Since the hit with the Mayday update to my micro niche sites; which are now earning 50% of what they were prior to June 2nd, I’ve decided to let my xfactor sites just simmer on the back burner while I bring another project to a full boil. (I love food so why not use cooking as an analogy?!) I figure there is no sense in trying to “fix” my xfactor sites until I can get some solid proof on how to improve them to rank better.
So, in the mean time I am going to be starting up a niche review blog. I have read some interesting posts on the warrior forum about amazon review sites and what is the best way to build them and make them bring in the most money. My short term goal is to build this website to earn $1,000/month. Apparently you start off earning only 4% in commission but if you do enough sales it gets raised to 8.25%.
Here is my plan to get an authority amazon review site to earn $200.00 per month:
- find and promote products on amazon that have a minimum price tag of $150.00
- confirm that this product; as a keyword, gets at least 8,000 monthly searches
- purchase an EMD (exact match domain). No brand names but possibly hyphenated if no other TLD (top level domain; ie .net, .com, .org) is available
- write an original LSI heavy, 1,000 word minimum review post. Thepost title will be “Full Product Name Review”.
Information will be gathered by visiting the manufacturer’s website for further product details, watching Youtube customer reviews or how to use the product, or see if the manual for the product is available online so that I can relay how to use the product in my review. I got informative tips on how to write amazon reviews that convert from WF.
- at the end of the review have a link that reads “read more customer reviews here” and this link will be my Amazon affiliate link to the product reviews page
- it will also feature a “check price” button which also has my affiliate link
- feature product images within the post
- enable comments and create keyword rich tags and categories
- promote each post with social bookmarking, an ezine article and a few other article directories, forum profile backlinking
This site will be my main focus for the next month. I want to build up at least 10 product review pages and then focus on promoting the pages.
I figure if I can get to the point of building at least 2 sites like this a month, then I can increase my income by about $400 a month. Its not a huge start but I am reading more and more about how amazon full product reviews have higher conversion rates.
Save yourself $47-97 on all the guru Amazon affiliate eBooks and check out this free guide here.
I am going to be quite busy in the next two days but tomorrow I will commit to at least conduct my research as to products and keywords to use for this site project. Tuesday is my court date (wish me luck and please pray that things turn out well for me) and tomorrow will be busy doing the last minute meeting with my lawyer on how to further prepare for the hearing. I am already freaking out about this. I have not slept well the past few days and I apologize for not being so active on the comments in my blog. Please know that I am not ignoring your comments. I am reading them, I just have so much on my plate at the moment.
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Hi Sara,
This sounds like a really good plan to me. I’m really glad to hear you are diversifying your portfolio in this way. I’m looking at building some more Amazon sites soon as well, so I really appreciate the WF link you provided. Although I’m not religious, I certainly wish you best for your upcoming court date. It sounds like you have a good lawyer and are preparing yourself well, and I would be really surprised if things do not work out well for you. Be sure to not to forget to take care of yourself as well, and get any needed rest before and AFTER the hearing (speaking from experience here!).
Best wishes!
Michelle
Michelle recently posted..Are We Selling Ourselves Short with Amazon’s Affiliate Program?
That’s good advice about taking care of myself. I know it is also easier said than done but I shall try my best!
Thanks for your wishes Michelle!
I think moving into the affiliate world is a great idea. I love adsense, but I think you can get much more “dollar per visitor” with affiliate programs. Have you thought about converting over some of your under performing xfactor product sites? e.g thin yoga mats.org could start being more focused on reviews, with amazon links.
This is really something I want to get into, but there seems to be a real lack of info out there compared to adsense (which there is tons of)…
Im not sure I would be good at doing reviews, I was thinking more along the lines of informational articles (similar to what we have with xfactor sites) with a block of amazon image links in the middle of the article. Maybe a couple of text links too.
How about just replacing the adsense with an amazon block? Might be worth testing……… any volunteers? Oh ok I will do it then
Will report back 7 days from now on what happens. At the moment the site i have in mind is in the bag niche, has about 2.5k exact searches per month, and is number 7 in google. It gets about 20 uniques per day, but rarely makes any money, the ads are not very targetted to the niche
It was one of my early sites. Last month it made $13 from 35 clicks.
