Earlier this year, I launched my first my first Amazon affiliate site.ย I had heard from some internet “gurus” that it was no longer possible to make money through Amazon affiliate sites, and I wanted to see if this were actually true.
6 months later, the site is making a decent amount of money (nothing extraordinary, but a good amount for the effort I’ve put into it) so I wanted to share the knowledge with you. Here’s exactly what I did to buildย a successful Amazon affiliate site!
The Tools:
Hostgator Hosting:ย Every site needs a web host, and Hostgator is a good choice for small-medium sized websites. Use coupon code “HelpStartMySite” for a 25% discount!
Genesis Framework + Child Theme:ย Genesis themes are extremely customizable, extremely secure, and extremely clean. Good for SEO.
ActiveCampaign: ActiveCampaignย is the world’s top email marketing service, which will allow you to build and manage an email list, allowing you to market productsย to your subscribers over and over again.
Choosing A Niche
First and foremost, you’veย got to choose a niche. Choosing a profitable niche is probably the most important aspect of starting any website, and this holds true with Amazon review sites. The truth is, choosing an unprofitable niche will result in little more than wasted time. I’m going to assume you value your time pretty highly, so we’re going to avoid wasting itย when possible. ๐
Starting off, I want you to make a list of each and every niche with products for sale that you know of. List the ones you know more about first, because the more you know about a topic, the less time you’ll spend researching for your reviews.
Don’t bother sorting by your interest in them.ย Passion is great for traditional blogs, but I’m going to assume you’re buildingย an Amazon affiliate site for the sole purpose of making money. Unfortunately, Amazon review sites don’t allow as much freedom (at least if you want to maximize conversions, but we’ll get more to that later). I’m not going to sugar-coat this, writing these review articles might not be the most exciting work you’ve ever done. Therefore, I’m going to write this guide as if our intention is to put profit first. If you’re going to do unexciting work, you may as well make the most amount of money possible from it, right?
If you’re having trouble coming up with niches to write down, go on Amazon and browse products by category. There are thousands of different categories for you to look through, so feel free to take your time!
Narrowing It Down
Got a list of niches with products for sale? Good. Let’s get rid of all the ones that aren’t worth pursing.
First things first, get rid of all the niches that don’t have at least 30 products for sale. You don’t want to limit yourself in terms of articles you can write, and a lot of products equals a healthy market. Ideally, your niche will have new products released regularly (multiple times a year.)
Secondly, eliminate any niches where the average product isn’t selling forย at leastย $150. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather earn a $20 commission per sale instead of a 20 cent commission per sale. Ideally, the niche will also have products that cost thousands of dollars or more, so you can appeal to the high-income buyers as well. Of course, this isn’t necessary, just a bonus.
Next, check to make sure the products in the niche are actually selling on Amazon. Certain products just don’t sell online. A good way to judge how well a product is selling it by its reviews. It’s been estimated that only 1 in every 200 buyers will take the time to leave a review on Amazon, so you can base your numbers loosely around that. As a general rule of thumb, I thinkย the top 10 products in the niche should have a minimum of 50 reviews. Of course, more is better and less is possible. You be the judge.
Analyzing Your Competition
Finally, we’ve got to make sure you got a chance to actually compete.ย While I don’t normally recommend focusing on SEO as your primary traffic method, Amazon affiliate sites are an exception. Visitors will come to your site ready to buy, so SEO traffic can actually convert very well with review sites.
Analyzing your competition isn’t actually that challenging. My affiliate site was on digital pianos, so I started off by typing “digital piano reviews” into Google, and seeing how many sites came up. I also took some of the top selling products in my niche, smacked the word “review” on the end of it, and searched them on Google.
A few different sites came up, which was a bit worrying. Luckily, they were all junk – the average post length was less than 600 words and the sites were barely written in English. I asked myself – did I think I could outrank these websites? The answer was yes. If the niches you’re thinking aboutย entering into have competition, consider your chances of outranking them. Ask yourself honestly – can you write better, more unique content than your competitors? Are you willing to take the time to write longer, more helpful, more engaging posts?
Your goal is for your articles to rank in the top 3 spots of Google for each product review query, and your site’s main keyword (your niche + reviews.)
Making The Decision
Look over the niches you have left on your list. Whatever you have left is probably a good choice.
You shouldย be writing 1000+ word articles (easier than it sounds) so pick whichever profitable niche is left over that interests you the most. Make sure it’s something you’re willing to stick to for the long term, as sales will likely not come right away.
Picking The Domain
Picking the domain for the site is pretty straightforward. While the benefit of exact match domains has been significantly reduced in the past few years, they can still have a slight boost in terms of SEO. I recommend getting a domain with both your niche and the word “reviews” in it. Because my site was focused on digital pianos, I chose the domain http://Digital-Piano-Reviews.com.
Any variation will work, so long as it’s easy to remember and contains your keywords. I recommend checking out my article, “Avoid These 5 Common Mistakes When Buying Your Domain Name!”
