t been able to find yet. I’ve been putting the price and discount info in the images and it does convert pretty well for a certain product so just very inquisitive to know.
AWESOME POST THOUGH!
Best,
JC
James:
I think the third part would imply that prices must be accurate. I also read about someone getting banned on the Amazon forum because their prices were misleading. It is a small risk to have the wrong price but a risk nonetheless.
Here is the full terms and conditions https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/agreement and here is the most important thing stated on it.
Hope this helps
Thank you for the reply Dave.
While I had read through that earlier, I thought Nº3 was there to protect Amazon from lawsuits in case some one said something absurd to get people to click to their sites and they ended up with a bunch of dissatisfied customers. I guess the same goes for % discounts in the pictures as well.
I was wondering if my pictures should say “so and so” and then, & at the bottom of the picture have something like:
“Prices accurate at time of publishing. Please check link for latest prices”
OR
“Item priced $0.99 on 01/12/10. Click to check for latest prices”
What I am tying to do is to keep the image of the product up as an actionable item; something that the visitors would click and I’d appreciate any ideas on that one.
Will shoot off a mail to Amazon reps as well, but I’ve never managed to receive a reply about anything really.
Thank you the Amazon Services disclaimer, I remembered I hadn’t put it up on a new project site.
Best,
JC
Hi Dave
It’s good to see you’re still hanging around the blog and replying to comments. Maybe your comment section will soon outweigh the post length
As I’m proceeding with the sites, I’ve had to change my plans pretty drastically. I decided 100 sites with 10 posts each, then revisting the top performers two months later to add posts wasn’t gonna cut it. That’s the mass model, but I figure this model is different. So not I’m focusing on ten broad sites and pluggin away! It’s a huge risk for me, to focus so heavily without proof, but I figure, at worst, I’ll have some huuge sites up and hopefully I’ll be getting traffic, so if Amazon doesn’t work out I can always monetize in other ways …. but hopefully it WILL work out.
Yeah, you’re right about the hassle of creating product images/links thingy! Ugh, and I’ve just started.
To the commenter above (yes, this is how many SBox comments start, I know
), I recon you could say something like “list price x, click here to know the currently discounted price”.
Dave, I really get you when you say you used to be broke and now doing this you have cash. I’m kind of in the same way, I had my freelancing business take off a few months ago, though I attribute it mainly to luck, and my hubby got a new high-paying (well, compare to before which was $0) job, so I figure now’s the time for me to take a risk and try to build Amazon mega sites instead of just doing more freelancing work.
Will hopefully post back after I have any success (Even, hey I finished the backbone of all 11 sites! – feels like a long way to go just to d that.) Of course, as everyone says, you should do things differently, so I’m trying a twist on keyword research and will do some serious backlinking (WH) including satellite sites (a first for me) as well as article submissions and link networks.
Hope you’re doing well
Update for James: I have actually decided to leave prices out entirely!
I’m waiting to hear from James how he does this as well
Currently I’m in the process of making my first site look “pretty” with a store-front like design in WP – I think once I get this down I can repeat the process for my other blogs.
Ugh, I meant hear from Dave. Damn typos.
Hi Ash,
10 sites sounds more manageable to me, but then I have never been in to creating huge numbers of sites.
You should see a few winners there and if they do take off it they could make some amazing money. Christmas should be good for a number of sites even if they do not perform well the rest of the year. I have a few of those now after seeing how well I did last year with Amazon at Christmas.
I don’t add prices either, I may talk about a very general number but never give an accurate one in case they change. Man, last year a few things I was doing at Christmas used to go up 200% in price quite regular, I was amazed people used to still by them.
Good luck with the sites, some are sure to be very good and bring in the money. You should have enough authority to get lots of Christmas clicks if you are building them now. It can be very lucrative for a lot of items you never thought would be end of year sellers.
Thank you for the reply Ash. I was just stuck on them because they worked too well. Trying to work on a script that’ll take care of it and update the prices within the image. Thinking of using CSS to layer it on top of the image directly. Won’t be as fancy, but is still definitely workable. I know it may sound like overkill, but that site is already making me £1000 a month with 200 odd articles on it. The content for the SEO was a bitch though.
I like the idea of using the “list price x, click here to know the currently discounted price”. I’ll give it a shot and report back on the conversions. Heck with a call to action like that in the copy and with a button that screams “click me” in there somewhere, I might just increase my conversions. WIll do some testing and report back in a month or two. I am am conversions junkie.
I didn’t know you were gonna be away for a while Dave. I really appreciate that you took the time to reply to my comments. Given me quite a few ideas.
Thank you guys.
James sounds like a real winner of a site.
Would you like to tell me the niche so I can protect it for you
Seriously Dude a site like that could make you monster money once every post is in the top spot. Who needs a ton of sites when you find winners like that.
This is the battle we all face. Trying to find a niche where it converts really well. Man, when I think of the hours worked on stuff that simply never converts.
