Affiliate Marketing

Amazon Affiliate Success Part 2: Your Niche Website

Having a significantly functional and cool looking website is a must when it comes to any online niche affiliate business, and it is especially true for Amazon affiliates because having a nice, clean online presence is a requirement to be a part of the Amazon Associates program.

And despite what you may think, having a functional, cool looking affiliate website doesn’t have to be difficult or expensive, at least not at the beginning. When you are just staring out you may not have a lot of money to spend on fancy websites, so you will ideally want to start with a cheap alternative that will allow you to focus on turning a profit while you grow your niche website without you having to drain your budget from day one.

This makes smart business sense as it will give you plenty of room to save up money to invest in the future of your affiliate website as your business grows, which can take you from one to five months, depending on how much time and work you are able to put in to promoting your new niche site.

OK, now you understand that you DO need a niche website as the center of your niche affiliate marketing business, there are two basic stages involved in creating the ultimate Amazon Affiliate website on a shoestring budget.

The first stage is to simply create your Amazon Affiliate website without worrying about getting every bell and whistle. You need to simply have a website where you can insert your niche content and your affiliate links.

This first stage requires you to invest in two elements: hosting and domain. The cheapest type of web hosting is shared hosting. We recommend you to buy a shared hosting plan that you can pay on a monthly basis to a hosting service provider such as HostGator (warr.us/hostgator). Shared hosting plans can go as cheap as $4 a month, and they will work well enough in the beginning.

I will also give you another hosting provider that you can look at if for some reason you don’t want to use Hostgator. I have used both of these companies with no issues so the preference is up to you. The other hosting company I use is Bluehost (warr.us/bluehost) so pick your host and move on to the next decision 🙂

You will also have to buy a domain name for your website. Your domain name is simply your website address and you can also buy your domain name from HostGator, but I would suggest you use another company. This makes sound business sense as you don’t necessarily want to keep all your eggs in the same basket, so I always recommend buying your hosting and domain names from separate companies. I tend to use Namecheap (warr.us/namecheap) for all my domain names as they are cheap and extremely reliable. Now, acquiring a domain name looks as simple as coming up with a name and selecting the cheapest domain extension available, but there are some rules to follow.

First, don’t be tempted to use “exact match” domains for your domain name. Exact match domains are domain names that are made up from a combination of the exact niche keywords that you will target on your website, such as selecting the “cheapelectronicreviews.com” as your domain name.

It doesn’t only look lazy on your part, but it won’t help you to reach a top placement on search engine results. Lots of marketers use exact match domains for that reason, but the truth is that Google and other search engines caught on to that trend a few years ago and updated their search engine algorithms to ignore exact match domains for SEO.

So the best approach is to come up with a brandable name that isn’t an exact match of your target keywords. After you make up your mind about your domain name, you will have to select a domain name extension.

Selecting the .com extension for your domain name is the way to go hands down, but it can happen that your domain name is not available as a .com. In that case, select the .net extension. If it isn’t available as either extension, we recommend you to come up with a variation of your domain name until you find it available as either .com or .net.

That is because those two top level extensions are the most recognizable ones, and because newer extensions such as .club don’t look attractive to any audience. Many websites get passed by as novelty websites when they sport such domain extensions, so stay away from them.

Now, once your website starts growing and getting more and more traffic, you will have to start making some changes to it. This second stage of the process will require you to invest in a hosting plan that can make your affiliate website faster, to invest in a premium theme for your website and to invest in an SSL certificate.

Now, most hosting service vendors will allow you to do such upgrades easily, and our recommendations are as follows:

Upgrade your shared hosting plan to a dedicated hosting plan. Ideally, you should upgrade to a WordPress dedicated hosting plan, as WordPress is the best content management system available for affiliates.

Buy a nice looking theme for your affiliate such as “Kingdom by Woocommerce” WordPress theme for Amazon Affiliates (warr.us/kingdom).

Buying an SSL certificate is recommended, but not mandatory. This will add an extra layer of security for your website, and it looks good on the address bar!

We recommend you to also use WordPress plugins to supercharge your Amazon Affiliate efforts. So far the best one available is the “EasyAzon” plugin, which will allow you to search for Amazon products to post on your website right from your website’s editor and to redirect region specific visitors to their respective international Amazon marketplaces on autopilot.

Fine Tuning Your Niche Keywords

Using the proper set of keywords is crucial for any kind of affiliate business because, unlike ecommerce, the idea behind an affiliate website is for it to be found through search engine queries and results in order to increase its search engine ranking.

Keywords play a huge role in increasing your search ranks alongside quality content and loading speeds, but more importantly, they get your amazon affiliate site to rank higher for popular keywords that are related to your site’s niche and the topics discussed in there.

Ok, so you already know that most of the relevant keywords on your site are going to be product related, and to that you have to add purchase based keywords as well. From now on, think of your target keywords as a combination of the two. An example of this combination could be “best cheap refrigerators”, where “best cheap” is the purchase based keyword and “refrigerator” is the product based keyword.

