UPDATE #5
This week has been a busy week.
Got my schema markup on point. Even though this is a small site (only 35 pieces of content so far), I felt it was important to get this done and get it done correctly.
When I would check my schema in Google Schema Checker:
https://search.google.com/structured-data/testing-tool
I would come up with errors and I didn't know how to fix them - sometimes not even knowing what the error meant.
So, I did some research. And more research. Cuz it takes me a while to process stuff LOL.
I got a plugin from
@Festinger out of his free vault for schema markup - Schema Pro. It's really good
to help square away the common schema markups I would need but not all of them. But hey, when
@Festinger gives great plugin for free - my god man - use them. He gives great stuff on this forum
for absolutely nothing in return.
Much Respect @Festinger.
Implemented markup for rich snippets on August 12th. Thought it would take a while to see results but
results started showing up in a few minutes. Not all URLs got a rich snippet, it was just 1 or 2 at first.
Over the course of the next 8 -10 days they started showing in Google. I had to fiddle with some pieces
of content schema settings to get them to show correctly but, totally worth it!
On the 19th of August, I got my first Featured Snippet Box on Google. I'm really excited.
I know for the seasoned vets around here, it just another day at the office when this happens.
Meaning, I'm a NOOB and I get excited about every little thing. To me though, this is a big
deal. I had wanted to get a Featured Snippet Box since the day my mentor showed me
one of his for one of his websites.
What did it take to get my schema markup on the point you ask?
1. Research a bit on Schema markup to see exactly what I had to implement and how.
Google is a bit obtuse about how they explain things. I guess if you are a full-blown
web developer then the Google talk makes sense to you. However, I had to check out some
youtube videos and poke around on Neil Patel's site to get the answers I needed.
2. Downloaded and installed the Schema Pro Markup Plugin from
@Festinger
(Check his threads for some amazing stuff!!) then set up the plugin the way I wanted
it to work for me.
3. Went through my website - thank Jesus it's only about 35 pages or so right now.
Made sure each page had the proper markup and checked to make sure they were
set for the rich snippets.
4. Ran each page through
https://search.google.com/structured-data/testing-tool
to make sure they all passed. You can do that through your dashboard as well
when you have the plugin installed.
5. Corrected errors that showed up over the next couple of days. It's pretty easy
once you have the plugin installed to find the proper place to fix errors.
6. Check on Google from another browser to see if rich snippets are showing up.
Just once, I don't want to skew any Google results in search console.
7. Go about business, as usual, adding a couple more pieces of content and making
sure schema is correct to before I hit publish.
So, after all, that was situated, I made the move to install the AAWP plugin on my site.
Some Pointers here, if you are going to make an Amazon Affiliate site that you
are planning on keeping for the long term, I highly suggest using the AAWP
plugin from the very start. I think it will make your life much easier than if you
install it later and have to swap all the links out for shortcodes.
I will say that I love shortcodes. Swapping everything over in all those articles,
well, it sucked ass. It took me about 3 days to get everything right. It can be a
bit fiddly to get everything to show up just the way you want it to. But again,
so totally worth it.
I think my site does look a bit better since installing and setting things up. I can
see how in the future I can use the plugin to change up the way I do things on
the site. And I love the fact that now I get a 30? or 90? day cookie on my visitors instead
of 24 hours.
@jamie3000 Hit me up and said hey take a look at my new tool AMZLinkChecker
(Check his thread
https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/who-wants-a-free-homepage-link-to-their-amazon-affiliate-website.1124556/#post-12112258
When I ran my site through the tool (it's really fast!) it came up with a few items that
were no longer available and running into Amazons amazingly crappy 404 pages that
leaves your visitors totally screwed when they try to find the product you linked to from
that 404 pages leaving them in a black hole of absolute shit. So I was driving traffic that
I worked my ass off to get to Amazon only to have that traffic hit a brick wall of nothingness.
I know, cuz I tried forever to find the product or something similar. So there ya go, traffic wasted.
Even with the 24-hour cookie, the likelihood of someone making more than 3 clicks to find
what they want is absolutely NIL.
So this situation was a must fix right now issue for me.
I didn't spend all this time building a site to have fuck all in return for my trouble.