Dave,
I am building lots of links to my articles now and I’ve almost completely forgotten about my frontpage.
Are you still building links to the frontpage at all, or just the articles?
Should the frontpage link be treated like any other ole’ link, or is it perhaps less or more important than deeplinks to posts?
Blackthorne
Hi Blackthorne – I’m not James, but I’ve read that the backlinks to your homepage should be over 50% of your total backlinks. This may just be “guru spout” crap however.
James – your welcome
Let me know how your conversions go! And don’t blame me if they drop drastically…. :S
Dave – I know I might be overthinking this, but what about duplicate content sitewide? I mean, G will crawl the site, and see the same (above the fold call to action) everywhere – you mention this is a good thing and will help you rank better? I’ve actually heard the opposite and was wondering if I should set the sitewide duplicate content portion no-crawl or whatever the tag is on most of the posts…. I know, I know, overthinking – but I’m really interested in hearing what you have to say.
I’m going a bit overboard with my images and it is not fun.
Ok, back to work for me now and hopefully I will have my initial content up, my web2.0 sites up, and will be beginning major (but slow) backlinking soon.
Blackthorne, it depends how important the homepage keywords are but I know for a fact that you can get your site title to number one just through backlinking inner pages. I concentrate about 80% at least to links for inner pages if not even more.
As for me the inner pages are really what I want to rank for I go all out for that, but each to their own.
Ash, I have never had a problem with putting a ton of affiliate links and some affiliate images site wide. They are all no-followed though, as obviously you don’t want to give the affiliate program a backlink. But that text does show up in the search results once you get some authority and it will gradually mean that the homepage ranks for a lot of the terms that you have there. Once you really begin to step up a backlink campaign.
Oh, Ash, and as for over thinking things, if you think what we talk about here is getting the brain muddled (mine always is) then check out Blue Hat SEO. Everyone who is in the Internet game should go over there and have a read, it is where the real big boys hang out. Eli makes me hang my head in shame. I dread to think how much he must make a month. I can’t get my head around a single word of it though. I do feel that if I could then I would be making some serious money.
I wish I could even grasp some of the basics of his site. I have gone though every article and picked up a few little pieces of it but basically it all goes WHOOSH. There is a whole different world out there where people are doing some real serious stuff and it makes me feel like I am in kids school (for the rather slow)
Hey there Dave, hope you’re well.
I’ve taken a step away from domaining and am now working on my first foray into making money with the Amazon affiliates program!
I’ve chosen my niche and set up my WP site but I was wandering if you could take 5mins to have a look at my site to see if I’m going in the right direction and answer one or two of my questions? If you can spare me even a fraction of your time please drop me an email at the given address and I’ll send you the site URL.
Also, made another donation today (can you see) to show gratitude for answering my previous questions and just generally having a fabulously informative blog!
Thanks in anticipation.
Jim.
Holy smokes, this is some good info. I’ve been taking a really close look at Amazon affiliate marketing since many of my sites cross over into this area quite well, and I’m liking what I’m hearing about it from many places I read about it, including this awesome post. I really like your point about tools, and especially link building tools.. that is the one area that killed me time-wise, and since I’ve started using Linkvana (just one of many of these types of services available) I’ve been able to get a lot more efficient time-wise in building search rankings, and actually find that ranking for product types searches doesn’t take a whole lot of time using tools like this. Thanks for taking the time to write all this stuff up
Jim, I have sent you an email and thanks for the donation, much appreciated.
Hi Luke, glad you found it informative,
Tools really can be a tremendous help and you are right, they certainly free up a lot of time. I still do a ton of manual links too though for a nice varied backlink profile.
Hey Dave,
can you give me a rough number of a good conversation rate for amazon? For example 1% 5% 10%? I guess this could change depending on the niches and if they find you site from buyer keywords?
Right now im at around 2% which seems pretty low? Also how many actual product link clicks do you get per day to be making $300+?
Hi Dan, firstly I don’t make $300 a day from Amazon. I make more money from other affiliate programs so I don’t want to mislead you. Amazon is just one of the affiliate programs I use.
As to conversions mine is usually 4-5%. But it totally depends on the niche. My partner is super chirpy at the moment as some of her niches are well over 10% conversions and she doesn’t mind telling me about it on a regular basis! But 4% is about average and a goal, but man, I have some sites that get 100 people a day, tons of clicks and they never buy a damn thing, annoying but part of the game.
thanks for the reply, did that hostnine referral go through? if not let me know and i can email them if needed.
Dan, I contacted them and they are looking in to it but an email from you would be great if you don’t mind.
Hope you get them conversions up buddy, more buying keyword post titles should do the trick. That or you have a stinky niche, I have plenty of them, unfortunately.
