Not really sure why I'm posting, I have no financial gain from doing so. I've been reading the forums for about 10 months, never seen much useful information on Amazon affiliates. Infact my results seem completely different to everyone elses, which leads me to my first point. There is no right or wrong way to make money with Amazon, I've seen people totally disregarding methods I use successfully. I'm not claiming to be rich out of this, but it has become a nice little earner on the side. I've earnt almost $10,000 in my first 10 months, I'm at the point that I don't even need to work on it any more, as long as my sites stay where they are, I will continue earning that money and more as it still grows. Of course I'm not stopping, I will continue to grow it and I'm actually in the process of setting up my own shop, with my own stock, exciting times. Now let's look at picking your niche, seems obvious but a mistake I made at first was lack of research. It's about finding the right balance between realistic and profitable. Using Google keyword tools, you're looking for keywords that have high volume searches, yet low amounts of page results. In my experience search terms with less than 1 million page results is good place to start, so something pretty specific. You need to get your site/astore in the top 3 results to see a regular return. I see a lot of people on this forum talking about low conversion rates, I don't have all the answers, but this is my take on the problem: This might sound silly to some, but make sure your keywords are "buying terms", so nothing really vague that could mean multiple things. If someone is searching your keywords it's because they are looking to actually buy it. For a really bad example, people searching "Cooking Recipe" are probably just looking for information online, but someone searching "Cooking Recipe Book" is much more likely to be someone looking to make a purchase. (Don't use that example, it really is a bad one.) Specific buying terms are going to be easier to rank well for in google, and will also give you better conversion rates. Tip for people in the UK - Amazon cap your earnings at £7 per item, so you should probably look to sell products that are generally less than about £130 - £140. Doesn't matter if you sell something for £5000, you will still only get £7, your more likely to get much more volume from selling items around £100 that give you the same profit. Ok, I'm getting bored now and this is taking longer to write than expected. I didn't even touch the sides, or even mention a thing about marketing. If you would like to hear more let me know, this way I'm not wasting my time. I will leave you with a little gem I had the other day, sometimes you just get lucky. Someone purchased 100 copies of the same £7.50 book through my links, clearly a school teacher or something. The great thing about this, the books are totally unrelated to my niche. Happy days.
Really nice info. Thanks. My question is what type of site do you have. Are they micro niche sites? Or huge site with multiple categories. How do you market them? I have started with amazon for a month now and I am struggling.
You are right there is no right or wrong way to make money on the internet. Amazon is no different. If it works for you then it is great. If it not working for you, then try something else or tweak what you have. Great advice for the forum. thank you.
Great advice, I would love to hear more. Thank you for taking the time to share. This is particularly important: I am interested in exactly what sites you run - aStores, AOM, blogs etc.?
Yes, I agree product specific niches work best and getting your site in the top 3 is ideal. I didn't know that $7 cap bit about Amazon in the uk or did you say au? Anyway, seems like you know what you are doing, good for you! I love Amazon, too, because not only do you get commissions for the products someone may have bought through your link, but also for every other item they put in their cart and buy, isn't that cool? I think it's awesome!
Your advice is good - for Amazon or any other product or affiliate promotions. Breaking into the market of promoting a product can be very difficult, but by ensuring that there are few competitors out there (few page results) you are increasing your chances of success, as well as your scale of earnings. Congratulations on your indirect book purchases! It was obviously some good karma that you had earned working on your behalf. Continue working smart, and building your sites using your existing plan. Within 5 years, you'll be making 5 - 10 times what you're currently making. I say 5 - 10 because, depending upon your niches, there may be lulls in purchases within one or more niches or there may be increases in all of them. We live in a "living" economy, which is constantly changing and morphing depending upon public demand... Anyhow, what keyword research tools do you use in particular? What affiliate networks have you found success with outside of Amazon?
but if the school teacher person purchased 100 x ebooks you would only get £7 wouldn't you? as they cap the earnings at £7
Just wanted to throw my penneth in. Your not wasting your time Found your post a very interesting read. Many thanks.
No, he would earn commission on each book. His commission on each book would be capped at £7. With Amazon you earn commision on each item bought, not just the one you referred the person to.
Thank you for your advice. I have been trying to sell amazon products for 2 months using the Auto EStore script. Here is my store: http://www.topselltoys.com Not much success. I guess I have to revise my keywords again.
It looks like the problem is with duplicate content. Your site only contains content from Amazon, so Google will not give you any good SERP rankings for it. I am assuming your trying to get organic traffic tho.. maybe you are promoting via PPC
not wasting your time. 10,000 in 10 months is pretty respectable, I'll listen to what you have to say!