20 Tips I Used To Make $90,336.65 With Amazon
I’ve been using Amazon’s affiliate program for a little over two years and during that time I’ve had a lot of success with it. In fact, this income source was the second largest chunk of my total $150k+ 2010 income. If I hadn’t sold one of my larger Amazon focused sites last year for six figures this income source would have easily eclipsed $100,000 by now.
Amazon Income Results For Last 2 Years $90,336.65:
Ok, seeing my income is great and all but how does it help you? Well, the reason I show a screen shot is to make sure you know that the advice I’m sharing is based on stuff I truly know and that this isn’t just another one of those list posts built on fluff that sucks.
One of the things I’ve done over the past two years is track the methods I use to make money with Amazon by tracking IDs as well as keeping track of other things I’ve done while building up my Amazon websites. I initially published my findings in two blog posts early last year when I first launched this blog and even today they are still among the most popular posts (here and here). Now it’s been over a year and today I’m providing an updated list of information including several new tips that I’ve learned since that time.
Top 20 Ways To Make Money With Amazon Associates:
1. Niche Selection Is Crucial
I’ll get to the actual methods I use on my websites in the next tips, but the first thing I want to say is that the niche you choose is the absolute most important decision you can make.
I love to target physical product focused niches and keywords
It’s easiest to make money using Amazon’s affiliate program if the people coming to your website are looking for a specific product that your website discusses. It’s more difficult to use a website like my blog here and make money linking to physical products because the people coming here are looking for advice on how to earn money online – not what iPod speakers they should buy.
2. Link To Products Inside Your Content
Roughly half of my Amazon income comes from basic text links posted inside the content body area of a blog post or page.
Example: Check out this cool helicopter
Simple text links in the content of an article are the most effective way to get web visitors to click. People trust the body of the content on a page more so than any other area of the website and I know this because the tracking data I’ve collected.
3. Make Product Images Clickable Affiliate Links:
The second best thing I’ve found next to a simple text link is to use images of the product you’re talking about and make them clickable like this cool usb missile launcher:
Roughly 15% of my total Amazon income has come from simply making all of the product images on my websites clickable affiliate links.
If you’re not sure how to do this with the HTML code, I made an image to show you (click here to see it)
4. Link To Amazon.com As Many Times Possible
I alluded to this in the previous few tips but I want to make sure you understand that each link inside one of your articles is another opportunity for a visitor to click through and make their way onto Amazon.com.
It’s common for me to link to Amazon five to ten times in a single article (more if I’m doing a product review).
5. Product Review Articles Convert The Best
Doing a quality product review for a product directly related to your niche is a very easy way to garner higher click thru rates and increased sales, but only if your review is higher quality.
Ideally you contact the manufacturer’s marketing team or PR agency and get them to send you a demo unit of the product to review, but this takes a lot of effort and may not be worth it on a smaller traffic site (at first).
You want to convince the reader to investigate their purchase options by the time they finish reading an article, which is why I’ll always include links to all of the products mentioned in a review at the end of the article. That way it’s an easy transition from learning about the product during your review and then at the end it’s time to make a purchase.
Example: See this USB Missile Launcher on Amazon.com
6. Build An Email List
You’ve probably heard this a hundred times by people telling you to build an email list from the blogger and internet marketing crowd, but building an email list is way easier on a physical product oriented website.
Why? People don’t have their guard up when they are researching a physical product to purchase (when compared to other purchase decisions online i.e. digital goods). So what I like to do is offer some type of freebie like a buyers guide or some type of information that provides more details about the products they’re researching.
On the flip side, I’d love for you to join my email list for this blog but I have to be a little more convincing by showing you that I’m a credible resource first. (Already convinced? Sign up here ;D)
For my newsletter provider I use Aweber and highly recommend them. Overall I could attribute at least five to ten percent of my total income due to my email lists because I like to focus on promoting products heavily to my lists during the holidays which leads into my next tip.
7. Write Sales And Promos During The Holidays
I typically made between $500 and $1,000 a day every day during Black Friday Week, Cyber Monday and Cyber Week. It is lower during other holidays like Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Presidents Day, Valentines Day etc. but you can still promote various sales during these holidays as well. I target every holiday because Amazon creates an actual dedicated sales page every time one of these holidays come around. The deals shared on these pages are generally really good too.
So what I’ll do is put together an article of all the top products that are on sale in my niche using the tips I’ve shared earlier like linking as many times as possible, making the product image clickable and then sending out an email to my list etc. to get even more conversions.
Stats From A “Cyber Monday (My Niche) Discounts” Post Last Year
(Some of that traffic pop is also attributed to the day I mail out to my email lists though)
For the structure of these articles I like to target a frequently searched keyword such as “Cyber Monday (My Niche) Discounts” etc. because I know people search for “Cyber Monday” and “Black Friday” millions of times each year but they also search a longer form version like “Cyber Monday (My Niche) Discounts” as evidenced by the above traffic graph from one of my Amazon sites
8. Sell More Products To Make Incrementally More Money
This one sounds simple enough and it really is. The more you sell with Amazon the more you make AND the higher percentage you earn. During holiday months I will typically hit around the 8% mark which is double the 4% rate you start with for shipping only 1 – 6 items per month. Even if you sold 7 items you get bumped up to 6% and the best part is that this increase in commission percentage is retroactive (meaning once you reach the next level you get to apply the higher percentage referral fee to every product you’ve sold during the entire month).
