I’ve been using Amazon’s affiliate program for a little over two years and during that time I’ve had a lot of success with it. In fact, this income source was the second largest chunk of my total $150k+ 2010 income. If I hadn’t sold one of my larger Amazon focused sites last year for six figures this income source would have easily eclipsed $100,000 by now.

Amazon Income Results For Last 2 Years $90,336.65:

BONUS: Want to learn everything I know about being an Amazon Affiliate in 2018?
Click here to download my ultimate Amazon Affiliate Course, along with EasyAzon Core for free.

Ok, seeing my income is great and all but how does it help you? Well, the reason I show a screen shot is to make sure you know that the advice I’m sharing is based on stuff I truly know.

One of the things I’ve done over the past two years is track the methods I use to make money with Amazon by tracking IDs as well as keeping track of other things I’ve done while building up my Amazon websites. I initially published my findings in two blog posts early last year when I first launched this blog and even today they are still among the most popular posts (here and here). Now it’s been over a year and today I’m providing an updated list of information including several new tips that I’ve learned since that time.

Top 20 Ways To Make Money With Amazon Associates:

1. Niche Selection Is Crucial

I’ll get to the actual methods I use on my websites in the next tips, but the first thing I want to say is that the niche you choose is the absolute most important decision you can make.

I love to target physical product focused niches and keywords

It’s easiest to make money using Amazon’s affiliate program if the people coming to your website are looking for a specific product that your website discusses. It’s more difficult to use a website like my blog here and make money linking to physical products because the people coming here are looking for advice on how to earn money online – not what iPod speakers they should buy.

2. Link To Products Inside Your Content

Roughly half of my Amazon income comes from basic text links posted inside the content body area of a blog post or page.

Example: Check out this cool helicopter. I’ve been covering these RC helicopters for months and I’ve never seen this one discounted so heavily which is well off the list price.

Simple text links in the content of an article are the most effective way to get web visitors to click. People trust the body of the content on a page more so than any other area of the website and I know this because the tracking data I’ve collected.

3. Make Product Images Clickable Affiliate Links:

The second best thing I’ve found next to a simple text link is to use images of the product you’re talking about and make them clickable like this cool usb missile launcher:

Roughly 15% of my total Amazon income has come from simply making all of the product images on my websites clickable affiliate links.

Tip: You can easily insert product images into your content using the EasyAzonplugin and earn a commission anytime someone clicks the image, goes to Amazon and makes a purchase.

4. Link To Amazon.com As Many Times Possible

I alluded to this in the previous few tips but I want to make sure you understand that each link inside one of your articles is another opportunity for a visitor to click through and make their way onto Amazon.com.

It’s common for me to link to Amazon five to ten times in a single article (more if I’m doing a product review).

5. Product Review Articles Convert The Best

Doing a quality product review for a product directly related to your niche is a very easy way to garner higher click thru rates and increased sales, but only if your review is higher quality.

Ideally you contact the manufacturer’s marketing team or PR agency and get them to send you a demo unit of the product to review, but this takes a lot of effort and may not be worth it on a smaller traffic site (at first).

You want to convince the reader to investigate their purchase options by the time they finish reading an article, which is why I’ll always include links to all of the products mentioned in a review at the end of the article. That way it’s an easy transition from learning about the product during your review and then at the end it’s time to make a purchase.

Example: See this USB Missile Launcher on Amazon.com

6. Build An Email List

You’ve probably heard this a hundred times by people telling you to build an email list from the blogger and internet marketing crowd, but building an email list is way easier on a physical product oriented website.

Why? People don’t have their guard up when they are researching a physical product to purchase (when compared to other purchase decisions online i.e. digital goods). So what I like to do is offer some type of freebie like a buyers guide or some type of information that provides more details about the products they’re researching.

On the flip side, I’d love for you to join my email list for this blog but I have to be a little more convincing by showing you that I’m a credible resource first. (Already convinced? Sign up here ;D)

For my newsletter provider I use Aweber and highly recommend them. Overall I could attribute at least five to ten percent of my total income due to my email listsbecause I like to focus on promoting products heavily to my lists during the holidays which leads into my next tip.