Spent 2 days going through the content I have and changing out the links to products that
were moved and hitting 404 pages to regain earnings on those pieces of content.
Then I ran down products that had their ratings plunge below what I had reviewed
previously and added updates to those pieces of content.
Now, you might think that you don't need to run your links down because your site is new,
that's what I thought too. Just check your site. Amazon is moving stuff around all the time
and they redirect some links to other products and some they just 404, plain & simple.
I don't think it is so much that Amazon does it on purpose, I think after looking at the products
and the sellers that were listed, some of them just stop offering that product for whatever
reason and remove it from their inventory and that's that. So, it's a practice going forward
for me to run my links every couple weeks or so from now on any sites I build in the future
a well.
So check out @jamie3000 service, he's got a 7-day trial. Run your site once through it and
see how it goes. I didn't expect the results I got at all. You might be surprised too.
Website Stats: Last 3 Months Averages:
Total Clicks: 295
Total Impressions: 10.3 K
Average CTR: 2.9%
Average position: 47.1 ----- this is up from an average position of 57 when I started recording this journey 06/23/2019
Last 7 days: Rich snippets started 08-12-2019 and Google featured Snippet 08-19-2019
Total Clicks: 67 clicks
Total Impressions: 1.7K
Average CTR: 4%
Average Position: 42.5
Filtering just for Rich Snippets:
Total Clicks: 52
Total Impressions: 1.04K
Average CTR: 5%
Average Position: 43
So, looking at the graphs my traffic doubled almost immediately on the 13th of August and has stayed at that
level since. So I would definitely say that getting my schema on point was worth a few day's works.
I'm also ranking in spots 5-30 for new keywords that are pretty darn great keywords.
All told I am ranking now for 620 keywords. That is a massive jump in the last 12 days or so since implementing
schema. It took a big jump since I got the Google Featured snippet too as I notice my rankings in Google
console is going up not only for that piece of content but most of the others on my site too. Some pages/keywords
have moved from the positions of the nether regions in the 80 range to some into the top 10. Most have at least
increased by half their prior position say from 75 to 35.
It's literally blowing my mind. I have not done anything to get backlinks. No PBN's. No nothing, just the basic
SEO that my mentor is teaching me.
There are plenty of SEO techniques and strategies for building these niche sites, but this one seems very
straightforward to me. It makes sense now that I see it coming together and I am understanding it more
and more. So I'm still learning, it's working. I'm not a millionaire yet though LOL.
AMAZON STATS: Aug 1 - Aug 22
Clicks: 163
Orders: 4
Items: 6
Earnings: $40 USD
Conversion 3.68%
For some reason the last 8 days I have been registering lots of clicks ( like 3 x more than usual) but no sales.
I'm going to attribute a good bit of that to me running down my links manually, but it certainly isn't the whole
reason.
I have noticed on my Statcounter reports that I am getting traffic from countries that I don't have Amazon
Associates accounts in. So, I may be making sales but it's not registering to my affiliate account.
I'm not at the point of registering for those countries just yet though. I may be wrong but, in order to keep
an affiliate account in each country you register for, you have to have 3 qualifying sales in 3 months or
6 months something like that to keep your account.
So, I think I will wait a bit for traffic to pick up a bit in those countries before I register again.
I had in a prior website experience and managed to lose all the accounts because of not qualifying sales.
Blog Outreach:
I contacted each site that I linked any content to through their contact forms and let them know that I had linked
to them and told them about the featured snippet results, gave them the URL of their article that I linked to and my
URL where they could see the article itself. I asked them politely for a link back if they were so inclined.
I haven't heard back yet, but it's only been a day or two - so maybe next week I will get replies.
Plan Going Forward:
I still have several pieces of content to add to the site. I have a killer buyers guide
type piece that is absolutely massive (and pretty great) almost ready to post. I need to finish the supporting
pieces before I add this one. So by the end of the month that will be done.
Ordered some content from
@blackbeans to help move things along as well.
I'm thinking I need to add email signup to the site - just not sure how I am going to frame it just yet.
Any questions you may have, ask away and I will see if I can answer them.
Thanks for reading and I hope this helps you with your journey.