9. Sell Large Quantities Of Inexpensive Products To Boost Your Payout On High Priced Products
One thing I do is have websites that are set up in lower competition niches where the items typically aren’t as expensive and where it’s easier to sell these products in larger quantities ($50 or less). Then I have other niche sites that sell more expensive products at much higher prices ($XXX – $X,XXX) that are sold less frequently. So this way I get to use the increased quantity of sales from these lower priced product websites to help me get up into higher payout brackets so instead of making 6% on that high end item I’ll get 8% instead.
10. Use Multiple Tracking ID’s For Each Website
By default Amazon assigns you one tracking ID like blahblahblah-20 but you can create additional tracking ID’s here up to a total of 100. If you hit that total you can always ask for more so feel free to be liberal with your creation of tracking ID’s for your websites.
You wouldn’t install the same Google Analytics code on every single website you own right? Of course not, because you wouldn’t be able to tell how much traffic each of your websites were receiving individually. So the same thing can be said for tracking the money you make on your websites (and yet people still tell me they use only one Amazon tracking ID for all of their websites /facepalm). In the past I’ve gone so far as to create 15 different tracking ID’s for use on a single website.
11. Use EasyAzon To Save Time And Make More Money With Amazon
One of the ways I’ve also been able to make good money with Amazon is to automatically populate information from a WordPress plugin that I had developed based on the needs I had for building Amazon centric websites. The result was EasyAzon. The plugin allows you to insert information and affiliate links to Amazon in a much faster way than creating the links yourself by hand from Amazon.com.
Short Summary: Basically what the plugin does is allow you to quickly insert a text based affiliate link, the image of the product as an affiliate link, a product information grid, convert US Amazon links to UK, GR etc. via link localization etc. etc. and have all those things be affiliate links to Amazon.com so it does a great job of improving click through rates.
The plugin is currently only $47 and available at EasyAzon.com
12. Insert Buy Now Button Into Your Articles
This is something that ReviewAzon could do automatically for you, but if you don’t want to spend the money you can simply insert your own buy now button and turn it into an Amazon affiliate link.
13. Create A Product Comparison Grid
Creating a product comparison grid for all of the products within your niche and allowing people to sort by various features is a great way to get some additional sales. I’ve used this tactic on several of my websites and the product comparison page alone can add an additional 5% to 10% income increase for a website.
You can do it two ways. The fastest way is to just use ReviewAzon to be able to pick various products you want to use in the grid or you can do it manually which is what I used to do. If you do it manually you’ll need to use this WordPress plugin called WP Table Reloaded and what I do is include various columns for information about the product and in the final column I use a buy now button that people can click to see more info about the product.
14. Publish A Recurring Deals Post
If you want to find a way to be able to mention products that are on sale more frequently on your website one of the easiest ways I’ve done that in the past is to just do a weekly deals post. So what I’ll do is publish a post every week with the best deals for my niche and then incorporate all of the previous tactics I’ve discussed above to link to the products on Amazon.com. Depending on how often you publish articles you could do it more or less frequently (I’ve seen some websites do these style of articles every day).
15. Publish A Monthly Bestseller List
Amazon has a bestseller page found simply at Amazon.com/bestsellers
Just go to Amazon.com/bestsellers
16. Use Carousel Banner Ads Over Static Banner Ads
Through testing I’ve found that the carousel style Amazon banner ads are about 3 times better than the static style Amazon banner ads. Even Adsense out performed static Amazon banner ads in my testing. Here is what the Amazon carousel widgets look like:
You can create the Amazon carousel banner ads inside your Amazon Associates account here and you’re able to manually add products or just display bestselling products from a specific category.
17. Don’t Bother Creating An Amazon Astore
When I created a store page and used the Amazon Astore tool to “build my own store” I found it converted terribly. Less than 1% of my total income came from Amazon Astore pages before I stopped using them. If you’re not familiar with Astore’s just take my word for it when I say they suck.
I know people like to shop, but sometimes I believe they’d rather just find a resource that tells them what the best deal is instead. Whatever the reason, the tracking data I used to track my Amazon Astore’s showed that they routinely underperformed.
18. Use A Website Layout That Improves Conversions
I’ve been using Amazon’s affiliate program heavily for a little over two years now and the one thing I found through constant testing is that the layout of your website matters when it comes to how well it converts casual visitors into affiliate sales.
Armed with this knowledge you’d think that people would spend more time testing their theme or website layout to determine the optimal way to make money from their website right? Well, I still see some of the worst converting themes around and that’s why I actually paid for a theme to be created specifically for these physical product focused websites I had been building.
