Sell more on Squidoo with well-chosen Amazon items
Ya gotta love Squidoo's Amazon modules. I think they are probably my favorite affiliate modules. The modules themselves are some of the nicest looking and easiest to work with on the site, and Amazon.com offers such a huge range of products that it works for most lens topics.
But how do you decide exactly which products to show? There are usually many, many products to choose from (depending on how specific your subject matter is) - how do you determine the very best products to maximize your sales? There are a few different ways to decide, and which option you choose depends on factors such as who you're trying to sell to, what you're trying to sell, and why you're trying to sell it. (And sometimes when you're trying to sell it.)
I've outlined each selection method below, along with my thoughts on when each one works best, and an Amazon module below each one as an example. I'll use books matching the search term "affiliate marketing" for each example so you can get an idea of how your results will vary.
But how do you decide exactly which products to show? There are usually many, many products to choose from (depending on how specific your subject matter is) - how do you determine the very best products to maximize your sales? There are a few different ways to decide, and which option you choose depends on factors such as who you're trying to sell to, what you're trying to sell, and why you're trying to sell it. (And sometimes when you're trying to sell it.)
I've outlined each selection method below, along with my thoughts on when each one works best, and an Amazon module below each one as an example. I'll use books matching the search term "affiliate marketing" for each example so you can get an idea of how your results will vary.
The bestselling products
Choose your Amazon items based on what sells best on Amazon.com
How to find bestselling products:
- Start by doing a search on Amazon.com for the type of product you're looking for. You'll get a page full of results, and just above those results you'll see a light blue bar that reads "Select Results from All Departments" on the left and "Choose a Department to enable sorting" on the right. (Unless you selected a category such as Books from the drop-down menu when you first entered your search, in which case you should skip the next step.)
- Click on the word Department in "Choose a Department to enable sorting" and you will see a menu where you can narrow your search. Then click your choice of Department and the search results will refresh.
- Now the right-hand side of the light blue bar will say "Sort by" followed by a drop-down menu that probably says "Relevance" to start with. Change this to read "Bestselling" and your results will refresh again.
- At this point, you may be able to select items for your module. Be careful though; because your results are no longer sorted by relevance some products may be only tangentially related to your search. If this seems to be the case, try refining your search either by adding another search term or by selecting a sub-category in the sidebar to the left.
- WHO: Bestsellers are work when selling to lots of types of people, and make a good choice if you're not quite sure who your readers are. Bestsellers are especially good for readers who are just starting out with the topic you're covering (people who were enthusiastic about your subject before they found your lens are more likely to already own the bestsellers.)
- WHAT: Bestselling items work for almost any subject, with possible exceptions for subjects that are highly personal and niche. For example, don't put a module of Best-Selling items for the search term "skirt" if you are making a module about goth fashion - sub-culture fashions are NOT about what everyone else is buying!
- WHY: If your goal is to make money with your module, it follow that that best-selling items will be a good choice.
Bestselling Affiliate Marketing Books
The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly
Amazon Price: $11.53 (as of 01/02/2010) 
The Ultimate Sales Machine: Turbocharge Your Business with Relentless Focus on 12 Key Strategies
Amazon Price: $9.75 (as of 01/02/2010)
Guerrilla Marketing, 4th edition: Easy and Inexpensive Strategies for Making Big Profits from Your Small Business
Amazon Price: $9.72 (as of 01/02/2010)
Web Analytics: An Hour a Day
Amazon Price: $19.79 (as of 01/02/2010)
Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day
Amazon Price: $19.79 (as of 01/02/2010)
The items with the most positive reviews
Sell the very best - the things that everyone's raving about.
How to find the best-loved products:
- For this one you'll need to go to a website called Savvy Graph. While Amazon will sort by average customer review, this isn't as helpful as how SavvyGraph displays the results. Savvy Graph shows the number of reviews on one axis, and the average rating on the another axis. This helps you find products with 100 ratings averaging 4.5 stars, instead of products with 1 rating averaging 5 stars (Amazon's "Average Customer Review" way of sorting would put the 1-5-star before the 100-4.5-star.)
- On the Savvy Graph site, enter your search term and click the round "Go" button. Be patient, fetching your results can take a little bit.
- Once your results have loaded, you can narrow the results with the categories in the sidebar to the left.
- When you're done choosing the best category, start with the items farthest to the top-right corner of the graph. Those are the ones with lots of reviews, most of them glowingly positive. Continue adding items working mostly left (less reviews) but maybe a bit downward (lower overall rating - try to stick to items with 4-5 star overall ratings).
- WHO: Highly rated items sell best to people who are particularly interested in quality, and or those who are a bit wary of buying over the internet. This is often people who are just getting started with a topic, or people who may not be tech-savvy.
- WHAT: Good reviews are important for items where quality matters, such as children's products, self-help books, exercise dvds, that sort of thing. It's also very important for products people will only buy one of like appliances, gadgets, furniture, etc. It's worth noting that this method is NOT good for highly specialized products because Savvy Graph does not search as "deeply" as Amazon's search, so you may not get many results. (Originally I'd planned to use the search term "Squidoo" as my example in this lens, but Savvy Graph had only one result.)