Now you will need to use a keyword research tool such as Google’s own “Keyword planner”, which will allow you to enter your target keywords and determine their search volume and data including their average monthly search volumes, their rank, and their competition.

Once you determine which ones are your target keywords, you will have to do some research around them to optimize your chances to outrank other sites using them. The first step is to use those keywords on Google.

Now, instead of focusing on results from the first page because you already know that the keywords used on sites hitting the first page of results include the ones that you just used, you will need to check sites targeting those same keywords that are on the second, third and fourth page pages of results.

Why would you do this? Because you can then look for other long tail keywords on those sites that are related to your target keyword and use the keyword planner to determine their search volume and data. If some of those long tail keywords have high search volumes, from 500 and upwards, you can use them on your content in order to rank higher.

The real science behind this little known strategy is that you can leverage the search volumes of these keywords by creating better content around them, which will undoubtedly redirect the traffic from those low ranking websites to your website, vastly increasing your organic outreach and your rank in a couple weeks or less!

OK, that’s it for part 2. In the final part of this mini-series we will look at creating the content for your website that will encourage people to buy through your link, and a quick way to keep this content fresh for your visitors. See you next time 🙂

Amazon Affiliate Success Part 1: Your Niche

Starting any type of online business represents a leap of faith for many people and affiliate marketing is no different. Normally, this is NOT because it looks like something that is particularly difficult to do or understand, but because it is something that apparently looks so easy that it seems impossible to not succeed at first glance.

But the truth is that the affiliate marketing business model is not only a way of turning a profit, but you can actually make a good living from it if you put in the work (the same as in any business venture). Many novice marketers can become put off by the time that it takes for them to drive traffic to their affiliate offers and to see their first few conversions. This often results in them convincing themselves that low profit volumes are all there are for affiliate marketers, yet many others have moderate success and keep their affiliate activity going.

The good news is that you can easily go from moderate to pro by leveraging the pulling power of an online behemoth, namely Amazon! By introducing the Amazon Associates program into your affiliate marketing efforts and by applying certain strategies anyone can become a very successful affiliate marketer in a relatively short space of time.

One of the attractions of affiliate marketing is that you can get started immediately; you don’t need to spend time or money creating your own products. Just find products that you can promote as an affiliate and direct people to these offers using your affiliate link so that you can get paid if/when they buy, and by leveraging the Amazon marketplace, you have a huge potential market to target!

So, where do you begin? Well the first thing you need to determine is the niche you are going to be targeting and serving and that is what we will be covering in the rest of this article.

Defining A Specific Yet Broad Niche

What is the first thing that crosses your mind when you realize that you need to buy something? Let’s elaborate by revisiting a real-world scenario as our example, so let’s say that your 5 year old niece is coming home for a holiday and that you need to get her a gift.

What do you do about that? You go to the toy store downtown, or to the closest one to your house. Or perhaps you go to the one that you know would offer you the best prices, or to the one where the staff knows you and are willing to give you the best, most honest advice about what to gift to your little niece.

There are two takeaways to pay attention to in this particular scenario:

You already know that you need to go to the toy store because that’s where they sell what you are looking for, preferably the one you are already familiar with
You are also aware that you will need a little help with your purchase, even when you are already in purchase mode

The same thing happens when you decide that you want to purchase a new car, or a new kitchen, or the newest high definition TV. You need a little help from an informed sales representative to make an informed purchase that you are not likely to regret later.

That is the exact same process of the affiliate marketer, who builds a website which serves as an informed middleman for people looking for information about products that they want to buy. When the affiliate website successfully talks people into buying a product through its content, it earns the affiliate money.

And just like an electronics store would only sell electronics and hire someone who knows how to talk and sell electronics, an affiliate website needs to focus on a specific niche. An affiliate website promoting video games and bathtubs would look as bad as an electronics store selling novelty items.

The idea behind creating an affiliate website is, like we said, to talk people into buying products through affiliate links, but that doesn’t mean that you have to populate your affiliate website with all kinds of affiliate links spread throughout random content in the hopes that people will click through by chance.

The truth is that this strategy is doomed from the beginning because websites that talk about everything are exhausting to navigate. The best approach is to simply pick a product niche that you either like or have no problem writing about and then go from there.

Remember that you have to act as middleman between a buyer and the amazon marketplace, and as such you will need to make their purchasing decisions easier, so liking or knowing the products that you promote on your affiliate website will make it easier for you to recommend the products.

Once you have picked up a niche, go to Amazon.com and search for products in that niche that meet the following criteria: products that are low priced but that sell like hot cakes, and high priced items that are popular even when they don’t sell as much as lower priced products.

This is because you have to promote products that sell well enough as to leave you with a healthy amount of revenue at the end of the month. Try not to narrow down your offers too much because you will end up slowing down your profits.

To give you an example, let’s say that you decided to promote trendy, entertainment based electronics. In that case, you will have to promote products that are lower priced but sell constantly such as newly released video games and higher priced equipment such as thousand-dollar TV sets.