Azon Theme Created:
I spent around $2,000 on the creation and subsequent modifications of Azon Theme. It’s basically a theme with a ton of different options that has evolved based on my own testing and the feedback from members of my Niche Profit Course (all customers get Azon Theme and the upgrades for free). You can watch a brief video which covers some of the Azon Theme options here and if you want to buy it there the price is $97 (but like I said before it’s free if you buy Niche Profit Course instead)
19. Just Get People On To Amazon.com
I know 30% of my earnings came from products people bought because I happened to be the one that sent them onto Amazon.com. For example, I sold a watch a while ago for $5,000 and got a $400 commission but I don’t even own a website that even remotely discusses watches. This is one of the other reasons why I love using Amazon’s affiliate program.
When you send someone to Amazon.com you get a percentage of anything they buy for the next 24 hours (30 days if they added an item to their cart) so if you can just get them onto the website and they happen to buy something completely unrelated you’ll get the money for it.
Amazon spends millions of dollars on improving the way they get people to convert. The fact that they provide a custom user experience for every person that goes to Amazon.com based on the buying behavior and viewing patterns tells me they know what it takes to close a sale. Some of the best closing advice I can give is to simply find ways to get your visitors onto the Amazon.com webpage and they’ll take care of the rest.
20. Learn More From Niche Profit Course
If you’re read this far then I’m sure you’re still interested in ways to make more money with Amazon.com (or to just finally get started). So I actually created a training course with over 3 hours of video content to walk people step by step through how I build my Amazon sites in addition to showing a few of my own Amazon income generating sites so you can learn from my example.
I don’t need to push a hard sale here, because my numbers speak for themselves. I’ve earned $90,336.65 with Amazon’s affiliate program in the past 2 years and even sold one of my Amazon style websites in a deal worth six figures five months ago.
If you want to learn more check out my Niche Profit Course. It’s a one time price of $97 and we’re just about to cross the 800 member mark.
Check out Niche Profit Course here
Wrap Up
This article has taken me several hours to create and edit so I’d love to hear your feedback. Please let me know what you think of my tips by posting in the comments below. As always, because I love my readers I respond to each and every question that comes in so get to it!
If you’re new here, you should also consider subscribing to my newsletter for a free guide explaining more of the step by step process I use for building my Amazon style websites.
Subscribe To My Newsletter Here
Got something to say? Click here to reply
Wow..Impressive numbers for amazon..there are people making good money form that site after all..thanks for sharing..
“Black Seo Guy “Signing Off”
TrafficColeman´s last [type] ..EzineArticle New 400 Word Minimum – Goolge Panda Attacked
[Reply]
Chris Guthrie Reply:
March 10th, 2011 at 10:49 am
Yes there are a lot of people that are making good money out there with Amazon for sure.
[Reply]
Nice summary Chris and very useful for selling Amazon products.
The only killer for me is that I am on the capped rates from Amazon so your watch example would net me all of £7 rather than the $400 you quoted.
This is hugely frustrating as the majority of products I sell would generate more than the commission cap if it wasn’t in place.
[Reply]
Chris Guthrie Reply:
March 10th, 2011 at 10:50 am
Hey Jamie,
Are you referring to the $25 cap on Amazon.co.uk products? If so, simply stick to product price ranges where you won’t exceed that cap and that way you get the max affiliate commission / sale price possible.
[Reply]
jamie Reply:
March 10th, 2011 at 11:58 am
Hi Chris
Yes there is a £7 ($11) commission cap on the Amazon performance plan which is what everyone who signs up now is put on in the UK. The classic plan (with no cap) is no longer available to us.
[Reply]
Hey Chris,
Great article. The Azon theme is pretty amazing for Amazon niche sites. If you want, check out the site listed with this post to see how I utilized the Azon theme. Still, I have a little bit of wrap up work. Great post, once again.
Organic Foods Review´s last [type] ..Make your own organic baby food
[Reply]
Chris Guthrie Reply:
March 10th, 2011 at 10:51 am
Thanks for the comment, yes I’ve had a lot of great feedback about the theme over the past several months especially when I spend several hundred dollars for a version update and send it out to everyone for free
[Reply]
Organic Foods Review Reply:
March 10th, 2011 at 1:02 pm
Chris,
Thanks for the reply! I get excited when the author replies to comments!
Organic Foods Review´s last [type] ..Make your own organic baby food
[Reply]
Hi Chris – as I was reading I was thinking to myself how much of this comes from your excellent Niche Profit Course. Interestingly most of the tips you offer here could be used on just about any blog. As an example, I could mention a business book in the context of a business post, and link to it using an Amazon affiliate link.
Great stuff once again. Thanks Chris!
Robert Dempsey´s last [type] ..Why You Don’t Make Money Blogging And What To Do About It
[Reply]
Chris Guthrie Reply:
March 10th, 2011 at 10:53 am
Hey Robert,
I completely agree with you. Sometimes I get caught up talking about Amazon when a lot of this stuff could apply to other affiliate programs or just other methods of website monetization as well.
Chris
[Reply]
Would you say 90% + of this money is from the site you just recently sold?
Are you workIng on another niche authority site now?
[Reply]
Chris Guthrie Reply:
March 10th, 2011 at 10:55 am
Hey Sue, I can’t disclose the amount of money that the website was earning when I sold it, but as I admitted at the onset of the article my income from Amazon would have surpassed $100,000 had I not sold the site. I already have several other authority style websites I’m building up as well as my network of smaller niche sites that earn good money as well.