Average retail is $200 so i should make $8 per sale @4%. all i need is 2+ sales per month, and i should make more money. Well, lets see what happens….
Switching some xfactor sites over to amazon is definitely a possibility but the sites would need some reconstruction since reviews convert better for amazon and a lot of my content is informational or “how-to” use the said products.
whilst thats true, is it any different from adsense? i.e people visit the site wanting to buy the product, they dont see it for sale on your xfactor site, but they see the shiny blue adsense links offering them what they want, and click. Is it that much different with amazon? They visit your site wanting to buy a product, see the image listings, and click them?
Its all new to me, but have switched 3 poorly performing adsense sites over in the last 24 hours, so im testing loads of stuff out… will share with you guys of course
Well I guess the difference is with Adsense we don’t want the visitor to necessarily stick around. We want them to click out of our site via the adlinks versus with Amazon if they just see the amazon link they might click on the link, see they are redirected to amazon and then leave amazon right away. Then you are left with nothing but a hope that your cookie sticks and that they return quickly to buy. So with amazon sites you want to help the visitor make up their mind about the purchase so that when you encourage them to finally click the link, they have already decided in their mind that it is purchase time.
It’s different, totally – - the fact is that in your review, you want to lead to a sale.
Answer the question: *why* do I need/want this item?
Unless your product is one of a kind, and there is no other competing product, you run the risk of only providing information like it’s a cereal box.
Everything is different from that sense – it’s how I’ve managed to sell $20k of a $2k/a pop product, on one of the XFactor sites.
My landing page is exactly that: a landing page. I led up to that landing page with a UAW blast that reviewed the product, the landing page drives home the benefits of that product.
I just checked today: yup. Still selling.
A landing page doesn’t need to be over the top, hard selling, either, but imho you will want to make it plain that your reader *should buy it* – and *why they should.*
It is *not sufficient* to have images that link to a product, and I can verify this that out of all of my $2k commissions, they are *all generated* from this one landing page.
On every single XFactor site I’ve built, I’ve been lazy and just put up informational articles, XFactor style.
I wrote them all…save a handful of my newer/non-performing sites.
In every case, they make Adsense clicks but no sales at all, despite the fact that I thought that simply putting up an option to buy (with NO call to action/review/sales spiel) would result in “auto-magical” sales.
BS.
Don’t believe it – take the extra step and just write up a “Why you should buy this product” sort of article.
Nothing fancy, but why would YOU buy it? Why are OTHERS buying it?
Simple stuff, we do it all the time in real life. But without a REASON to buy, and a CALL TO ACTION, you are simply going to lose 100% of your income.
You should just keep your sites MFA’s…hope that helps, and trust me: it’s a total waste of time to convert your HTML to be an Amazon/affiliate ad vs. adsense. They are NOT the same.
CTR might be the same, but this is asking for a financial transaction. Even if you DO manage to make the paltry $4 commission every once a month, you are leaving the majority of the money on the table unless you do one simple thing:
Work at it.
Thank me later.
JamestheJust on Elance recently posted..Up Against A Wall – Round Two Of The Aaron Wall Interview At The Average Genius
hmmm, but my xfactor articles have always been “positive spin” articles. The content basically highlights the benefts of the product and how it can benefit the individual. I never really bought into that whole rewriting product descriptions thing….
Dan -
If what you have written would be sufficient cause for you to buy the product, then that’s that – a positive spin or highlighting the benefits is aiming in the right direction, even a review that would lead you to a sale naturally.
And: I don’t buy into the re-writing a review, either, I write real, researched reviews.
Er…”I wrote one real, researched review.” It’s paid off.
I’d just hate to see you or anyone bother with converting an Xfactor site and slapping on Amazon ads thinking that would do the trick…it all depends on how you’ve written the content to begin with.
Is a sale a natural consequence of your original content? If yes: cool kidney beans. If no: it’s worth the added effort.
I’m interested in seeing the adwords search count for June. I think it will tell the tale.
