How I average $500 Per Month With Amazon Associates Program

People who know me, know that I'm an Amazon fanatic and for good reason. Amazon allows me to earn an income via commissions on sales generated through my website.

I've watched lots of people on the this forum and others discuss the difficulties of making a dollar with amazon, but hopefully after this post, some people will take my advice and start making more money.

Ok, so many of you are skeptical and because of that, I'll go ahead and post a couple of screenshots for you taken from my Associates Central page to show you the money.



I'm sure someone out there is saying well of course you did good during the holiday shopping. So here's another screenshot from the opposite side of the calender:



Ok, after showing you the money, I hope to have some of your attention now.

Some background:
I've joined the amazon associates program since about 2004 maybe '05, but I never really started putting effort into it, until about 2006. At the time, I was already making good money from my day job, and I wasn't too focused with the couple of dollars i was getting from Amazon. Adding amazon products into my site was really an after thought, and I figured that I might make a couple of dollars to pay for my hosting.

I'm going to share with you right now what I think are some of the biggest mistakes that many of the amazon associates do, and why many struggle to actually make some money from the program.

The big secret:
The reason why so many people either fail or don't earn as much as they can even with all of the effort that they do is because they never bothered to setup a professional e-commerce website in the first place. Now before you take offense at what I said, let me be specific.

Many people have decided to build a quality content site with good information and resources, original content and even communities based around a common interest. That's great to be honest, and I wish more people did that. I used to say that if I have great content and people come to my site to get it, that I could easily sell a product or two related to the topic of the discussion. It seems logical that people might come to my site because they searched on something they were interested in, and might happen to purchase while they are at my site. I've seen associates monetize they're website as an after thought, by adding banners, search boxes, ads, widgets and more, but there are several reasons why this is all wrong.

1. People who came to your site because of your good content are at most likely to be one time purchases
2. People generally purchase from professionally designed retail sites
3. You earn more money using Amazon Web Services
4. Having a shopping cart allows your visitors to checkout on your site, versus being sent directly to amazon
5. If you simply refer people to amazon without providing additional service, then the visitor doesn't have a reason to come back and shop with you
6. Most associates are too focused simply on making a sale and haven't even considered that they should be focused on building a brand and serving they're website visitors as actual customers
7. Possibly the biggest reason is that, there are websites trying to sell stuff that don't address the most basic of shopping questions like, who you are, how to make a refund, or are exchanges available
8. When I'm searching for content, I don't just happen to buy a related product from the article. Maybe impulse shoppers might, but I'm not one myself
9. When I'm actually going to shop, I go to retail websites
10. Blogs and Forums should be added to your retail site, not be the basis of it

I could probably go on an on with that list, but what I'm essentially trying to get at, is that if you really want to make more money with the amazon associates program, that you should stop trying to approach it as something that can add to monetize your site, and start approaching it more like a genuine e-commerce business. Your site shouldn't be content first with retail second. If you want to succeed in e-retail then retail should be first and foremost on the site with everything else secondary.

It took me a couple of years of messing around with retail and marketing to really learn that lesson. Today the majority of my amazon revenue comes from my shopping site http://www.orderitontheweb.com . It's not perfect, but I don't have to use ppc, get about 1,000 unique visitors daily, have over half a million pages indexed in google with a pr5 and it does well converting visitors into shoppers. My current trends show an average of 7.37% , which is great when you consider that most major retailers only convert between 5%-10% of their traffic.

After enjoying a small measure of success with my own amazon sites, I had some friends asking if I could help get a site setup for them. I got such a positive feedback from my friends and relatives that I explored the idea of setting up professional amazon websites as a solution provider. For me amazon associates was a hobby that today I'm happy to say I was able to do on a more full time basis. So I started a small startup doing what I enjoy. Today I'm lead developer and seo for my small start up E-commerce For Everyone (see my signature).

In closing, I hope that other amazon associates can find success as well, and that some of what I wrote might cause you to take a look at your own websites in a new way and address some of the things that are keeping you from making more from amazon associates.

If there is anyone else doing well with amazon, I'd encourage you to please list a few of the things that have helped you reach success. Like or dislike this topic? Please respond to this post and lets have a positive dialogue to learn from. Whoa, thanks for reading this all the way down to the end, lol.


thanks,
PuReWebDev

 

Thanks for the tips! I found it weird, still, though..if people know that you are "using" Amazon to sell, why don't they just go to amazon straight away..

 

Excellent question. I hope this can be an excellent answer for you:

People don't go straight to amazon.com for the same reasons they shop at target.com . Target.com is powered by amazon, not many people realize it, but if you look at the footer of target's site it'll say it. Also if you view the properties of the images they are coming from amazon.