[Reply]
Hey Chris, great article. I was wondering if you have noticed anything different with your Amazon niche sites since the Google algo change? Have you lost traffic or do you build the sites up so much that they have good content. I’m new at this and would be curious if you think people need to change anything.
Thanks.
[Reply]
Chris Guthrie Reply:
March 10th, 2011 at 1:53 pm
Hey Ben, actually I haven’t seen any changes in my sites yet but in the end quality content will always win out.
This is a link to the article I posted earlier: http://www.makemoneyontheinternet.com/how-i-deal-with-google-ranking-changes/
Chris
[Reply]
Awesome post Chris. I’ve recently started an Amazon niche site using WPZon Builder. Its pretty powerful. Does ReviewAzon have the ability to do comparison tables without much manual effort/intervention?
Geek Face´s last [type] ..How To Suck At Pay Per View Advertising
[Reply]
Chris Guthrie Reply:
March 10th, 2011 at 1:51 pm
Yah, it’s something he added in to the v2.0 one he released a few months ago. It’s a pretty sweet plugin and I’ve been recommending it to everyone for a while now. If you already have a plugin though I’d suggest just using that one though, no sense in buying a ton of them.
[Reply]
How may niche sites do you have vs. authority sites? What would you estimate is your earings for each catagory on average. I would ecpect that the revenue does varry quite a bit through out the year. Just trying to establish a benchmark to measure against.
Thanks for the great articles!
[Reply]
Chris Guthrie Reply:
March 10th, 2011 at 2:43 pm
I have about 4 authority style sites and the rest are all mini ones. I like the money the mini’s can make but there isn’t any attractive exit strategy with those so that’s why I like to do a little of both, but I believe authority style sites have the biggest upside. As for income split I’d have to go back through all the tracking data but I’d peg it somewhat in favor of authority sites (before I sold one of my largest ones)
[Reply]
Great post Chris. This gives me an idea when I work on my next niche site. I’m new to the IM game, so this is very inspirational!
Learn With Tim´s last [type] ..February 2011 Income Report
[Reply]
Chris Guthrie Reply:
March 10th, 2011 at 2:43 pm
Hey Tim,
Glad I could help and best of luck in your online income efforts
Chris
[Reply]
Hi Chris,
I think that your tips are great, and really thanks for sharing.
I especially agree with making your product images clickable, as it’s something that a lot of people don’t think about doing. But it brings really good results.
Cheers,
Allen
Allen Walker´s last [type] ..How to Get High PR Backlinks
[Reply]
Hi Chris and good day to you.
Great reading and info on this page.
Could you please explain what is meant in your reply to Jamie
“Hey Jamie,
“Are you referring to the $25 cap on Amazon.co.uk products?”
Question 1.. Does this mean if we promote Amazon.co.uk products, $25 is the most commission we can earn per product/sale whether the product is $50 or $500?
You also say:
“If so, simply stick to product price ranges where you won’t exceed that cap and that way you get the max affiliate commission / sale price possible.”"
Question 2..If the $25 dollar cap is in force, then are you saying don’t bother trying to sell expensive products?
Sorry i am a bit confused. I live in the UK and have just spent over £100 plus learning/ready to become an Amazon Affiliate and would be gutted about the $25 cap.
Thank you for your time.
[Reply]
Chris Guthrie Reply:
March 10th, 2011 at 4:19 pm
Hey Cindy,
I’m near certain the cap is $25. If there is a cap I was just saying that you could sell items where based on your percentage of payout you don’t surpass it. So if you were getting 5% from .co.uk’s aff program then you could sell up to $500 and still get your max commission. That being said, all this info is inside the Amazon.co.uk program.
Who were you learning Amazon affiliate from that wasn’t telling you the payout rates? That seems like a big lack of content…
Chris
[Reply]
jamie Reply:
March 11th, 2011 at 5:20 am
Hi Cindy
The cap is £7 in the UK, so this is the maximum commission you can earn for one item. So at the lowest commission level of 5% any item you sell which costs over £140 would have the commission capped to £7.
Jamie
[Reply]
Richard Reply:
April 3rd, 2011 at 5:00 am
Hi All
The cap on amazon.co.uk applies to all items sold and as Jamie says, it means that there is no point on promoting products worth more than £140 (at 5%, so even less if you climb up the commission percentage ladder).
I only found out about this last month and wrote an article about this on my blog – at http://www.amazonaffiliateprofits.co.uk/amazon-commission-caps-cookie-expiry-and-tiered-commission-structure/.
If you read the article you will see that the £7 cap isn’t the only problem we have in the UK. I have shown a comparision between the .co.uk and the .com Amazon sites with respect to how many items you need to sell to increase your commission percentages, and once you have sold 7 items you are definately winning with the .com Amazon compared to the .co.uk site.
Cheers
Richard
[Reply]
Hi Chris,
Thanks for sharing these awesome tips. I’m not very successful with promoting Amazon products and hope to utilize all these tips for better convertion rate.