- WHY: If you only offer items that have been rated highly by lots of other people, it's very likely that if some one buys through your module they will love the product too and quite possibly be grateful to YOU for pointing them to the best darn whatchamacallit they ever bought. They'll therefore be more likely to do things like tell their friends about your very helpful lens, read your other lenses, rate/favorite your lenses, and hopefully even buy from you again.
- WHEN: It's worth noting that people like to know the quality is high if they are buying an item as a gift - so highly-rated items tend to do especially well during the Winter Holidays or any other gift-giving time such as around Mother's Day.
The Highest Rated Affiliate Marketing Books
A Practical Guide to Affiliate Marketing: Quick Reference for Affiliate Managers & Merchants
Avg. Customer Rating: 
Amazon Price: $19.79 (as of 01/02/2010)
Successful Affiliate Marketing for Merchants
Avg. Customer Rating: 
Amazon Price: $18.15 (as of 01/02/2010)
Affiliate Selling: Building Revenue on the Web
Avg. Customer Rating: 
Amazon Price: $29.70 (as of 01/02/2010)
Make a Fortune Promoting Other People's Stuff Online: How Affiliate Marketing Can Make You Rich
Avg. Customer Rating:
Amazon Price: $14.93 (as of 01/02/2010)
The Super Affiliate Handbook: How I Made $436,797 Last Year Selling Other People's Stuff Online
Avg. Customer Rating:
Amazon Price: (as of 01/02/2010)
The newest releases
Hardcore fans will only want to buy the latest-greatest thing.
How to find the newest releases:
Who, what, and why (also when!):
- Follow the same procedure outlined in Bestsellers, but select "Publication Date" from the "Sort by" drop-down menu (instead of "Bestselling").
- On the results page, some of the first few items may say "Available for Pre-order" under the link to "Buy new:" - you may or may not want to exclude items that haven't been released yet. If so, just keep working your way down the list until you see one that doesn't say that. These items are available to buy right away, and are the very latest items.
Who, what, and why (also when!):
- WHO: New releases are great if your lens is geared toward enthusiasts instead of beginners.
- WHAT: As mentioned in the note above, you can only select the new releases if you are selling media of some kind. More specifically, it's especially well-suited for things like a series of books or games, and non-fiction on topics that change and evolve quickly (such as the internet!).
- WHY: Your motivation to offer new releases could be either selling more or helping your readers by keeping them informed of the latest products... or both.
- WHEN: As with top-rated items, new releases are great if you anticipate a lot of readers who are looking for gifts. Picture an aunt looking for a video game for her teenage nephew - she's not quite sure what he already has, so the one that just came out last week is a pretty good bet!
The Newest Affiliate Marketing Books
Experiential Marketing: A Practical Guide to Interactive Brand Experiences
Amazon Price: $29.16 (as of 01/02/2010)
The The Luxury Strategy: Break the Rules of Marketing to Build Luxury Brands
Amazon Price: $32.97 (as of 01/02/2010)
Understanding Digital Marketing: Marketing Strategies for Engaging the Digital Generation
Amazon Price: $26.37 (as of 01/02/2010)
The Work-at-Home Success Bible: A Complete Guide for Women: Start Your Own Business; Balance Work and Home Life; Develop Telecommuting Strategies
Amazon Price: $10.17 (as of 01/02/2010)
The Fearless Fish Out of Water: How to Succeed When You're the Only One Like You
Amazon Price: $16.47 (as of 01/02/2010)
Selecting new releases will only work with some types of items: ones that get published (such as Books, Video Games, DVDs, and other media.) This option is not available for categories such as Apparel & Accessories.
The cheapest items
Offer your readers a good bargain - how can they resist??
How to find the cheapest products:
Who, what, and why:
- Follow the same procedure outlined for Bestsellers, but select "Price: Low to High" from the "Sort by" drop-down menu (instead of "Bestselling"). The example shown below uses this method.
- Be careful - sometimes it's cheap for a reason! If there are a lot of bad reviews or it is several editions out of date, it probably won't sell well - so skip to the next cheapest product match.
Who, what, and why:
- WHO: Bargain hunters! If you're writing a lens on saving money or geared towards mothers or college kids, this is often your best bet.
- WHAT: Cheap is cheap. There's no one type of product that particularly suits this method - everyone loves a bargain. However, there are some things you should NOT offer the cheapest, such as things that become outdated quickly, and things where safety and quality are important factors.
- WHY: You might offer your readers these bargains on the theory that readers are more likely to buy cheap things and so more readers will buy. If you prefer a steady but small stream of income over an occasional jackpot, this is the way to go.
The Cheapest Affiliate Marketing Books
Turn eBay Data into Dollars
Amazon Price: $22.76 (as of 01/02/2010)
Used Price: $1.97
Call to Action: Secret Formulas to Improve Online Results
Amazon Price: (as of 01/02/2010)
Used Price: $2.32
Successful Affiliate Marketing for Merchants
Amazon Price: $18.15 (as of 01/02/2010)
Used Price: $10.00
Internet Riches: The Simple Money-making Secrets of Online Millionaires
Amazon Price: $12.10 (as of 01/02/2010)
Used Price: $5.13
The Online Millionaire: Strategies for Building a Web-Based Empire on eBay and Beyond
Amazon Price: $24.95 (as of 01/02/2010)
Used Price: $6.75
The priciest items
Offer your readers the super-duper most-awesomest high-end version.
