The Amazon Associates program can be one of the most profitble affiliate programs but many webmasters seem time have a hard time making a single sale while others make considerable profits. As with any online moneymaking scenario there are secrets to be learned, mostly by trial and error, however many people give up when they are not seeing the results they expected instead of refining their experimentation. While the Amazon Associates program may not be suitable for all webmasters, if you have the incentive to go out and learn the ropes, you can find yourself with a very profitable website in a relatively short period of time.
Monetization “Before” Content
Yes, you’re reading that correctly, monetization before content is the single most important trick when working with any product based affiliate program. I know most of us with any experience in SEO work scratch our heads and think of this as a backwards way to deal with the creation of a website but to have any real success with Amazon, you’ll have to re-think your objectives. The common method most webmasters use for creating a website is to buy a domain name, find a theme for the site then start adding content. After the content is somewhat established the next step it to find suitable methods to monetize the creation. In most cases this will simply not work with Amazon and you must set out from the beginning with a plan.
Plan for Products
The first step you will need to take when planning a website for monetization with the Amazon Associates program is to decide what type of products you would like to promote. Finding a niche that is suitale, that you have some knowledge of is rather easy and it is the starting point for your objective. Before you register a domain, before you even write the first line of html, you must have a clear visualization of exactly what product niche you are going to be creating a website for. After all, the purpose of an affiliate site is to lead visitors into your affiliate pages and close sales.
A Website is a Vehicle
Think of your website as a vehicle, not just any vehicle, a huge semi truck full of goods from your perspective niche that you need to find buyers for. In this case, the content you deliver on your site should be constructed to revolve around the sales of your targeted product niche and only that. Straying from your objective will result in loss of sales and thereby loss of commissions on your part.
Use Content Provided by Amazon
There’s no reason to waste time re-inventing the wheel. Amazon provides ample content for publishers to use in their webpages and more often than not the content provided is top notch marketing copy. Amazon allows associates to freely use this content when building pages and you should take full advantage of it.
Finding Impulse and Repeat Buyers
Any successful Amazon Associate will tell you the joy of logging into your account and seeing that somebody has went on a buying spree and purchased several items using your affiliate id. These are the type of visitors you want to lead to your website and then turn them loose on Amazon. It’s not hard to do if you keep your content oriented to your niche and give some incentive for visitors to return to your website. This is where using a mailing list and other marketing techniques really pay off. If done cleverly enough, so not as to look like spam or junk mail, and if you build a rapport with your visitors, you will find the commissions rolling in.
Know Your Niche
This is probably the single most important ascpect of building a successful affiliate site. If you know about your niche, possibly products that you have purchased in the past, you can sincerely guide your visitors to the best value for their money and if they are satisfied, they will return time and again to reap your knowledge. Again, building a rapport with your visitors is essential for a successful affiliate website.
These tips and techniques here are just a basic rundown of the concepts most successful Amazon Associates will not share with you because they are afraid it might cut into their commissions and generate unwanted competition. While this article has not went into depth regarding using PPC marketing to drive perspective customers to your website, if you subscribe to this blog’s email RSS feed you will be kept in the loop for the next installment of this article series where I’ll show you a site I’ve built using these techniques. I’ll only be releasing the next portion of this article to my email RSS subscribers, so don’t miss out and signup today.
Happy Publishing
Dave