All of the search counts we are currently using are based on the old algorithm so it is any ones guess if they are still accurate. Maybe a 8000 search per month keyword of old is now only 500 due to the changes. And it could swing the other way as well… Your 3000 keyword is now 43000 and a lot more competitive.
I’ve seen big upward swings on my sites in rankings without an equivalent upswing in revenue or traffic. While I’d like to believe it is all because I’m a Grand Master SEO Pimp Daddy. It is more than likely that the competition for my keywords has been lessened greatly due to the algorithmic changes .
The new algorithm changes should not have an impact on keyword searches. Searches like “fast weight loss tips” will still be entered into google today, tomorrow and 30 years from now (if google has anything to say about it). So I am sure they are going to be as accurate or as inaccurate; whichever belief you might have on the google adwords keyword tool, as they were last month or months prior to the Mayday changes.
I really hope everything goes well for you – no need to apologise we understand you’ve got a lot going on. But I also think your Amazon plan is a good one. In fact, I recently bought two or three domains to make Amazon sites on which I’m about to start once I tie up some loose ends. I’m going a similar route to you. Good luck!
Ruth – Web Career Girl recently posted..Finding the Balance Between New Content and Marketing
Oh awesome Ruth! Did you purchase an ebook or just trying testing everything out on your own?
Amazon sites or affiliate sites in general can be quite awesome. I set up a few in january and they started earning about 100 dollars each per month..but every month this keeps rising by ten or so dollars which has been lovely. I have some sites that have been hit or miss though….but it was much easier then getting the adsense sites onto page one!
Nice, Kelly! Did you set up your sites like the linked blog talked about? Just a review site on a nice theme, no Adsense, focused pages (on one product type at a time)?
I followed InfoProductKiller in terms of the SEO but generally I just did my own thing. Each page being a different review and the main page have a selection of reviews you can either click through to buy product or read a fuller review. I also used Reviewazon plugin but reworded all the reviews.
On some sites I have also done the keyword then cheap keyword, keywords by brand etc…
I have some sites that aren’t amazon based but it is sooo time consuming putting in affiliate links from different websites in comparison to just doing Amazon. I only have one site that has done better than Amazon and in fact its earn over 200 dollars a month now and isn’t even on page one so can only imagine what I could be making if it gets on the front page.
Kelly,
Do you use a WP theme or do you use like a WYSIWYG html thing. I have not done regular html pages in 2 years and I was thinking of getting back into that! I just do not know how to go about that!
I currently have I think 5 amazon sites, but I need to set them up better. I have been getting clicks, but so far no sales!
Kelly recently posted..What I have Learned About IM in the Past 2 Months
NICE JOB. =)
So, on this site that’s making over $200, is it a CJ or other affiliate site, or is it a CPA/pay per lead type of site?
JamestheJust on Elance recently posted..Up Against A Wall – Round Two Of The Aaron Wall Interview At The Average Genius
I use flexsqueeze wordpress theme as its really easy to set up…I love it.
And the one that makes over 200 dollars is cj.com – Never had any success with Cj in the past when I was first starting out but I hate clickbank so started using other affiliate programs and have not looked back now.
Its just a specific product just like we do for the adsense sites. I wish all of my sites were like that one but a lot of them have been not so good for the amount of effort. I guess thats the 80/20 rule there for ya.
Funny you mention CJ — that’s who’s paying me $! Love them. would marry them, but I’m already married…
And funny about the flexsqueeze deal! I have had my eye on that for months…good to hear it works out for you.
I think I’ll go with Socrates, though — the price is right up my bank account, and they just added a squeeze page/landing page.
JamestheJust on Elance recently posted..Up Against A Wall – Round Two Of The Aaron Wall Interview At The Average Genius
Sorry you got hit by Google. It is sounding like the Amazon affiliate route is a decent way to go. I am not much of a salesman myself but it may be something that I end up trying later on this year. I am seeing others enjoy lots of success with Amazon so I may just have to jump on the bandwagon. Best of luck with court and take care of yourself physically.
Kidgas recently posted..Thanks to My Blogging Friends!