Yet if you decide to promote rare collector stuff only, you’ll be narrowing down your niche too much, so don’t do it unless you dedicate a separate section for that stuff on your website, or if you have an affiliate website that makes you enough money as to allow you to create a separate micro website dedicated to rare collector stuff.

OK, now that you have decided on your niche, you will need somewhere to promote it. You will need a website to create content, write reviews etc. to tempt visitors to purchase your recommendations through your affiliate link and we will cover this in part 2 of this mini-series 🙂

Affiliate Marketing Hacks

Anyone can find success in affiliate marketing but not every person who joins such a program succeeds. It’s all about using the available resources to achieve the best possible results. These are some of the tips that can help beginners become successful affiliates andmake some good income from such ventures.

1. Carve out a niche

This is a very critical factor in affiliate marketing. It is important that you identify a specificmarket or segment that you want to work in and then focus on that. Carving out a niche foryourself means choosing what works best for you.

2. Carefully select your merchants

It is important to carry out thorough research before agreeing to work with a specific merchant. This is because those who sell consumers inferior products risk losing future business opportunities. Even if you played no part in manufacturing the product, as a publisher, customers will still hold you responsible as the person who introduced the product to them. Work with a brand that holds up its end of the deal without additional pressure.

3. Use captivating content

When promoting products on your website, customers first get to interact with other content before being directed to a link and ultimately the merchant’s website. That means that the content that you create for visitors to your site should be relevant and captivating so that they feel convinced enough to click on the link and eventually buy the product. First impressions count.

4. Keep track of results

Do not just push for sales without analyzing your performance. Tracking your results includes monitoring feedback from consumers and checking the amount of sales made on a monthly basis. This will help you make a decision on whether you need a new marketing strategy or if it’s time to find another merchant. You can’t keep on selling a product that people just don’t want to buy.

5. Dedication

Affiliate programs are great avenues for making money but success does not come easy for a publisher. You must be dedicated and stay focused on building lasting networks and increasing your customer base. Once that is done, the money will start rolling in and realizing success will actually be possible. The problem with most beginners is that they want to make quick money but are not willing to put in work.

6. Sell products that you believe in

It is very easy to sell a product that you’ve actually used yourself or believe in. You will be making a sales pitch from an informed point of view and that always resonates well with customers.

7. Update your site

To increase the visibility of your site by getting high rankings on search engines, you must constantly update the contents using target key words and relevant information. That will then help drive traffic to it.

Even More Benefits Of Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing should never be confused with referral marketing as is often the case because the two are very different.

The main motivation behind affiliate programs is financial gain as a way of driving sales while referral marketing uses personal relationships and trust to increase the amount of sales. By relying on loyal existing customers and business connections, a business can use referrals to increase revenue generation. In affiliate marketing, you only get paid commissions when you bring in customers and they actually make purchases.

This marketing program requires the affiliate or publisher to use an affiliate link anytime that they mention the advertiser or merchant on their website. When a potential customer visits the affiliate’s website and clicks on the link, he or she is taken to the merchant’s website. At the same time, a cookie gets dropped on the customer’s computer. The customer then makes a purchase from the merchant’s website. As he logs out, the merchant finds a cookie that belongs to a specific affiliate and thereafter makes a credit for the sale in accordance with the initial agreement.

For transparency purposes, the merchant avails reports showing breakdowns of the amount of traffic from the affiliate’s link and the sales made. This ensures that the publisher is paid his rightful dues without being taken advantage of by the merchant. The commission payments are usually made after certain durations, on most occasions on a monthly basis. At least that allows the merchant to receive a reasonable amount as opposed to the payments coming in small bits.

The most common compensation method is the one described above where the affiliate is only paid commissions for actual sales made. The cost per click method of compensation is not favored by many merchants because there is always the danger of the marketing program not resulting into reasonable sales numbers. An affiliate can also just sit around and earn money for actually doing nothing.

Affiliate marketing is sometimes referred to as performance marketing because of the compensation method.

Affiliate Marketing And The Benefits

Every business desires to make profits by getting as many customers as possible and in the process increasing sales. There are many ways to drive sales, and one of them that is very convenient and preferable to many entrepreneurs is affiliate marketing. Some people are familiar with the term because they’ve probably heard it thrown around from different quarters. So what really is this type of marketing and what does it entail?

In simple terms, it is a form of internet marketing where the affiliate (person referring customers), signs up for a merchant’s affiliate marketing program. The affiliate then recommends the merchant’s products to customers and earns a commission on every sale made.

It’s similar to what used to exist before internet marketing became mainstream; where sales representatives would go out and get customers and then be paid a commission for every sale made. To some extent, this type of marketing also intertwines with some internet marketing methods because affiliates use conventional advertising methods to create product awareness.

Some of these methods include making use of search engine optimization tools, email marketing and pay per click.

Of course, the major benefit of this type of marketing is that you don’t need to create your own products before making money as you can just promote other people’s products 🙂