I have alot of sites built advertising amazon stuff and most of the sites are still new. In the past 3 weeks, I have sold about 20 items so far. I want the sales to increase of course and have sent all the sites to bookmarking sites and several are on the first page of goog and yahoo so far. Trying to make some more sales but maybe this is that time of year that some people just don't buy. Kids starting school and all and money is short for some. Anybody have any ideas on getting more sales the free way? I did see in the forum that someone said to give away something and have people signup for a news letter so you can capture their email and promote your products that way. I don't want to push people into buying something by emailing all the time. I know I don't like getting emails from companies or clickbank etc., pushing their stuff. I just delete it and go on. I don't use adwords or spend $$ on paid advertising either. Most people spend more money on advertising than the money they take in from the commissions.
Hi benchrest, I've been in online advertising for around 4 years now, and from what I can see Amazon is fairly tricky to make profits from, largely because of their pitiful affiliate commissions. I tried a fair while ago now to sell things via ppc, computer games, computer games machines, garden tools, books, audio books etc. PPC ended up being a very expensive way to go. If you want to use organic traffic. Think of a webpage you can create that will offer something of value. In the past top store comparison charts worked very well for me. These basically saved people time. Newsletters can be good if people are passionate about the products/ subjects. I would add a blog and add news articles, one per week. Figure out the best keywords in your niche, what your competition are doing that you could do better. Create other pages on your site that add value e.g. proof pages such as about us, contact form. Word Press is a great site to quickly and easily manage everything from. Make sure that what you sell has enough volume per month, around 1000 minimum on broad match (if you are using the Google Keyword Tool). SEO will work in many cases. Remember that SEO requires fresh, new, quality content frequently, every week to a site. The site must be able to get crawled easily. If you have a budget you can test out copy and layout/ sales messages using PPC - many very good tools exist there. You must track everything, so use Google Analytics immediately. Lastly, build links to your site from an expanding, wide range of quality sites, know the anchor text you are looking for (found from your keyword research). Remember, there is NO easy money on the internet, anyone who says so is lying. If they are making 'easy money' then it is simply because they have put in a tonne of effort beforehand!Thats my 2 pence for the moment.
I agree 100%. benchrest, If you plan to put yourself in Google's hands, then you need to find products that are in demand with a keyword phrase that's not overly competitive. Once you do that, then write, write, write! A good way that I have found to create new content that get's Google's attention is to go to Y! Answers or Askville and look for questions about my product. I then use the question as my post title on my blog and answer the question my way (not with content already posted). As much as possible, I answer the question with one or two product solutions, and I explain why the product I'm recommending solves the problem. Do this a few times a week and you'll be set. Whatever you do don't use one of the many auto-content systems that pulls from Y! Answers or YouTube. You'll be shooting yourself in the foot. db
I agree with blogfiliate, stay away from auto-content. Write your content or have some do it for you. Don't forget the power of Facebook and Twitter in your marketing mix.
In addition to all the great advice already given I would also say that make sure that your keywords are "buying" keywords, and not just something people would type in to get information about a product. A good way to choose your keywords is to look at the 'Amazon bestsellers' and a choose a product with 4 or 5 stars in feedback. Then go over the Google keywords tool, type in the product name, and look down the keywords results for something like "cheap xxxx", "discount xxxx", "xxxx on sale" etc. If they have a decent amount of searches (for the exact keyword phrase) and not too much competition, then these will be ones to target and promote in the ways already suggested. The visitors to your site will more likely be in a 'buying frame of mind' and you should see your sales increase.
First of all accept my congratulations for making sales in the last few weeks. It is a great achievement. I think you are resorting to SEO techniques rather than PPC advertising.
Excellent point. When someone is already in "buying mode" you don't have to convince them to buy anything; you simply answer questions and guide them to the product they already want.
Just keep creating good content. If you keep plugging away, the money will come. Google loves regularly updated sites.
Create articles in Ezinearticles on topic realted to your niche, use the right keyword for your title,