Sales isn’t hard at all – it’s more just focusing on one question:
Why do I want/need this product?
Focus on the benefits versus the features. Features are the bullet-points: “Low calories.”
Whoop de doo.
Rather, answer *why those features benefit me* : “Get and stay in shape, and enjoy this amazing whipped cream without putting on the love handles. Tastes great AND it’s less filling, your hips will never know the difference. Besides, Fiber Whip is full of fiber, which means you’ll actually be LOSING weight while you enjoy your crappa-ccino…”
That sort of thing.
Everyone who’s anyone is a salesman at some point, on some level – it’s exactly like telling your friends or neighbors about what a PHENOMENAL restaurant you just enjoyed last night – and let me tell you WHY I THINK SO.
Tap into that, it’s what sales is about. If you want more pointers, I’d start reading Seth Godin’s blog – bloody genius behind Squidoo, and the highest-ranked personal blog on the planet. His books are short, sweet, and spot-on.
But even if you didn’t go that route, just keep it real, and think of why you’d buy the product you’re promoting. If you can’t figure it out, then either promote something you DO believe in, or read some reviews and see why it’s such a hot item.
One other thought on sales:
If you can ‘solve a problem’ for the consumer, such as horrible acne or obesity, then you’ve tapped into another way to write a review. Identify the problem that your product seeks to answer, and then tell why this product is the best product (or a great product) to solve that problem.
Benefits sell – “Why do I want this or need this?”
“What’s in it for me?”
etc. And we do it ALL the time, in everyday life (case in point: check out the comments section on this blog – we’re all selling each other on Amazon or XFactor, etc.). Good luck.
JamestheJust on Elance recently posted..Up Against A Wall – Round Two Of The Aaron Wall Interview At The Average Genius
Oh no I did NOT open that up with “Sales isn’t that hard at all…”
Hello…?! It should read, “Making sales isn’t that hard” etc…I think…It just looks screwy.
JamestheJust on Elance recently posted..Up Against A Wall – Round Two Of The Aaron Wall Interview At The Average Genius
Are you following me? Are you spying on my niche selections? lol I have decided to go with a product that is in the diet/health niche. I mainly chose the topic because it is something I have been really interested in buying for myself since last summer. So I have uber fascination with the product. generally when I have niche websites and conduct research about how freakin’ awesome a product is, I end up buying it and then I can go back and add more details and personal experience with the product. I saw in a post by PaulaC in the above listed WF thread that she will buy the product and do the same thing after she has been several sales on it.
That’s funny – the product I’m promoting with CJ is exactly in the niche – health/fitness.
It’s wide open and one of the top 3 macro niches:
health/beauty
wealth
relationships
If you can affiliate in one of these, you’re golden. I’m telling you, it’s getting exciting up in here! I’m fired up — this has been a GREAT discussion.
So great, I can’t sleep…this is fun again.
JamestheJust on Elance recently posted..Up Against A Wall – Round Two Of The Aaron Wall Interview At The Average Genius
i didnt go to sleep until 11am yesterday… or is it today? im losing count of days…
I know how you feel. I am not much of a digital goods sales person but give me a product I am interested in and I can close the deal. Have you looked into possibly promoting products you own already or are very interested in purchasing in the next few months? That could be a good start into amazon affiliate sites. Granted, it doesn’t even have to be amazon, I just pretty much like getting paid a larger amount from one network versus $50 from this one and $150.00 from another network. I just wanna see a lump sum from one network and another lump sum from another.
Anyhow, amazon products practically convert themselves. Especially once you can point the visitor to read the additional amazon reviews and to think that your affiliate link led them to read the additional reviews. Priceless.
Review sites are great to diversify the income and in my case Amazon converts 10 times better than other eStores.
I love a part of your post where you are saying you will be focusing on products which costs $150+. I have Amazon review site about perfumes and I get only about $1.5 per sale! It is just a little bit more than EPC in AdSense… and I need at least 50 clicks for one sale…
Bujes recently posted..Black&Decker Rotary Tool
Bujes,
It is not a very good idea to list your sites where others can-I personally believe. There is just too much cometition out there!
