You Suck as an Amazon Affiliate and This is Why

Since the Amazon Associates program is such a hot topic in the IM field lately, I figured I'd put something up that new (and experienced) Amazon affiliates can use to ensure they avoid common pitfalls.

Listed below are some of the more major reasons I've seen for folks failing at affiliate marketing (especially Amazon). If you can avoid these pitfalls, you will find yourself light years ahead of most of the other affiliates.


You're chasing products that you will never rank for...

So you are interested in the electronics niche and the big commissions that go with it, right? You are not the only one. Promoting "Best Sellers" and popular items while relying on organic SEO traffic is a recipe for disaster. Most affiliates follow this strategy and it results in a crowded market. If you can't rank your product reviews on page one (above the fold) on Google, they just aren't going to be seen by anyone. Do yourself a favor and taregt less competitive products instead. Ranking is easier and usually requires very little to no backlinking work.


You are spending too much time on backlinks and not enough time on content...

Spending 5 hours per day chasing after backlinks is not my cup of tea. I prefer to spend my time actually creating content. If you are spending hours per day building backlinks just to rank, you are really overcomplicating things unnecessarily. Chase the low-hanging fruit instead of the generic high-traffic / high-competition terms. The effort to rank these kinds of products is a fraction of what it takes to target competitive products and can produce the same results.


Stop targeting generic terms and start targeting "buying" phrases...

Targeting a term like "HDTVs" will certainly generate a TON of traffic if you can rank for it. That said, people searching for that term are rarely going to actually buy anything. Stop going after "lots of traffic" and start chasing "buying traffic". What search terms would you use when researching something you were ready to purchase. Those are the terms you should be targeting.


Your content sucks...

When a potential buyer lands on your site and is immediately greeted with a wall of text, he is almost always clicking the "back" button immediately. Break it up! Be sure to add images and PLEASE use paragraphs! A wall of 7000 words isn't appealing to anyone by any stretch. Also, stop telling people that a 4-speed blender is better than a three-speed because it has one more speed. People also don't care why blending fresh fruit into their smoothie is better than frozen fruit. Stop with the mundane details. Give them something useful.

Oh, and STOP repeating what Amazon is already saying. Chances are VERY GOOD that your visitor has ALREADY been to Amazon and read the product page. They already know what Amazon has to say. They want to know what YOU have to say. That is why they clicked YOUR site in the SERPs.


You're promoting products that people do not buy online...

Yes, "anything" CAN be bought online. However, many products simply do not lend themselves well to online purchases. Think about what you are trying to promote and ask yourself if people really buy it online.


There are, of course, many other reasons people fail at affiliate marketing. These just happen to be the major reasons.


Tom

 

good one, newbie should read this before picking up your product

 

On a side note his affiliate blueprint has some brilliant stuff in it. His way of finding products in particular is worth the $14.

 

Hey man. Thanks. I'm glad you found it useful.

 

There's some good tips here, thanks.

 

Thanks for the post

 

I'm glad you guys are finding the post useful. One thing I should add:

Promote Stuff That You Actually Know Something About

People who find your Amazon site are looking for information. If the person visiting your site knows even a little about what he is looking for, it becomes immediately clear when you don't know what you are talking about. Do yourself a favor and stick to promoting products that you actually know something about.

 

@wolmmii, what would you recommend for people getting started that only know about products that don't sell well online or that are low-priced? I have some friends that want to get into affiliate marketing but are into things like metal working tools and guns (not something suitable for Amazon really).

 

Hi!
Agree with wolfmmii..

Thanks for your good tips, sir.

 

Yes, I like!!
I'd also add - probably the biggest reason people fail at online marketing is they are wanting to make money BEFORE they build their website presence with Google AND people. I see this on forums time and time again, website owners have a new site loaded with ads, little content and trying to work out why they aren't making money or getting page rank. Highly relevant products or services is also crucial. You have to earn Google's respect first to get on page one! Patience, patience.patience.

BTW - Matt Cutts from Google talks about trust here and Trust rank vs. Page rank Especially important after the Penguin update.



Regards
Catherine

Bottom line - Content, Relevance, Traffic, Time, If you don't get the traffic to your site first, you won't earn credibility and thus fail at making money/sales.