Thanks for all the great info! I’m reading in the TKA forum tonight and people are saying that if you insert Amazon code into the HTML view of a WordPress post and then switch to wisiwig view, that WordPress strips some of the code which breaks the affiliate link. I tested this by adding some Amazon code in a test post in html view, then I switched to wisiwig, then switched back and pasted the same code below the original code. I then compared the two and they are definitely different. Parts of the code are rearranged after switching to the wisiwig view and then back to the html view. It all seems to be there but it’s in a different order. My Amazon affiliate ID isn’t stripped. I thought that if your affiliate ID is in the link that you’ll get credit for the sale. I would appreciate it if you could clarify this issue for me.
PH,
In my experience it only happens if you use the image and text box. If you use that then you need to insert it on the html side then publish without changing the view. But for just image or text links I have never had a problem. I think that is what people must be talking about. I will just check on TKA.
Yeah, it does maybe change the code a little but it never loses the aff link, but it does mess up if you use the image and link box, which looks ugly most of the time anyway.
Nothing to worry about as far as I am concerned. Still making the money with them so the links must be working. Hope this helps.
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Hey Dave I’ve been looking through your Amazon guide and I cannot get more than 1 image side by side. You said you can get 3 or 4 images of products (belts in your example) and line them up next to each other so that anyone landing on your site would know you are selling belts and it looks more like a store and not a boring blog. How do you get more than 1 image next to each other? I can only insert 1 image and nothing next to that.(Granted html is not something i like much). Have yet to try getting 1 post layout to be how you suggest then copying it over into the single post template.
Tara
Tara, in the html section just make sure that at the end of each code block you do not start a new line and they should line up. Sometimes it looks odd in editing stage so preview it to see how it will really look. That should solve the problem. If not let me know and we will work it out.
Thanks Dave appreciate you getting back to me. I’m gonna give this a go later on today. Tara
Hey Dave – hope things are well.
Was hoping you could share you experience with using UK/EU affiliate tags and sending visits/sales to Amazon.COM – I have been experimenting lately and don’t see my clicks coming up in my UK account when I send traffic to the US Amazon.
Cheers,
Billy
Hi, Billy nice to see you back here again.
But, um, exsqueeze me, baking powder, I beg your pudding, I don’t follow the question.
Please talk slowly and precisely for the slightly brain addled, (i.e me).
Heh. Well, if I use a UK affiliate tag (-21) and send people to amazon.com (A US site), do I still get the recognition for that from amazon.
E.g. In your “shop via daves amazon link ” at the bottom of this site, you use a US tag (-20), so I assume you’re getting cheques from them and not bank xfers? Small detail, i know, but just need to make sure my affiliate accounts are setup right.
Ah OK got you. You need to use the right ids for the right country. So you only get US sales if they go via a US associates code. Same for the UK. Get your codes from the respective countries or no moolah. They are different affiliate programs so if you used a -21 if you make your own affiliate links and direct to the US you get nothing.
Hope you haven’t been doing it much, this is why I would always just log in to the right account and use the code generated if there is any doubt. Those cheques are soooooo slow. Earn for August get the cheque end of Oct and then it takes like 3 weeks to clear here sometimes. Direct transfer would be so much better.
Gotcha, thanks Dave.
I’ve just flicked a few things around, so will change them back tonight to be all US. Kind of a shame, but targeting UK only is not going to be the most lucrative.
Starting to get things off the ground and getting some momentum; often refer back here! Let me know if you need any technical help in expanding your empire…
(Not sure if my previous post got through, tried to comment from my phone).
Ah, gotcha – thanks Dave. I was tweaking things the other day as obviously bank transfers would be much more ideal, but shall switch things back to the US now. Not really worth targetting UK only customers, as it’s pretty small compared to the big old America.
Not so bothered about losing a few clicks at the moment; starting to get a bit of momentum, and have just about built a nice repeatable process (as you say, it’s all about the content) – I’m obviously not doing this as a full time occupation, so happy with slow and steady.
Let me know if you need any technical help as you expand your Spanish Armada (of sites).
Oooh, get you with your fancy pants phone! Don’t even have 3G up my mountain where I live.
Billy,
The IPK guy (Craig Kaye) targets the British market and the example sites in his course should give you a good idea of what works.
I’ve had some experience there and you’re best running with massively popular products. Also, if you get a .co.uk and host it in the UK and do all the location specific mojo (set country to UK in the Webmaster Tools) ranking is easier.
There was this script someone was using that would switch links depending on which country the visitor was coming in from and switch to AdSense if it wasn’t on the whitelist. Will look it up.
I have this one niche which gets about 20 people from the UK everyday – maybe I should get a UK TLD and connect the two, put a banner on top for everyone coming in singing God Save The Queen…
hi Dave, would you consider doing an article on how you manage the amazon tracking-IDs, and how to use the reports generated within affiliate-program.amazon.com? looking for a good way for housekeeping and squeezing more profit from the reports…right now i am using only one ID for everything
SK I would definitely take advantage of the fact that you can have many different tracking ids. I use a different one for each site so I know where the money is coming from. Otherwise it would get very confusing.