Roseli A. Bakar´s last [type] ..How To Be A Successful Freelance Blogger
[Reply]
Awesome tips! I’m just dabbling in Amazon affiliates for a photography site – I’m sure this will help me hone in on making it more profitable!
Kristi´s last [type] ..Increase Traffic, Comments and Social Shares to Your Blog Posts
[Reply]
Chris Guthrie Reply:
March 11th, 2011 at 2:30 pm
Thanks Kristi, glad I could help and best of luck on your photography site
[Reply]
I like this post – it’s like a short review of your excellent course. I’ve been dealing with analysis paralysis with so many ways to approach online marketing and this reminded me that I have complet the amazon sites I started.
Artur´s last [type] ..Buying Lender Owned Property In Phoenix
[Reply]
Chris Guthrie Reply:
March 11th, 2011 at 2:32 pm
That is one of the toughest things to get over when you’re first getting started online and I think the best advice is to really just get it going and start trying different things.
[Reply]
Love these. After the first few I already knew how I can get more sales on my niche site.
I never got too much into Amazon cause the money was not so great in my niche. Then I started making some cash with them, but was not sure how to make more. I just could not find the right info that will talk me through it.
Well, I just did find it. This is exactly what I needed. Now I am going to go through all of my website’s pages, one by one and fix the Amazon stuff I already posted there.
Thanks!!!
Brankica´s last [type] ..50 Traffic Sources You Should Milk Like Crazy
[Reply]
Chris Guthrie Reply:
March 11th, 2011 at 2:34 pm
Hey Brankica, glad I could help and I wish you the best of luck in growing your Amazon income.
[Reply]
Loved this post was sent here by Pat Flynns twitter. I was definitely use some of your tips in my own niche site business. Thanks a lot.
Adam Grant´s last [type] ..Open a t-shirt shop for 10
[Reply]
Chris Guthrie Reply:
March 11th, 2011 at 2:36 pm
Hey Adam, glad I could help and I hope you can grow your niche site income
[Reply]
I just had my first $300 day on EPN, now I’m looking to work some Amazon into my portfolio. This is where I’m starting, just saying.
Good stuff, wonderful to meet you, and I’m looking forward to more.
Wayne John @ Southern California Web Development´s last [type] ..Playing around with Gravatar Hovercards
[Reply]
Chris Guthrie Reply:
March 12th, 2011 at 8:27 pm
Yah EPN is pretty good in certain niches I’ve found as well. Niche wise I bet it’d be an easy transition for you to incorporate Amazon into your websites as well. At the very least you should be split testing it so that you can see which one will make you the most money.
[Reply]
Amazon and affiliate marketing in general is a decent way of making side income, but nothing really compares to making your own product or service that others will pay for, especially something that ppl will pay for month after month. WIth affiliate marketing, you’re basically helping retailers find lifelong customers, and you get a cut just once. Bad deal, IMO
Henway´s last [type] ..Discover Card Rewards
[Reply]
Chris Guthrie Reply:
March 12th, 2011 at 8:15 pm
To each his own I suppose, but what you’re suggesting is like trying to compare apples to oranges. Would I rather build up a website that pretty much runs automatically with little effort on my end and make more than my day job or build a “real business” with paying customers and all the hassles that come along with dealing with them?
You’re making the arguement that I don’t prefer a lifestyle of waking up at 10:00 AM working when I want to and would instead prefer to have some online business where I need to have dozens of employees just to keep the lights on when I don’t want to show up. Problem is – I prefer the more relaxed lifestyle (at least for now)
[Reply]
Raymond Selda Reply:
March 22nd, 2011 at 1:59 am
Exactly! I also prefer the lazy affiliate lifestyle. hahaha.
Raymond Selda´s last [type] ..My Amazon Monthly Earnings For February
[Reply]
Hope Reply:
March 29th, 2011 at 11:06 am
Being an affiliate marketer can still get lifelong customers, as long as you know how to build a list and provide value to the customers before you even send them to the merchant’s page for purchase.
Hope´s last [type] ..Best Way to Paying off Debt Fast
[Reply]
Hi Chris,
After finding your blog, a couple weeks ago, I finally setup a carousel on one of my blogs. After reading your blog, I had a bunch of different ideas on how to use my Amazon affiliate account across a handful of my blogs but as of April 15th, Amazon is closing the affiliate program for all Illinois residents. The Illinois governor signed a tax law that requires Amazon to charge tax on affiliate sales in Illinois even if the retailer doesn’t have a presence here.
I am hoping that I can try to use some your excellent advice from your post with other affiliate programs, even though I haven’t found many other affiliate plans offering similar options that Amazon does.
[Reply]
Chris Guthrie Reply:
March 12th, 2011 at 8:10 pm
Hey Doug, yah I heard about the nexus tax they were starting up in Illinois… very bad moves for affiliates in all industries. You can always move or open a business in another state though right? I co-own a business in Delaware right now but I don’t live in that state.
[Reply]
Hi Chris, that’s an awesome post. I’m just starting with IM myself and am shopping around for strategies. In your experience, what’s the ratio between authority-type sites and mini sites (how many minis are needed to create as much income as one authority)? Thanks for sharing these tips!