So a proper answer would be:

1. They like to shop a particular brand
2. They prefer the design of one site over the other
3. Think amazon's site is too busy for they're tastes
4. Had a bad experience on amazon's site
5. People don't really know the difference alot of times until it gets pointed out to them
6. Features they like might not be on amazon's site

I'm sure there's probably a multitude of reasons why they don't go straight to amazon's site. I don't think it makes a big difference to people actually, so long as they receive the service they've come to expect. Good example, why go to a franchised mc'donalds versus a corporate mc'donalds? Because for the average person, it's all the same and in the end they got the product or service they were looking for.

I hope this was a helpful response.


thanks,
PuReWebDev

 

Thanks for sharing the information, really useful for me. I'm thinking into venturing into amazon associates but still not sure business model to be used.

 

is your orderitontheweb site a script or designed on your own? Kind of misleading as people are ordering the products from amazon and not you directly, but overall a solid site.

 

Thank you, I appreciate compliment. It's not a script, the site is an e-commerce application developed by E-commerce For Everyone (see my signature). By definition, misleading means: Designed to deceive or mislead either deliberately or inadvertently. My site uses an image that says "In Association with Amazon" (which is hard to miss), there is a link on every page of the site to our Help and Info section where the site clearly explains how "Fulfilled by Amazon" works. My site doesn't claim that the products are coming from me, it actually says that the products come from Amazon and that their order is protected by Amazon's A-to-Z guarantee. There are many indicators on the site, so I think it would be very difficult for someone to be or feel misled, given the amount of indication on the site.


thanks,
PuReWebDev

 

Just one more reason from me to add:
Ppl shop on my sites because they found me on a search engine first

 

I'm glad you posted this, I will look at it carefully

 

Thanks for the great advice .

 

Thanks for posting this, I had no idea you could create your own store and shopping cart via amazon

 

Im new to this ..how do you submit half a million pages quickly?

 

Great ideas, and you program looks interesting. I sent some further questions through your site.

 

I wrote an article on exactly how to do it. You can read it webpronews: http://www.webpronews.com/expertarticles/2006/05/18/seo-for-amazon-web-services

Thank you, I'll be happy to help anyone who wants to take they're amazon associate revenue to the next level.


Happy Selling!
PuReWebDev

 

Well, finally a good and honest post on the affiliate program related topic other than the usual crap promoting crappy programs.
Congrats dude for converting that well with only 1000 visitors !!!!!!.

My tip, embed an Amazon product (preferably cheap, under $100) related to the article you wrote, floating right next to the text.

 

thank you, really good tips

 

So where can I purchase your amazon store script? I don't like the idea of paying $20 a month for you to host a script for me when I could do it myself on my own VPS.

 

See my signature for purchase info. We're an application service provider (think of gmail not squirrelmail), we're not offering just some script. We're providing business class service with technical support, ongoing maintenance of the application, website marketing services, professional graphic services, consultation and more included in the modest service fee.

We know our product pays for itself which is why I would encourage you to take a second look before you dismiss our innovative new service. Remember we have service starting at only $9.99 so its not like it's high risk, and there's no contracts either. Our modest service fee covers the cost of professional graphics services, marketing and hosting that otherwise would have been paid for separately. So I feel confident that I'm offering outstanding value for the dollar.


thanks,
PuReWebDev

 

1) I want the squirrelmail, not the GMail, so no thanks
2) Don't want/need your technical support, so no thanks
3) I can market the site myself, so no thanks
4) I can design the graphics myself, so no thanks
5) I'll hire a consultant if I want one, so no thanks

Again, unless you're willing to offer your site's script for sale instead of trying to pitch your "application service providing" solution, no thanks, and good luck..

By your comparison, this is like using an "application service provider" for an ebay affiliate store. I successfully maintain a few of these myself, on my own server, with my own scripts, using my own graphics. Why would I pay a monthly feed for such limited functionality? Do I get webspace? How much advertising do you provide? Can I have shell access? Didn't think so..

 

I'm glad that you've found your success. Obviously I'm addressing the people that find all of these services useful. I do have clients with shell access as a matter of fact because we operate as a full web host with diskspace being alloted based on the plans chosen. I don't think you fully understand the benefit of my service and that's perfectly fine. Continue to do what works well for you and share with everyone else rather then complain how my service doesn't suit you. That's the point of this thread, helping others learn about profiting with amazon associates.

Happy Selling!
PuReWebDev

 

A lot of people don't have the wherewithal to write their own scripts or putter around with a shell account. I don't think you were being personally solicited, so it's strange that you've chosen to make a point-by-point rebuttal based on your personal needs.

When you see an ad on TV, do you telephone the company and explain to them why you don't need their product? I can just imagine all these conversations. "Hello, Vagisil? This is j0ned calling. I'll have you know that I'm a man, so I have no need for your feminine hygiene products. Good day to you."