Creating Content For The Amazon Affiliate Site
Once you have a niche chosen and a domain purchased, install WordPress and the theme of your choice. While we’re setting things up, you should also take this time to install Yoast All-In-One SEO and the TablePress plugins, which we will utilize later on.
Anyway, there are three types of articles you’ll primarily use on your Amazon affiliate site.
Review Articles
As you could imagine, the most popular posts on your site will be review articles. These should be a full article dedicated to reviewing one product in extreme detail. You’ll want to write a good amount of information about the product, while also convincing the reader why this product is (or isn’t) for them.
It’s important to have a format to follow for every single one of your reviews. Yes, it’s a bit tedious to organize all of your articles in the exact same way, but it allows your visitors to browse through different reviews and very quickly realize the similarities and differences between different products. If you want to see an example on how I do this, visit my digital piano reviews website and take note of how things are set up.
Some example review articles would include:
- Yamaha P35 Digital Piano Review
- Yamaha P105 Digital Piano Review
- Williams Allegro 88-Key Digital Piano Review
Comparison Articles
Comparison articles compare and contrast multiple products against each other, and are also commonly searched on Google.
Some example comparison articles would include:
- Top Digital Pianos Under $1000
- Yamaha P35 vs Yamaha P105 Digital Piano
- Best Side Tables For Piano Players
Using the TablePress plugin you installed earlier, you’re able to make nice looking tables which you can use to make a nice summary at the end of each comparison article. This converts extremely well.
Here’s what TablePress looks like in action…
Looks good, doesn’t it?
Informational Articles
Informational articles don’t necessarily promote a product, but they’re good for establishing your website as an authority in your niche. Informational articles shouldn’tย be the primary focus of your site, but they are definitely worth including.
Some example informational articles would include:
- Theย Benefits Of Digital Pianos Over Acoustic Pianos
- A Historical Timeline of Digital Pianos
- How To Care For Digital Pianos
Of course, you don’t have to stick to just these three. As long as you’re writing something related to your niche, you’re golden. Try to write more than 1000 words for each article. This will allow you to rank for many natural long tail keywords that will drive a lot of additional traffic to your website. Once you got a system in place, writing in detail will come naturally to you.
Additionally, try to include lots of images and a video of the products if possible. People are more willing to buy something if they can see it in action!
Building Traffic To Your Amazon Affiliate Site
I mentioned earlier in this guide that I’m not a huge fan of SEO. Normally, it doesn’t convert as well as other traffic methods, and I feel it’s very risky to put your business in the hands of another company. (Google)
However, Amazon affiliate sites are an exception. People will arrive to your site ready to buy – so SEO traffic will actually make you a lot of money.
That being said, there are plenty of other methods you can use to get traffic to your Amazon affiliate site. I recommend signing up for my free traffic building course, where I teach you 7 proven methods for bringing free long-term traffic to your site. It’s free, so there’s no reason not to!
Making Money From Your Amazon Affiliate Site
Obviously, the primary goal from your affiliate site is to make money through Amazon’s affiliate program. Because your visitors are coming to your site almost ready to buy, it’s your job to hype them up for the product you’re promoting (or direct them to another one) and then get them to Amazon as soon as you can. Amazon’s cookie only lasts for 24 hours, so you want them to purchase immediately after clicking your affiliate link.
Include affiliate links to Amazon as much as you can, within reason. Link to the product multiple times within your review.ย Link all images to the sales page. Have a direct call to action at the end of each product review, encouraging the viewer to find out more information on Amazon.com
Another tactic that works really well is to post customer reviews, but cut them off mid-sentence. Tell the visitor that they have to read the rest of review on Amazon, and then link to it. Example:
This works really well, and helps get your cookie in their browser. Even if they’re not sold on the product, the visitor is probably curious what the reviewer has to say. Remember to nofollow all of your affiliate links!
Adsense
Adsense is another way to monetize an affiliate site. It shouldn’t be your main money maker, but it’s an extra bit of income your site can make. I prefer to have ads later on in the article, which will maximize the likelihood that you’ll get an Amazon cookie placed in the visitor’s browser before an ad takes them away from your site.
Complimentary Info Products
If your niche has any info products you can promote to your audience, those can be a nice money maker as well. If somebody’s willing to invest several hundred dollars into a product, they’re likely to invest a little bit more to learn how to use it! For my digital piano site, I promoted a “how to play piano” course which boosted revenue a bit.
Accessories
You don’t have to stick to just promoting the main products – you can also promote accessories for the products. For example, on my site, I didn’t just promote digital pianos. I also promoted side tables, sheet music, benches, and more. Think of what accessory products can be used to get more out of the main product, and promote those.
Conclusion:
There you have it – the ultimate guide to starting up a successful Amazon affiliate site. If you want to learn more and really get into the details of how to succeed building Amazon affiliate sites, be sure to pick up my Amazon Affiliate Blueprint which is available here.
This was a lot of information to take in, so please feel free to leave a comment with any questions you may have. I promise that I will take the time to respond to them to the best of my ability. I want you to succeed, and will do what ever I can to make that happen!
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