Kelly recently posted..What I have Learned About IM in the Past 2 Months
I really need to review my posts before submitted them-ugh!
**Bujes,
It is not a very good idea to list your sites where others can see them-I personally believe. There is just too much competition out there!**
much better!! Maybe I just need to go back to school for spelling!
Kelly recently posted..What I have Learned About IM in the Past 2 Months
I’ve been surprised by Amazon. I am earning a little bit from a site that doesn’t even rank for its main keyword so the potential is good.
Two things to consider for the future: 1) take some of your low earning XF sites and convert to Amazon. 2) Make a site with low price items that might sell easier to increase your item sales and get your commission % higher.
I’d like to do more with Amazon also, so I will be watching (as if I wouldn’t be anyway). Good luck!
Carrie recently posted..Article Backlinks – Quick Update
Gold!!! er…”GGGGOOOOOOOAAAAAAALLLL!”
Exactly my plan: why scrape by when I KNOW there’s money to be made in this or that niche?? Adsense CTR and CPC is DISMAL in this one niche – pets (dude, that’s wide open) – but the affiliate potential is amazing.
Consider how cheap some pet products are…and considering one of my top XFactor sites are in this general niche, after looking at my CJ clicks….it should be making SALES.
Rather, it is NOT converting.
Why?
Simple: I have written the content in an informational-only, XFactor/Adsense way. IF I had written content to SELL PRODUCTS…I’m telling you, I’m going to be making some money on this one.
This is going to be my first authority site, I think.
Great idea, Carrie. Glad I thought of it.
JamestheJust on Elance recently posted..Up Against A Wall – Round Two Of The Aaron Wall Interview At The Average Genius
Oh, and thanks for the link! I was looking for advice on writing reviews just the other day.
Carrie recently posted..Article Backlinks – Quick Update
great point re: the low-ticket items (you know, like BOOKS that Amazon was BUILT ON?!).
that post was awfully AWESOME. Thanks, Sara, for re-posting the link. I had skimmed it before, but then re-read it and it just about kept me up all night long just thinking about the possibilities…
It’s a great business plan Sara and I think you will enjoy it.
I built a netbook review site when they first debuted (that I have since sold, as the market cooled down), and just did reviews of the top 5-6 netbooks that were available, with an amazon link and product info at the top, a review, and 3 related product links (with images) at the end of the article. I ended up selling 10-12 a month on average and the price tag on netbooks at the time was $300+. Amazon has a cap on how much you can make for a commission though.
Make sure you read their terms carefully also. It takes FOREVER to get paid by amazon and if you need the money now, you would be better off with other affiliate programs. It really takes a long, long time to get those checks.
The best part of the amazon type sites for me is seeing all the random stuff you sell. Like people ordering DVDs, Kindles, MP3s, coffee, and all kinds of stuff. It actually gives you ideas of other sites to make once you see what people end up buying. I sold netbook cases, wireless keyboards/mice, external hard drives, all kinds of things just from someone who clicked on my netbook link. Amazon is crazy like that.
I think you will have a lot of fun with this type of site and you are providing valuable content for your reader. Just know that it will take FOREVER to get paid…..
MatthewDC recently posted..I get sidetracked…alot..=)
The fact that they take 60 days to payout is what turned me off from Amazon Associates for so long, however, I realized that if I was making the minimum payout monthly, then it really wouldn’t matter since I’d be receiving a check every month once I got the ball rolling.
Yes, it is amazing how you can end up earning from products you did not even do reviews or wrote content on. I just noticed I made a sale form my personal diet and exercise blog for a book I never even heard of. lol
Since we’re discussing it – has anyone had any lucky outsourcing product reviews? If so, mind sharing your source?
Carrie recently posted..Article Backlinks – Quick Update
I outsource product reviews for HubPages to one of my full-time writers, but I’ve never outsourced my product reviews for personal websites since it takes on average 30-45 minutes to write a 700-900 word review. I try to do at least 3 a day and I’ve found that if I want something done right (since I’m quite nit picky), it’s better if I do it myself then have outsource it to a writer who may ramble horribly.