7. Write Sales And Promos During The Holidays

I typically made between $500 and $1,000 a day every day during Black Friday Week, Cyber Monday and Cyber Week. It is lower during other holidays like Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Presidents Day, Valentines Day etc. but you can still promote various sales during these holidays as well. I target every holiday because Amazon creates an actual dedicated sales page every time one of these holidays come around. The deals shared on these pages are generally really good too.

So what I’ll do is put together an article of all the top products that are on sale in my niche using the tips I’ve shared earlier like linking as many times as possible, making the product image clickable and then sending out an email to my list etc. to get even more conversions.

Stats From A “Cyber Monday (My Niche) Discounts” Post Last Year

(Some of that traffic pop is also attributed to the day I mail out to my email lists though)

For the structure of these articles I like to target a frequently searched keyword such as “Cyber Monday (My Niche) Discounts” etc. because I know people search for “Cyber Monday” and “Black Friday” millions of times each year but they also search a longer form version like “Cyber Monday (My Niche) Discounts” as evidenced by the above traffic graph from one of my Amazon sites

8. Identify which niche you want to go into based on Amazon’s affiliate payout percentage

Amazon used to have a variable fee structure where you would earn more money if you referred more sales to Amazon. They would start at 4% and you could earn up to 8.5% of a sale if you referred enough items. Amazon did away with their variable fee structure in early 2017 and replaced that system with a fixed percentage payout based on the category of products. Some niches pay a lot less than others and it’s important to be aware of the payout before you pick a niche:

Note: These totals are accurate as of June 2018 but may change in the future. To see up to date info look in your Amazon Associates portal.

9. Use Multiple Tracking ID’s For Each Website

You wouldn’t install the same Google Analytics code on every single website you own right? Of course not, because you wouldn’t be able to tell how much traffic each of your websites were receiving individually. So the same thing can be said for tracking the money you make on your websites (and yet people still tell me they use only one Amazon tracking ID for all of their websites /facepalm). In the ,past I’ve gone so far as to create 15 different tracking ID’s for use on a single website.

By default Amazon assigns you one tracking ID like blahblahblah-20 but you can create additional tracking ID’s here.

10. Use EasyAzon To Save Time And Make More Money With Amazon

One of the ways I’ve also been able to make good money with Amazon is to automatically populate information from a WordPress plugin that I had developed based on the needs I had for building Amazon centric websites. The result was EasyAzon. The plugin allows you to insert information and affiliate links to Amazon in a much faster way than creating the links yourself by hand from Amazon.com.

Short Summary: Basically what the plugin does is allow you to quickly insert a text based affiliate link, the image of the product as an affiliate link, a product information grid, convert US Amazon links to UK, GR etc. via link localization etc. etc. and have all those things be affiliate links to Amazon.com so it does a great job of improving click through rates.

The plugin is currently only $47 and available at EasyAzon.com

11. Insert Buy Now Button Into Your Articles

This is something that EasyAzon could do for you, but if you don’t want to spend the money you can simply insert your own buy now button and turn it into an Amazon affiliate link.

12. Create A Product Comparison Grid

Creating a product comparison grid for all of the products within your niche and allowing people to sort by various features is a great way to get some additional sales. I’ve used this tactic on several of my websites and the product comparison page alone can add an additional 5% to 10% income increase for a website.

If you do it manually you’ll need to use this WordPress plugin called WP Table Reloaded and what I do is include various columns for information about the product and in the final column I use a buy now button that people can click to see more info about the product.

13. Publish A Recurring Deals Post

If you want to find a way to be able to mention products that are on sale more frequently on your website one of the easiest ways I’ve done that in the past is to just do a weekly deals post. So what I’ll do is publish a post every week with the best deals for my niche and then incorporate all of the previous tactics I’ve discussed above to link to the products on Amazon.com. Depending on how often you publish articles you could do it more or less frequently (I’ve seen some websites do these style of articles every day).

14. Publish A Monthly Bestseller List

Amazon has a bestseller page found simply at Amazon.com/bestsellers and so one thing I’ve done on my site is publish a bestsellers list and simply mention the currently trending bestsellers. Generally speaking the cream rises to the top so if you write an article talking about the bestselling products those are likely to be the best products your visitors are looking to buy anyway.