Aloys Jacobs´s last [type] ..Testing for Male Yeast Infection
[Reply]
Chris Guthrie Reply:
March 12th, 2011 at 8:09 pm
Hey Aloys, it’s really too tough to say because the earnings can vary between every single website you look at. If I had to guess it’d be probably 5 – 10 or maybe more (probably more) but even then this is based on a guess because earnings will always vary.
[Reply]
[...] The Amazon Affiliates program is an absolutely wonderful way to make money (unless you live in Colorado). Though I have not personally done “a lot” with Amazon Affiliates to date I have done enough to see that Chris gives some great tip in his list of 20 tips to making money on Amazon. [...]
Excellent written article, I only recently started delving into Amazon affiliate sales and have been following what you recommend with links in posts and reviews converting better. One question I had which you don’t show in a screen shot is how many sales are through product link clicks and how many are through “all other items ordered”. I am curious to know what # of sales are from products not directly listed, but just taking advantage of the Amazon cookie and getting percentage of those sales.
Also, with Illinois putting in a new Tax law and Amazon.com banning any associates in IL this left many scrambling, if other states follow suite it can destroy online Amazon Associates sites in seconds, literally.
Justin Germino´s last [type] ..WordPress Plugin to Setup Rotating Banner Ads
[Reply]
Chris Guthrie Reply:
March 12th, 2011 at 8:19 pm
Hey Justin,
Roughly 70% of my sales have come from products I was trying to promote. The other 30% were sales simply because people were on Amazon at the time.
As to the issues in IL… there are plenty of ways to avoid having your business closed up by an idiotic Governor including like moving your business to a neighboring state that’s actually business friendly. There are ways around the issues and I know I wouldn’t let Amazon shutting the program down in my state stop me. I can’t legally advise you what to do, but I’m just saying there are ways around it.
[Reply]
Thanks for this really clear and complete tips about what is work and what is not for Amazon. Now, It is confirm that my Amazon Store will be replace by the text link style.
Dana´s last [type] ..Nokia Communicator E7 Cell Phone- A Techie and Stylish Communicator Cell Phone
[Reply]
Do you have any recommendations for how to find a good niche to build an Amazon affiliate site around? I’m guessing it’s better to stick with something I know (just so that it’s possible to keep putting out content), but does Amazon or anywhere else provide a tool to research good products to sell in a niche that isn’t over-saturated?
Brian´s last [type] ..LLC Members With Uneven Ownership
[Reply]
Chris Guthrie Reply:
March 14th, 2011 at 1:45 pm
This is stuff I talk about in depth in Niche Profit Course but here are a couple quick tips:
1. Yes starting with what you know / interested in helps
2. Go to Amazon.com/bestsellers to get ideas for what products and categories are selling well and in turn you can build some sites to meet those niches
3. Keyword research via Micro Niche Finder + Market Samurai also works very well.
[Reply]
Brian Reply:
March 14th, 2011 at 3:26 pm
Thanks for your response! Looking at the bestseller list is a good idea, at least to get some initial ideas. It seems that no matter which direction I go, though, there’s already another bigger site out there already doing it.
Brian´s last [type] ..LLC Members With Uneven Ownership
[Reply]
Chris Guthrie Reply:
March 18th, 2011 at 12:54 pm
Well, this is the internet. Someone else has had an idea for a website before you. The goal is to build something that is ‘better’ than what is currently ranking for your target market and ‘better’ can mean a combination of a few things such as better content, better links etc.
Michael Reply:
March 18th, 2011 at 2:33 pm
What do you think are the advantages of using MNF or MS over the other? Does one do something better than the other or do they do the same thing? I currently use MS, works great, just curious about MNF.
[Reply]
Chris Guthrie Reply:
March 19th, 2011 at 1:01 pm
I think Micro Niche Finder is a little faster at providing results at times.
i.e. I enter USB as a seed keyword and get a ton of different USB related keywords instantly. Then I just have to click a button or two to see if “my usb keyword” .com,.net or .org are available.
I am looking into starting to make money with Amazon and I think you have given me a guge helping hand here. Not only have you showed how much you made but you have actually shown us how in quite some depth.
Dean Saliba´s last [type] ..How To Make Your Blog Posts Attractive
[Reply]
Chris Guthrie Reply:
March 14th, 2011 at 1:46 pm
Hey Dean, glad I could help and best of luck to you.
[Reply]
Hi Chris,
Thank you for sharing these great tips. I have made money from Amazon from revenue share sites like Hubpages. I am not looking to branch out and start to build my own sites to really increase my earning potential. I am sure that these tips are going to come in very handy.
Thank you!
Jennifer´s last [type] ..Testing Topics When You Want to Create a Blog
[Reply]
When linking to Amazon, do you suggest a standard link (opening in same tab/window) or putting a checkmark in wordpress for “open in a new window”?
Also, do you use the amzn.to short url or the standard long one?
[Reply]
Chris Guthrie Reply:
March 18th, 2011 at 12:55 pm
I leave the link default from how it’s created in the Amazon site stripe (so no open in new window) also no url shortener either.