Yolanda recently posted..Day 38: Pondering the Mayday Mayhem and Why I Believe It Was Necessary
I have an allergic reaction to outsourcing. All the outsourcing I wound up doing came back 1/2 #$$ed, which when translated means, “Giving me more work in the long run.”
I had felt at the time that I’d do Elance on the one hand and make money (made $1k this weekend! Sweet), and then on the other hand have other writers write my content. I stopped when I got it all back…it was a waste of money for me. All of those sites are bottom of the barrel in terms of content and usefulness. I will have to re-write them all…
I just outsource to one guy now. He’s on Elance. Works for free. =)
JamestheJust on Elance recently posted..Up Against A Wall – Round Two Of The Aaron Wall Interview At The Average Genius
Yeah, I’ve had alot of bad outsourcing experiences. I have also had some good writers but the good ones cost more.
But even with the good writers the articles don’t always end up the way I would have written them. It’s tough.
Dude, tell me the name of that free Elance guy, I could use him
Carrie recently posted..Article Backlinks – Quick Update
I totally agree Yolanda. That’s the one thing I do get EXTREMELY picky on. I am always afraid if I outsource a review it will turn out to be a really generic review like “I love my yellow beach umbrella. Its so bright and cheerful and you will love it too. Buy a yellow beach umbrella and you will make your family happy too. Buying a yellow beach umbrella makes unicorns happy and even The Grinch will smile.” I would just rather sink my own ship than have some other moron do it for me.
I prefer personal experience. (I generally pick niches for products I already own or have used). This makes writing reviews easier but when its an unfamiliar topic then i research other reviews for hours before writing up my content.
Holy cow, where can I buy a yellow beach umbrella??!!
Carrie recently posted..Article Backlinks – Quick Update
*slips in her affiliate link for a yellow beach umbrella*
Aww darn. Apparently yellow beach umbrellas are rare?! how about a rainbow one?
Sand Blaster Beach Umbrella
Two things:
I am drinking Diet Dew here. That stuff HURTS when it comes out of your nose…
Secondly, ITA with you, Sara, about personal experience: I cannot write very well (due to motivational issues) for a niche that I don’t believe in or a product I just don’t back.
It’s a weakness on the one hand, on the other it is also a strength.
One of my “worst” gigs on Elance: writing 10 articles for Barns dot com…ouch. $20 and change for an article was nice, but…ouch…
Give me something I believe in or can refer my own family to, and I’ll write you a book.
Then sell it to you.
check it out: my CAPTCHA code is:
FUUU
WTH?
JamestheJust on Elance recently posted..Up Against A Wall – Round Two Of The Aaron Wall Interview At The Average Genius
I just want to say ‘Good Luck’ to you tomorrow, not that you will need it. Your son is already with you which is a plus!
I am not trying to be a butt-seem annoying and give information, but there are a couple of tips that I wished someone would have given us before our court date 4 years ago.
Keep calm and collected no matter what happens-even if your ex-Husband shows up. They started arguing in front of the Judge which did not go in our favor. Take everything you have any kind of papers like your earnings and etc. even a plan-whatever you can think of. It might seem like it is not necessary but you never know if it could help!
Breathe! Everything is gonna work out fine and you two will start your new life!
Yes…sorry – good luck for tomorrow. I hope it goes all well – you deserve it to, you can tell by your posts what a wonderful person you are.
Thanks for the tips and well wishes, Kelly…and Kelly.
I’ve been getting much better at handling my frustrations with my ex over the past few years. When the band aid was barely removed from my heart, it was easy for me to end in a screaming/crying match with him. I’ve since decided to just let him do the freaking out and I calmly just tell him “Ok, I am done with this topic so if you have something else to talk about, fine but if not, I am hanging up”. He knows I will too!
I am very emotional. Its my downfall. I often let emotions rule my decisions and that is something I have definitely addressed and worked on for the past few years. I’m still waiting to have my final “plan” conversation with my lawyer this afternoon but she is intelligent and I am sure she will get the points across that need to be addressed.
