How I Got Started With Amazon's Associate Program
There are few if any affiliate programs as successful as Amazon's. Amazon is the one of the first to pioneer with the concept of affiliate marketing way back in 1997... when most of us haven't even heard of the internet. Heck, I don't even have a computer back then, much less an internet connection.
About 2 years ago, when I started out marketing online, I don't even know Amazon has an affiliate program, despite the fact that I often visit their site AND a month delving into affiliate marketing. I soon found that Amazon's associate program is overflowing with affiliates trying to market basically everything that can be found. I was thinking, that's a lot of competition.
So I moved on to doind other things like "typing at home", "HYIP" and various other affiliate program, losing a total of $5000 over a period of 3 months. I was close to giving up. I gave myself another chance and chose my one last venture: Amazon's Associate Program!
Today, 2 years later, I'm still not making big profits but I do have a steady stream of income coming from Amazon, an average of $600 a month. I didn't succeed on my own though. My boyfriend helped me with it.
The thing that makes me furious is that people are trying to sell these information on how to succeed with amazon's associate. I, personally, believe that people shouldn't have to pay for this information. It is so easy and straight to the point but yet they charge as much as $97 for a 30 page e-book filled with these information.
And here's the place you can learn of my step-by-step guide to how I succeeded with Amazon's associate program.... FREE!
Product Research
To do product research, go to amazon.com and see what their best sellers are. These products are popular, which logically follow that amazon are pretty competitive in pricing these products. These are proven to sell and now it all depends how well you can sell them.
If you want to sell other things this is another method. Go to google and search for the model number or brand of the product. See the price of the product from the websites that appear in the first page of google.( People like cheaper price, just not as much as they are lazy. They will NOT browse to second page.) Compare these prices to see if amazon if competitive. If amazon has lower, same price or slightly more expensive, people will most often choose amazon because it is an established brand. If not, it is difficult to sell these products. Skip them.
Once, you have a product that amazon is competitive in, you do a keyword research. Do a keyword research on its model number or brand and see how many searches has been done on it. I personally use Keyword Elite but if you are tight on budget, you can use other cheaper tool like www.inventory.overture.com.
What you are looking for is at least 200 searches a month. The more the amount of searches the better. In my experience, if your site well optimized, then you can have about 8% conversion rate.
The Squidoo Method
The Free Way
Squidoo is a very powerful website and tool. It has a google pagerank of 6, as of this writing, making it rank high in google search engine. You can easily get tons of free traffic from that alone. But of course, you will have to share your commission with squidoo.
I'm not going delve into the technical aspect of squidoo. To learn more on how to build a top notch squidoo lens, you can go to SquidooSecrets.com .
With the squidoo method, you will need to add some original content of your own. Maybe a product review, or other related video or photos of the product. Squidoo makes this very easy to do by using modules, so don't worry. Add about 3 amazon modules and configure them to the items you want to sell.
Don't expect very high lensrank for these kind of lenses. From my experience, lenses that earn me money are very low in lensrank. High lensrank get me more exposure and traffic, but not much sales.
Before Starting
What You'll Need And The Different Pathways
Whether you make money or not depends on many factors such as skill and luck.
You'll need the $200 to buy hosting and do some advertising. I have tried so many hosting companies. Some are pure crap, some are ok but the best of them all is Hosgator. Get a cheap account there for $10 a month. It's no big risk. The hosting account is needed only if you choose to have your personal website.
I used to use associate-o-matic, a service that builds websites on a specific niche automatically and updates them. These websites often rank quite high but now that I know of Squidoo. I pretty much switch over.
The advantages of squidoo is that it is free, ranks well with google and easy to use.
However, you'll also have to share half of your commission with squidoo and since it's not your website, you do not have full control of the code and what you can do. Also, like anything that is easy to use, it is not very customizable.
I'll discuss how to go about doing it with both of these methods below.
The Associate-O-Matic Method
Associate-o-matic deso cost some money. $99 for the first year and $20 per year thereafter. Now, I think it's really cheap. But if you're really tight in budget and cannot afford a $99 outlay, they do have a free version. However, in the free version they will use THEIR associate ID for 10% of the items in your website. Your choice whether you want to get the full version or not.
