How I earned $200 from amazon in one month! Experience sharing...

After one month with amazon, I found I already earned a few money from it which I don't think I can do it before. No much(just $200), but already gave me some motivation to continue. So, I share my experience with all newbies - amazon is a good golden mine if you can focus on it and do the right thing.

First of all, I am a newbie, no experience with website at all until this Aug.
At the beginning, I have no idea how to earn money with website except adsense, and just want to build a website for adsense, yes, just for adsense.

Unfortunately, I failed. The reason is that I chose the top competitive keywords - "weight loss", why I chose this keyword ? Because I chose it by another article wrote by a PPC guru to introduce how to handle PPC. I did that step by step , and then I found that the article was written in 2003, five years ago. Something already changed, but I still have no sense! The webiste is still alive ( http://www.bestweightlossdeal.com ) but I update only once two weeks now.

The result is that no visitor can find my website from google, because it is too new and has few content. I tried to use all methods learned from internet to promote it but failed. Only one benefit from first website gave me - $10 adsense. Yes, it did. I learned something from it but not enough.

I read as many as possible books about SEO, internet marketing and so on. Then, I chose the amazon, because its huge inventory and product lines. I can promote any product I want. Another reason is its widget. Easy to use and good to see.

I bought a new domain name to build my new bird. Also, I joined the CJ. I started to use PPC campaign to increase the traffic. This time I made another mistake - I choose a keyword contain the "amazon"! This is not allowed by amazon assoicate policy! Due to less competition, the cost of PPC is low, about 0.1$ per visitor. 800 more or less visitors came to my website and began to buy something. I still remember the first day I got sales, one customer bought over 250 books from my website and made me earn over $150! Amazing! Minus the cost of PPC, I still earned $70, wow! It's a good start for me! But bad thing came after that, an email from amazon came to my email box to let me stop use the PPC by any keywords contain "amazon" or quit ! I had no choice and chose to stop PPC.

I tried to use another keyword instead of original one, but the results told me no. The cost of per visitor increased to 0.5$ or more if I changed the keyword! I can not make any money from it even another visitor still could buy the same amount of books from my website! What should I do next ?

I started to use social network and forums, it's free traffic. And I stopped the PPC after lost about $130, because the cost per visitor is too high, and I have no enough PPC skills to handle that situation( I think I will do PPC in the future if I master some skills ). This time, the result is positive. Digg, stumbleupon, delicious, ... gave me a lot of traffic. I started to get some profit from it.

It's just a beginning.
I still need to work hard to increase the traffic and optimize my website to get more profit, but at least, I begin to know some tips about making money online.

Anyone who can share experience is welcome. Any question please let me know.

 

Thanks for sharing

 

Hi. can you share how much visitors you converted?? like how much traffic came and how much actually bought the product??

and congrats for your efforts.

 

where is the "earned $200" part?

 

Here it is the $200 part for last month. Promote from social network websites. Nothing about PPC.


http://www.tophotdeal.com/images/sep200.jpg

 

All traffic come from social network and blogs, I have a few experience about PPC, so just gave it up.

 

Conversion rate is avg 2%. Not too much.

 

i see that you are using wordbay plugin to monetise via ebay.

any success in that??

your stats are good.

 

I just add ebay in recently days, no sales yet, but I will check the result in the future.

 

I would say you are doing well for being still close to just starting out.. Amazon is not all that easy to make cash on, for me anyway!

The best way to learn things is through trial and error. Which you are finding out and have been learning from trying things and the few mistakes along the way.

Just keep at it and trying a few different things or strategies until the things start working even better.

Boulder

 

good luck for that. i have heard that ebay is better because of generous commissions. looking at the image you provided i observe that you have sold expensive items. like LCD TVs.

 

Great tips
I get more idea from your sites
thanks!

 

I have amazon store too for almost a year.

www.zen-store.net
PR 3 and, made like 30 sales but only $40.

Not enough to pay hosting

I would say amazon program isn't rewarding too much

 

Thanks for sharing. I have a bad experience while I was using PPC for my amazon store. I'm going to use your method on social bookmarking...

 

Agreed. 88 orders yesterday and only $27.33 ... This person ordered an adult peter pan costume (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000JKQAUK) though, made my day

@ciscopower: Very nice, keep up the good work

 

Hey, congrat and keep up the good work! I did not have any PPC experience, most of the thing i do to generate traffic is through article marketing.

 

Thanks for sharing. your thread give me a motivation.

 

Wow, I have been an amazon associate for over a year and still haven't reached the $100 mark

 

Stumbleupon, digg, mixx are good place to promote your website. Add more friends there, more opportunities you would have.

 

i have a website related with shampoos and creams..i guess i cant use social media sites then..wat do u think??