I’ve been on the flip side – my husband has a child with his Ex. Honestly, I don’t think you will have any problems. A custodial mother almost always has a clear advantage (unless you’re a kook) and your case seems pretty clear cut. Definitely stay calm and logical – you’ll be fine.
Good luck!
Carrie recently posted..Article Backlinks – Quick Update
I have a love and and hate relationship with these nested comments. bad news is I am stuck with having them nested. I un-nested the feature once and confused Carrie and several other people.
@Carrie – Well considering ALL of my xfactor sites would be marked as “low earning” at the moment, it would be rather hard to take this on at the moment.
By the way, I am still not seeing a rise in earnings or rankings. Sunday’s tend to be a very good day for me and yet I didn’t even break $13 yesterday.
Today I will probably get a little over $15.
Well, you could go back to a time when the sites were earning and pick the low performers from that time (since they may be adsense duds anyway). Or you could look for sites that are now getting good traffic but not converting. Just some thoughts.
I understand now maybe isn’t a good time to mess with stuff. Maybe the earnings will come back. But if you need some cash flow you may want to consider a few conversions to see what happens. I’m just thinking about ways to squeeze out some moolah from sites you already have.
Carrie recently posted..Article Backlinks – Quick Update
Before you base the site around Amazon have a look at CJ and see what kind of offers are going for your product. Its not too hard to find a advertiser, depending on what niche your in, that will give you 10% commission. For one product I will be promoting I found a advertiser that will be giving me 22% commission!
Check this out:
http://www.mo.com/aaron-wall-ceo-of-seo-book
Darn. That’s the interview I wish I did! Anyway, Josh: nice! The other thing I love about CJ and other networks is the length of their cookies. I have several that are 3 months or 4 months…and sales sometimes snowball.
I’m going to be keeping Amazon on every site from now on, though. At least 1-2 pages. I don’t mind a little here and there, my worry about putting all my eggs into one basket applies to Amazon as well – they sometimes shut out states for whatever reason (right, Josh?).
One of the key benefits, however, is the mad shopper who goes to Amazon with product A in mind, but buys B-Q as well. Can’t get that with a niche-specific CJ offer.
Pros and Cons…I’m putting Amazon in along w/CJ.
Then I’ll spend it all on NEW TOOLS! And then tell my wife that they all make money! And then sell more…to buy more…
(Actually, it ain’t like that, but sometimes I want to BUY IT ALL! MWAHAAHAHAHAAA)
JamestheJust on Elance recently posted..Up Against A Wall – Round Two Of The Aaron Wall Interview At The Average Genius
yes. i need to go to sleep.
JamestheJust on Elance recently posted..Up Against A Wall – Round Two Of The Aaron Wall Interview At The Average Genius
lol… im with you man. My wife thinks Im nuts… I just think she doesn’t “get it”…
My amazon stats for yesterday:
19 uniques… 9 click throughs… 1 sale for $70…. (4% comission at the moment = $2.80)
In 1 day it has made 50% of last months adsense earnings!
It is still early days of course, but that was just from removing adsense, and slapping in a few product links next to eachother to look like a gallery. Took all of 15 minutes to do… Im gonna leave it for a few days, then go back and start tweaking my layout, content, colors, everything really. I want to get those clickthroughs up, as 50% of my visitors are not even clicking the links.
The sale was not for a product I listed, but for one in the same micro niche, so basically the customer clicked one of my product links, decided they didnt want it, but carried on browsing through amazon, and bought a very similar product. Awesome! The only downside is that it was one of the cheapest products available in that niche, most are $200+…. cheap a*s!!!
Thats why I wanted to base my sites on Amazon. I probably would have tested it if I got the chance, but yeah-at the moment I can’t be an Amazon Affiliate because I’m in Colorado. Overstock also won’t accept me on CJ for that reason.
Its hard to say if the mad shoppers would make it worth it though. As far as we know the 2 months before christmas could make up for the deficit in commission on their own(which seems likely). However, in the niche I’m thinking of, there is now way I would give up the 60 day cookie and 22% commission in hopes someone buys a TV during Christmas.