How to find the highest priced products:
- Follow the same procedure outlined for Bestsellers, but select "Price: High to Low" from the "Sort by" drop-down menu (instead of "Bestselling"). The example shown below uses this method.
- WHO: Selling high-priced items work best when your readers are people looking for luxury goods, who like to have the fanciest and best of everything.
- WHAT: Selling by the highest price is especially useful for selling the coolest and newest items in categories where "Publication Date" is not an option. Usually the newer and more top-end items are pricier, especially with electronics, gadgets, and appliances.
- WHY: Choosing to display only the highest priced items is sort of the flip side of the theory behind offering the cheapest items - if you'd rather have a big boost of affiliate profits less often, show of the high-priced goods.
The Highest Priced Affiliate Books
How to Start Your Network Marketing, Modern Party Plan or Web Affiliate Company
Amazon Price: $169.00 (as of 01/02/2010)
Total E-mail Marketing, Second Edition: Maximizing your results from integrated e-marketing (Emarketing Essentials)
Amazon Price: $42.25 (as of 01/02/2010)
eMarketing eXcellence, Third Edition: Planning and optimising your digital marketing (Emarketing Essentials)
Amazon Price: $39.55 (as of 01/02/2010)
Mastering Niche Marketing: A Definitive Guide to Profiting From Ideas in a Competitive Market
Amazon Price: $26.37 (as of 01/02/2010)
Niche Internet Marketing: The Secrets To Exploiting Untapped Niche Markets And Unleashing A Tsunami Of Cash
Amazon Price: $17.00 (as of 01/02/2010)
Tips & Tricks - Another way to choose products with high ratings
Narrow your search results to products with four star reviews or higher.
If you select your items based on best sellers, new releases, or price you can still narrow those results to items with an average rating of 4 stars or more. Just scroll down until you see the "Avg Customer Review" box to the left, and click on the graphic with four out of five stars lit. This will narrow your results to only the products with 4, 4.5, or 5 star average ratings.Using this method you can really target the best products possible, because you can focus in on two criteria - such as the best-selling, most highly rated video games, or the cheapest, most highly rated children's books.
Tips & Tricks - Another way to choose the newest products
Narrow your search results to products released in the last 30 days, 90 days, or that are coming soon.
Like the tip above, you can narrow search results that are sorted by best-sellers, cheapest, or priciest to just the newest releases. Look for the "New Releases" box to the left (this should be very near the top). Depending on how broad your search term is, you will see some combination of "Last 30 days" "Last 90 days" and "Coming Soon". If your search term is narrowly focused, you may not see this box at all; this only shows if Amazon offers products that match these criteria.Like the method above, this can be used to focus on two criteria at once such as best-selling new releases or cheapest new releases.
More lenses about selling Amazon items on Squidoo
This lens only covers a specific aspect of how to sell Amazon products on your Squidoo lens, choosing the best products for your lens. Here are a few more great lenses on the other aspects of the subject.-
Amazon RSS Feeds for Your Squidoo Lens
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There is a special service for Squidoo Lensmasters whom are also Amazon Associates - RSS Feeds containing products from Amazon. You can put these feeds into your lens to show books, DVD, electronics and more from specific categories. "But Why?&qu...
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Amazon Module Basics
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Squidoo's Amazon module can be used in a lot of ways. It can, obviously, feature books, toys, games, etc. You can also modify the look with html, hyperlinks, and graphics. Read on to see what features are available with examples.&nb...
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How To Add Amazon Widgets To Your Lens
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Have you wished you could add one of those cool carousel widgets on your lens? Or a contextual product cloud? How about a big preview of your Amazon aStore? Well, now you can. With a little (actually BIG!) help of Clearspring, the widget network, an...
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Make Money with Amazon and Squidoo
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Using Amazon is another great way that Squidoo lets you make money. Amazon sells just about anything these days, it has really moved from an online bookstore to an online department store. How do you make money? Well every time that someone clicks on...
Let me know what you think!
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- Ener-G Ener-G Dec 30, 2009 @ 11:34 am
- Seriously wonderful lens...very instructive! Blessinsg!
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- a_willow a_willow Oct 26, 2009 @ 5:52 pm
- Excellent suggestions! Blessed by an Angel!
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- poutine poutine May 8, 2009 @ 7:25 am
- Lots of info here. Bookmarked this lens and will read it more carefully.
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- brucedirectsales brucedirectsales Mar 19, 2009 @ 6:21 pm
- great lens good info
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Reply
- poutine poutine Mar 2, 2009 @ 3:40 pm
- I will have to be more selective of what products I choose to showcase on my next lenses.
Thanks for the tips.
Poutine
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by Betsi_Goutal
I'm just a neon-haired twenty-something trying to find her path. I've learned that my purpose in life is to learn and teach, and I like writing as a w... (more)
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