Just go to Amazon.com/bestsellers and look for your respective niche category. I shoot for top 5 or top 10 products.

15. Use Native Shopping Ads Over Static Banner Ads

Update: I used to recommend carousel style Amazon ads, but they don’t exist anymore. When I used them they converted about 3 times better than static style Amazon banner ads. I suggest using Native Shopping Ads instead which is essentially a replacement to the carousel style ads but allows for greater flexibility. You can display products by recommendation from the content, by search or with other options. Here is what the a Native Shopping Ad looks like for the keyword search “Chris Guthrie” Amazon displays the Kindle books I’ve written:

Search Results from Amazon

How to Make Money as an Amazon Associate

$8.99

(91)

5 Proven Methods For Making $1,000+ Per Mon…

$7.99

(25)

Internet Business Insights: Lessons Learned and Str…

$4.99

(62)

Dispute Resolution and Lawyers (Coursebook)

$156.67$170.00

(4)

Ads by Amazon

You can create the Amazon Native Shopping Ads inside your Amazon Associates account here and you’re able to manually add products or just display bestselling products from a specific category.

16. Don’t Bother Creating An Amazon Astore

When I created a store page and used the Amazon Astore tool to “build my own store” I found it converted terribly. Less than 1% of my total income came from Amazon Astore pages before I stopped using them. If you’re not familiar with Astore’s just take my word for it when I say they suck.

I know people like to shop, but sometimes I believe they’d rather just find a resource that tells them what the best deal is instead. Whatever the reason, the tracking data I used to track my Amazon Astore’s showed that they routinely underperformed.

17. Use A Website Layout That Improves Conversions

I’ve been using Amazon’s affiliate program heavily for a little over two years now and the one thing I found through constant testing is that the layout of your website matters when it comes to how well it converts casual visitors into affiliate sales.

Armed with this knowledge you’d think that people would spend more time testing their theme or website layout to determine the optimal way to make money from their website right? Well, this is precisely why once you get your website to start earning ~$1,000 per month you should consider testing out a new theme. It doesn’t make sense to start testing theme changes or try moving to a new theme until you are making at least ~$1,000 per month.

18. Just Get People On To Amazon.com

I know 30% of my earnings came from products people bought because I happened to be the one that sent them onto Amazon.com. For example, I sold a watch a while ago for $5,000 and got a $400 commission but I don’t even own a website that even remotely discusses watches. This is one of the other reasons why I love using Amazon’s affiliate program.

When you send someone to Amazon.com you get a percentage of anything they buy for the next 24 hours (30 days if they added an item to their cart) so if you can just get them onto the website and they happen to buy something completely unrelated you’ll get the money for it.

Amazon spends millions of dollars on improving the way they get people to convert. The fact that they provide a custom user experience for every person that goes to Amazon.com based on the buying behavior and viewing patterns tells me they know what it takes to close a sale. Some of the best closing advice I can give is to simply find ways to get your visitors onto the Amazon.com webpage and they’ll take care of the rest.

BONUS: Get 2 extra tips and learn everything I know about being an Amazon Affiliate in 2018 Check this out:
Click here to download my ultimate Amazon Affiliate Course, along with EasyAzon Core for free.

Wrap Up

This article has taken me several hours to create and edit so I’d love to hear your feedback. Please let me know what you think of my tips by posting in the comments below. As always, because I love my readers I respond to each and every question that comes in so get to it!

Find Your Perfect Product and Supplier in Minutes!

SaleHoo is a powerful research tool, supplier directory, and online community for dropshippers, wholesalers, and e-commerce stores.

If you want to make money selling stuff online, you can choose from many niche marketplaces. There’s Etsy for arts and crafts, Poshmark for clothes and Swappa for cell phones and other electronics.

But eBay, with 171 million active buyers worldwide, is a giant. A women’s handbag sells on the site every six seconds, a cell phone every four seconds and a pair of shoes every two seconds, according to the company.

If you decide it’s the right place to sell your stuff, here’s what you need to do to make money on eBay.