[Reply]
The graphic of your sales at the top was incredibly interesting. Your average sale had revenue of over $130, even after taking account of your point #9 (sell some inexpensive items). That’s impressive.
I think this is where I go wrong. Looking at my stats, my average sale price is $46, which means I make less commission. I really need to feature more expensive items on my sites.
Rose´s last [type] ..Algo changes plus hubpages changes
[Reply]
Michael Reply:
March 18th, 2011 at 1:33 pm
Great observation – I hadn’t noticed that… I also tend to do lower-priced items but this has shifted my mindset…
[Reply]
Awesome advice. This article pointed out a lot of things that didn’t think to do. I’ve now dialed in one of my sites according to your advice, and now hopefully it will begin to perform. Thanks for the info. You’re great.
Tyler´s last [type] ..Launching Your WordPress Micro-niche Site
[Reply]
Chris Guthrie Reply:
March 18th, 2011 at 12:56 pm
Hey Tyler, glad I could help and best of luck on your new site.
[Reply]
OMG, I did not know the £7 cap on amazon.co.uk. Is that really true?
Chris´s last [type] ..Review- Samsung UE40C8000 3D LED-backlit LCD TV Review
[Reply]
Hi Chris,
I have never seen someone promote Amazon affiliate like you. This is the first article I found giving tips on how to use Amazon site profitably.
Great job!
Anne Sales @ Coupon Codes´s last [type] ..GoDaddy Coupon Code
[Reply]
I have never tried to make money with Amazon. So far, I just make money with Google Adsense, but your post make me want to try get more income with Amazon. I might will need more references to start it.
DailyAppNews´s last [type] ..Multi-touch Gestures Activation on iPad without Jailbreak
[Reply]
Hi Chris, I live abroad in Asia and am wondering if I can still implement your course and have a chance at success. How would you find content to review products without owning the products yourself.. Is that possible?
Thanks.
[Reply]
Chris Guthrie Reply:
March 21st, 2011 at 2:45 pm
Yes, I use customer reviews and other websites in those situations but I also show people how to get products from companies as well.
[Reply]
Hi Chris,
Nice post – I came to explore the site after signing up for the free teleseminar tonight with erica.biz.
I’m curious – how are Amazon affiliate sites faring after the Google Panda update. With the keyword density of the content articles needed for these types of sites, have you or any of your Niche Profits members experienced a major decline in traffic or rankings? If so, what are your recommendations for creating better backlinks and showing more authority/relevancy for these types of sites?
[Reply]
Chris Guthrie Reply:
March 23rd, 2011 at 4:06 am
Hey Courtney, I haven’t had any websites impacted with the update actually. I also don’t really even think about or care about keyword density in my articles either. My recommendation is to remember that Google’s goal is to provide the best search results and if your goal is to make a website that is genuinely better than the website currently ranking in the first position that the rest will follow (particularly if you’re going after an authority website approach)
[Reply]
I’ve been promoting amazon.co.uk in the UK for about two years now and make nothing like the amount you have so its good to get some more tips.
We have a $10 cap here which is a bit of a pain but amazon still convert best for me over other merchants so can’t complain.
What is the minimum amount per month a single site of yours makes? Just wondering how many sites you need to make $45k per year?
How many different products do you tend to have in your niches?
Thanks.
Joe´s last [type] ..From the Blogs
[Reply]
I found your tips in a forum and I’m glad I got to know another Amazon master as I’m working on to be one. I already have a system for a campaign that I’ve learned from different courses but maybe in the future I will check out your system as I like to learn from different people who are doing better than me.
Do you outsource your campaigns? If yes, then would you mind if you just share a basic overview of how you outsource? What’s the general time frame for a campaign before you let it simmer?
Right now I outsource the articles and I have linkbuilding services that takes care of the rankings.
Raymond Selda´s last [type] ..My Amazon Monthly Earnings For February
[Reply]
Chris Guthrie Reply:
March 24th, 2011 at 12:20 pm
I do some of the same as well.
[Reply]
Nice point 9 was new to me and point 13 is something I think I need to take up. Thanks a lot, looking into reviewAZON but the features aren’t well described on their site… It looks good from what you’ve said on your site though.
[Reply]
Thanks Chris
This article and all the comments/your replies have been fantastic.
I heard your interview on Pat Flynn’s podcast on Friday night (I am a little bit behind on listening to his podcasts) and have just now started reviewing your website.
This article has been fantastic. I have learnt heaps in the last 30 minutes.
Cheers
Richard
Richard´s last [type] ..Website refurbishment
[Reply]
Great post, Chris. And so many ways to earn money just with Amazon!! I do know for a fact the real value of just getting the people on the site, seeing that you get commission on all purchases. Same with me for eBay and some affiliate sites I run with it’s partnership network.
[Reply]
EXTREMELY motivating post, Chris. A few questions.
1) On average how deep (pages) are your authority sites?
2) What are your strategies for building backlinks for these sites?
3) Also, what methods do you employ to drive traffic to these Amazon affiliate sites?
Thanks Chris.
P.S. Must be a nice feeling to have finally escaped the “9-5 grind” and also having to work for someone else! That’s my goal as well.