Associate is very easy to use. Shockingly easy to me. Plus, it is amazingly search engine friendly. Set it up to use dynamic pages so that the search engines will THINK you have millions of pages with unique content. Google likes these pages and it will start indexing your pages and show up at organic searches. These regularly updated pages ranks very highly, especially after I you get traffic with my traffic generation tip below and your pagerank increases.
New Text List
Getting Traffic To Your Site
1. Article. Now, writing article is hard work. But submitting your article to 600+ directories is harder! Articles is a very effective way to generate traffic. It provides you with one-way quality backlinks that not only direct traffic to you, it makes you rank higher in Google's search engine. But it is very time consuming to submit your article to these directories one at a time. So I use an article submitter to do the job. Set it and go to sleep, the next day I got myself at least 100 backlinks. Simple. Now, if you hate doing research like I do, get Instant Article Wizard. This software help you with the research phase, which can save you MORE time.
2. With articles done, I have about 150 hits a day. But that's enough to me. So I turn to PPC. I would highly suggest that you avoid Google Adwords. Although it can be really effective, it can burn a hole in your pocket if you have no idea what you are doing. Instead, use AdBrite. AdBrite is so much cheaper than Adwords and unless you have a really high conversion rate, you'll make a lost if you stick to adwords.
3. I use MySpace to direct like-minded people to my site. For more information on how to do this, visit my traffic generation lens here.
4. Last but not least, you can Receive Links, a free link exchange service. Though you can get lots of backlinks free through this method, it is a two-way backlink, which is of course not as potent as a one-way backlink. Plus, you'll have to link back to your other people's site, which may direct traffic away. Now, you want to co-operate with your competitor, but be smart about it. Don't link to your competitor who is selling the exact same product you are selling!
The Ultimate Guide To Mastering Free Traffic
If you would like free traffic instead...
-
The Ultimate Guide To Increasing Free Targeted Traffic
-
The question should be "Who doesn't?!" Everyone wants more traffic and everyone has their own opinion on what works. In this lens, I try to compile ALL the methods that I have used and saw results. To make things easy for you, I have listed t...
Join The Internet Marketing Guru Hangout
Are you a guru who have invaluable experience to share? Precious advice to give?Or if you are a newbie, do you need help starting your business? Seek out the guru!
If you are that person, I want YOU!
-
Who Wants To Be An Internet Marketing Guru? Headquarters
-
I know how difficult it can be to succeed online. It's not that long ago when I spent insane amount of money buying crappy courses. And that is why I created this group, so that newbies can come seeking advice without the need to fork out large sums...
A Quick Question
Check Out My Top Lenses
To see my other lenses, you can visit my Lensmaster's Page.-
The One And Only Elee's Lensography
-
Welcome to my olensograpghy! I built this lens, for the sole purpose of introducing myself to the world. Want o know more about me? Here's the best place to start. Enjoy your stay!
-
Free Hit And Traffic
-
I want to concentrate this lens to looking for free traffic. Who doesn't want free traffic? Truth is, there's so much more ways to get free traffic than you can think of. Please, join me as I explore the possibilities.
-
Make More Sales Without More Traffic
-
Two years ago when I was starting to play around with internet marketing, I was pretty sure I could "earn millions and fire my boss" in weeks..... Just like everybody else, I bought that latest and greatest ebook or system or whatever it is...
-
Having Problems Increasing Targeted Traffic To Your Site?
-
Generating traffic is the "hot" thing nowadays and I thought why not I join in? But unlike other gurus, I have decided to approach it in a different angle. I want to increase TARGETED web traffic FREE. That means no more paying expensive PP...
-
Any Comments?
|
Mar1anneC
Interesting lens - I am looking at your information as I am both an Amazon associate and also have some Squidoo lenses. Thanks. Posted August 31, 2008 |
|
Thamisgith
Nice lens - 5*. Interested to know if you use direct linking as well as Squidoo and Associate-o-matic. Posted August 31, 2008 |
|
chefkeem
Thanks for the tips. I'm beginning to research the Amazon Associates program for myself and I appreciate all your info in this lens. 5*s Posted April 27, 2008 |
|
GailWahl
Can you use there Associate Links in your SUGGESTED AMAZON Reading area of SQUIDOO? I can't figure out how to have it be a Money Making link. Posted April 02, 2008 |
|
conversionprophetguy
Very interesting read. I have given this lens 5 stars as it is a subject dear to my heart. Keep up the good work and well done Posted March 25, 2008 |
