My journey with the amazon associates program began in late 2010. The first site I ever created (www.co2paintballguru.com) was a disaster, but it taught me a number of valuable insights that I’m about to share with you 🙂
Back in 2010, I was just a young kid in my second year at university. My family didn’t have a ton of money, so like many people, I turned to online…
The two CRITICAL mistakes that STUNTED my success from the very beginning.
- #1 Bad Niche Decision (paintball sucks)
- #2 The WRONG keywords – Information keywords VS. buyer keywords
After hours upon hours of content creation, here’s the results I found after the first full month with the Amazon Affiliate Program.
… Not exactly anything worth cheering about.
Why Paintball Sucks?!
Okay…
So my thoughts were that paintball is a niche with a bunch of products to sell. Tons of paintball guns and even other accessories such as masks, co2 tanks, paintballs etc.
So what went wrong?
There is NO hot market for selling paintball gear through Amazon. What I learned was that customers of this niche (paintball) made purchases at their local paintball shops or directly from paintball sites… NOT Amazon.
What I SHOULD have checked first:
Always go to the Google Adwords Keyword Tool first. And take a look at the competition tab and Adsense CPC. <– This is an easy way to check whether a niche is profitable before you create a site in the first place.
Step 1: Go to https://adwords.google.com/o/KeywordTool
Step 2: Type in Root Niche Keyword (ie. Paintball)
Step 3: Take a Look at the Results
Here’s what you DON’T want to see…
Neither of those columns are very promising. The competition tab is OK, but the CPC’s are consistently LOW.
You want advertisers to be dropping dough in your niche. If there are few advertisers willing to spend good money, that means that the niche is either:
1. Not yet discovered (unlikely)
2. Not Profitable (Not Good)
…
Instead let’s look at a good niche…
See how the CPC’s are ALL $3+ <– That means money is PUMPED into the electric shaver niche.
Here’s a Video about My First Amazon Site Failure:
Co2 Paintball Guru – My First Niche Site. Terrible, Terrible, Terrible…
Auto Complete Zon – Must Have WordPress Plugin for Amazon Sites
Google Adwords Keyword Tool – To Check the Profitability of Your Niche
… Fast Forward 1 Year and my results had changed drastically.
Here’s an image of my earnings for the month of December in 2011
What Did I learn after a year with the Amazon Affiliate Program?
#1 The Amazon Affiliate strategy is scalable.
#2 Success is easy if you follow this simple forumula.
The “not so secret” Formula…
Step #1 – Pick a Good Niche
Take a look at the Google Adwords Keyword Tool and find a niche with high CPC’s and evidence of commercial intent.
Step #2 – Build Content on Buyer Keywords
This is probably the MOST IMPORTANT takeaway from this entire blog post. Keywords like “paintball tips” or “paintabll for beginners” are not going to make you any money with Amazon.
… You might get drawn in by the traffic possibilities… but DON’T
The content of your amazon affiliate sites should be PRODUCT REVIEWS… That’s it and that’s all.
Why are Product Reviews More Profitable than General Tips?
… It’s all about the mindset of the visitor, and level of difficulty in completing an amazon sale.
I want you to take a look at this image for a second…
There are 3 main stages before a customer makes a purchase.
#1 The Awareness Stage
The customer discovers the niche in the first place.
#2 The Research Stage
The customer searches for information about the niche. For example, a prospective customer would search Google.com for keywords like “paintball for beginners”
#3 The Consideration Stage
The customer already has knowledge about the niche, and is now considering making a product related purchase.
#4 The Buy
The customer decides to make a purchase.
Product Reviews are a Shortcut in the Buyer’s Cycle (or pyramid)
… think about it…
When a visitor searches Google.com for product “xyz,” they are already in the consideration stage of buying. That means that they have far fewer hoops to go through.
I learned this the hard way.
My first site www.co2paintballguru.com was almost completely filled with general keywords about tips and niche awareness.
The amount of sales I made (from co2paintballguru) in the first month was ONLY 1. <– That’s with over 100 pages of 500+ word articles on general keywords.
The following month I added 10 product reviews, and the amount of sales I made increased to 10. That’s crazy when you consider that these 10 product review pages were outperforming the general pages by a whopping 1000%
10 Product Reviews Make WAY More Than 100 General Pages
…USE PRODUCT REVIEWS!!!
… Ok. Now that I’ve got that out of my system.
Let’s take a look at how an Amazon Associates site should be structured.
Here’s a Video that Talks About the Way to Structure an Amazon Review Site
Amazon Best-Sellers – To Discover which products are selling
Auto Complete Zon – To Significantly Improve Your Conversions
If you follow the simple formula:
Good Niche + Product Reviews + Good Content
… You will succeed in the Amazon Associates Program
As for shiny objects and stuff to buy:
The ONLY product that I strongly promote for Amazon is AutoCompleteZon. This plugin is really simple. You can set it up in a few minutes, but I’ve seen cases where it’s increased commissions by over 200%.
I don’t usually URGE my readers to invest in shiny objects (especially Amazon related products). But AutoCompleteZon has consistently improved my Amazon sales across the board. It is well worth the one time investment.
So Long and Good Luck!
That’s it for this blog post my friends. I’ve rambled on for as long as I imagine anyone can handle. If you have any questions about Amazon, or you have something that you’d like to add. Please feel free to drop a line or two in the comments section.
Bye for now…
Brendan