[Reply]
Hey Chris! I stumbled upon your site from a few people. I’m now interested in starting a niche business and grow from there. I’ve tried to target another niche, with keywords as a first timer, and still having difficulties targeting certain keywords. I would like to get a boost of motivation on starting a small and simple amazon style niche site. I don’t know if you covered this, but I’d like to know what sort of criteria that you go through when choosing a site. So far, I have found a keyword with the following criteria:
using market samurai and Google:
SEOC: 15,200 ( keywords in quotations in Google”
[EXACT] searches globally 1300
plenty of products with lots of reviews above 4 star rating on Amazon
first page of Google looks good to conquer, with an avg PR or 1.0.
I’d taken a bit of everything and compiled my own stats so far.
Good news is that the entire keyword is available as a .com domain. Also, it DOES include the words “reviews 2010″
Any insight on if this might be a good keyword to target initially?
Please let me know or even guide me to a post that I can learn from!
Cheers,
shakd´s last [type] ..3rd Update to Niche Site – Still a Rise in Traffic
[Reply]
Joe Reply:
April 11th, 2011 at 6:56 pm
How much commission would a sale get you? That can help decide if a niche is worth going after.
Chris: how many sites do you have of this type and what is the average monthly earning of a typical amazon niche site?
Thanks.
Joe´s last [type] ..Another stick for Google to beat us with!
[Reply]
Chris Guthrie Reply:
April 12th, 2011 at 9:56 am
Listed above is the affiliate tier. I typically get at least 7% to 8% each month on sales.
There is no average. You could have a site that makes $100 a month or a site that makes $5,000 per month. It all depends on the niche and the effort you put in.
Chris
[Reply]
Just starting with amazon for my video cards site…a lot to do and learn!!
Amit Sharma´s last [type] ..Is It The End Of Paypal For Indian Bloggers And Freelancers
[Reply]
Hi Chris,
Thanks for the tips above. It does encourage me to work more on my Amazon sites seeing for what you have achieved in the past couple of years. Will be following closely in the future.
Steve
Best Watches For Men
Steve Sant´s last [type] ..Citizen Eco Drive Chronograph Review
[Reply]
Also probably worth noting that if you are thinking about signing up for the Amazon affiliate program and are located in Colorado or New York, sign up with an out of state business address. Amazon closed their programs to affiliates in these states because of tax laws that were passed. There are quite a few services that allow you to choose a business address in a different state and will automatically forward your mail to your current address.
Kevin @ ChangeTheWorld.me´s last [type] ..How To Die Rich
[Reply]
Chris Guthrie Reply:
April 13th, 2011 at 11:11 pm
In New York I believe they made an exception citing that there are too many valuable publishers in that state that they didn’t want to lose out, but yes using a registered agent in a different state is certainly one way around it
[Reply]
I’m just curious how you get traffic to the actual site you build for each Amazon product. Do you build backlinks? Do you build the site around a keyword that gets them to your site? Or just build the site, then leave it so people move through it to Amazon? Thanks.
Eli Hemsley´s last [type] ..Paramedic School Online- in Person- or at an Accredited College
[Reply]
Chris Guthrie Reply:
April 14th, 2011 at 12:22 pm
Combination of both and I explain both principals and ideas in a lot more detail via NicheProfitCourse.com
[Reply]
Much to say, I haven’t much squeezed the opportunity that you can have with amazon. I get some purchases from time to time but not this much
I somehow concur with the aStore thing. I don’t even have a click on the link-type report. Anyone else concur?
Marco Lee´s last [type] ..Write a Guest Post and Get Featured for Free!
[Reply]
Very interesting post. I am saving this page for future reference. I personally liked tip #9. I know some people who try to locate themselves in niches that sell high valued products only and they do not make enough sales, consequently low commission as well. It’s better to target those items that sell quickly first, where people do not do a lot of thinking and research before buying.
Pam Sheraton´s last [type] ..How To Become A Self Employed Gardener
[Reply]
[...] I shoot for top 5 or top 10 products.Jika Anda ingin mengetahui tips-tips lainnya, silakan simak 20 Tips I Used To Make $90,336.65 With Amazon. April 24th, 2011 Ditulis oleh Kang Yudiono | Kategori Tips Monetisasi Postingan TerkaitKisah [...]
Wow, Chris! This would have to be the most comprehensive guide I’ve ever read on how to make money with Amazon Affiliates on your niche site. So comprehensive, in fact, that I’m printing this out so that I can highlight and add notes to it (and keep it for future reference).
I’m also seriously considering joining the Niche Profit Course, and I’ve never heard of ReviewAzon. Thanks so much for the awesome tips! You definitely went above and beyond with this article here. Very well done!
This deserves a tweet from me. Keep up the awesome work! Can’t wait to see what 2011 will bring in terms of Amazon income.
Christina
Christina Crowe´s last [type] ..How 4 Top Bloggers Used Networking to Accelerate Traffic and Kick Ass
[Reply]
Thanks Chris, this was very helpful advice.
Danielle Brown´s last [type] ..How to Become a Sought After Website Translator
[Reply]