Determine if a subscription is right for you

On eBay, you can be a standard seller or, if you’re willing to pay for it, you can opt for a store subscription. Your best and cheapest option depends on the type and number of products you plan to sell.

Those without a subscription can list up to 50 items per month for free. After that, each listing costs 30 cents. In most cases, eBay also charges those sellers a final value fee of 10% of the total sale price. It’s capped at $750.

There are three levels of subscriptions: basic, premium and anchor. Subscription fees cost between about $20 per month and $350 per month; subscribers can choose to pay month to month or commit to a year for a lower rate. These sellers can list thousands of items for free and pay a lower listing fee for additional items than standard sellers. They’ll pay a final value fee of between 3.5% and 9.15%, and it’s capped at $250 for most items.

If, for example, you sold five refurbished tablets for $500 total, you’d pay a flat $50 final value fee if you didn’t have a store or about $40 if you had a basic yearly subscription. That extra $10 might not be a lot for the occasional seller, but over time, it could make a difference in an active seller’s bank account.

Price items competitively

Before listing, research the current market for your items. That will help you set competitive prices and increase your chances of selling.

Start with an advanced search in eBay’s sold listings in the appropriate product category. Include all relevant keywords; otherwise, you’ll likely be sent to the general category page. To price those refurbished tablets, for example, you might search for “Samsung Galaxy Tab A tablet, refurbished, 7”, 8GB.” Review current “buy it now” listings, too.

You’ll also need to check prices regularly to ensure you stay competitive on the site.

“I have noticed over time that my competitors will list the same items as I have listed, at a penny less than my listing, so it is important for me to keep an eye on the price and the content on my listings so that my product stands out above the competitors,” says Nicolaus Wolfrum, an automotive eBay store owner selected by eBay as a finalist for its SHINE Awards for Small Business.

You’ll also need to decide which listing type to use. EBay is known for its auctions, which can last from one to 10 days for most items. But fixed-price items account for 88% of the site’s listings, according to the company. It’s generally best to set a fixed price unless you’re selling items that are in demand or have an undefined value — think rare baseball cards or antiques. Potential buyers are more likely to try to outbid each other and drive up the sale price in these circumstances.

Use high-quality photos

To create a listing, you need to provide at least one photo that has a minimum of 500 pixels on the longest side. But the site might already feature thousands of listings for similar products, so you’ll want to take a few more high-quality photos to make your listing pop. Most listings let you post up to 12 photos free.

Photograph your items on a flat surface in front of a plain white background. Take pictures from multiple angles and showcase specific details. Aim for high-resolution photos, too. Those should be between 800 and 1,600 pixels on the longest side. These pictures will look clearer and have the zoom feature enabled.

Good lighting will also help you stand out in a sea of so-so photos. You don’t have to invest in professional equipment right now. Instead, try shooting in natural lighting, without the flash. If you’re selling small items, you can create your own lightbox for about $10 using white poster board, a cardboard box and a couple of lamps. You can always upgrade later.

Provide top-notch customer service

Customer service is the cornerstone of any online business. On eBay, that’s measured by reviews, which are featured on every seller’s profile. Those cover your communication, product-description accuracy, shipping charges and delivery time. You’ll also receive an overall positive feedback score. That’s presented as a percentage and is prominently featured on product listings and your profile. Each sale is an opportunity to increase (or decrease) your score.

Start off right by providing an accurate title and detailed description of each product, noting any defects or variations in quality. This can help build buyers’ trust and land you sales.

Shipping plays an important role in customer service, too. Two-thirds of packages are delivered in three days or fewer, and most items ship for free, according to eBay. Those standards can be difficult for new sellers to meet. If you can’t offer free shipping, focus on responding to questions quickly and providing delivery tracking and updates.

Even with proper planning, you might encounter issues with delivery or dissatisfied buyers, says Mike Mammone Jr., whose eBay store had a 99.5% positive feedback score at the time of publication. When problems arise, he says to “pretend every customer is your grandmother.” That might mean apologizing, sending a free sample or small gift and offering a disco

wuzzupjdogg

Tuesday, August 21, 2018

20 TIPS I USED TO MAKE $90,336.65 WITH AMAZON