What do I know though? I don’t even have a single CJ site up yet. I’m still doing MAS runs all day trying to get all of my infobarrel’s indexed/ranking…..ANd yeah, I need some sleep too. But thats the nature of the game hahaha
I still don’t get the ban on CO. I don’t understand what the heck would cause them to dismiss an entire state from earning commission. Are you also not allowed to purchase from Amazon? Do they not ship to CO?
The state was going to require sales tax to be applied to 100% of the purchases since an affiliate was “proof” that there was business being conducted on Amazon’s behalf in the state.
Amazon felt that not having sales tax on 100% of all purchases in the state was a better option losing the affiliate sales versus losing sales because there are extra fees in the price because of the tax.
If Amazon dropped the affiliates, there is no sales tax on any purchase.
Thats what happened in every other state, but not what happened here.
People in Colorado now have to pay taxes on all online purchases, and yes, Amazon does still let us buy from them. There was absolutely none of the “affiliates=physical presence” language in the bill, all the bill does is blackmail online stores into paying taxes.
I don’t agree with the bill by any stretch of the imagination but Amazon and Overstock threw us to the curb as a political message and nothing more.
Hi,
have read through this posts and all its replies and I just have to give my 2 cents…
I run about 20 Amazon sites and all except 1, are minisites and I just have to say this when it comes to promoting Amazon products.
-Try to find something else than the typical computer section to promote because of the $25 limit.
-I totally agree when you say that you want to target products that cost $150 or more but think of this for a second… You can also target products that you almost never buy just one of… from the top of my head… Tires to your car, towels, plates etc etc because if they cost $50 each and you normally buy 4, then that makes a total of $200 and ALSO it counts as having sold 4 items instead of 1 so your % might jump up to the next level faster.
- Finally… Always tell the reader what you want them to do…. “Click here to see the newest offer”, “go here for all reviews”, “Click to see all the colors available” etc.
I hope this gives someone an idea on how they can make more money from Amazon.
Good Luck!
Cheers
Fredrik
Bonus tip! If you run a site like I do with lots of product reviews (I have more than 160 products and counting) then sign up to ping.fm and set up all the social bookmarking sites and then add your sites rss. That way it Social Bookmarks ALL your new posts without you having to think about it….. and this service is free
)
My jaw dropped at this. Hot tips, man! I might have to just include this in my ebook. I’m trolling the best comments and will release it for $77, but for a membership fee of only $397 a month – you can read your own comments AND reach my voicemail.
Heck yeah. Playa.
OK…I’ve been listening to WAY too much OG gangsta rap – really, it’s lame, but I really dig Ice Cube when I’ve been spinning yuck all day for backlinks – I really did dig your tips.
Thanks!
JamestheJust on Elance recently posted..Passive Income Dreams And Concrete Proof
Like I normally say….
“and I did not even have to use my AK….I guess it was a good day…”
In other words… I like Ice Cube as well….
Cheers
Fredrik
So, EZ, why do you wear yo’ pants like that?
JamestheJust on Elance recently posted..BlogEngage Guest Blogging Contest 2010
Sara, I’ve just found your blog via a very convoluted route (from a post you made on the Warrior Forum in 2009 re Niche Blogger). It’s a cracking place to come to!
Is this site created from what you learned with Amy? And if so, do you have an affiliate link that I can use. (I’d rather give someone a commission than buy straight from Amy’s site).
Me? Ex ghostwriter now fed up with being paid peanuts to write stuff for others to earn thousands with,and about to start working for myself. The blog link is to my test blog.
If you bumped into Colleen Slaters Amazon Treasure Chest earlier this year on WF, I did the PDF’s and wrote the sales copy. Now its about time I got stuck in for myself, but I’m caught between Amy B and Yaro Starak as blogging courses.
Any advice?
Once again, lovely site, thanks.
Jeff Pearson recently posted..Mark James And Blogging To The Bank- A Bit Of Advice
Sorry Sara, I forgot to ask which of Micheal Kelsingers themes have you used for your site?
Jeff Pearson recently posted..Mark James And Blogging To The Bank- A Bit Of Advice
I’m starting an Amazon affiliate site and I find your tips very usefull.
Thank you.
John Terry
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