but seriously that amazon review shit chaps my sack

[troythegreat]

just a few thoughts
bought 2 amazon affil sites recently all gung ho about filling them full of product reviews and interesting articles. the sites came with 1 page of 2500 words of 5 products..quite sparce on original content just a rehash of whats on the product page and scraped review content from customers. chuck it in a plagarism checker and it performs poorly.

ok,,so i hired a content writer to try and imrove on this (20 bucks for 2000 words 5 product reviews no intro no buyers guide) 400 words ish per rv..same result almost word for word from amazon and failed miserably in grammaly plagerism checker . It reads terrible to .

anyway through this process its becoming more obvious that maybe amazon isnt the way to go
1/ its a shit load of work ..if you target even low kws youll come accross affil sites full of 3,4,5 k articles on the best trainers for football
2/ how many times can a review of best fire works from amazon be rewritten. amazon has the blueprint , sites a b c d e have variations of the same thing.
3/ review product pages are essentially sales copies aimed at one thing . the click, which is the wrong mindset..
4/ in time /money investment terms to get an article (product review/comparison) to rank worth a shit requires a huge amount of effort. (any site requires a lot of effort but two weeks in amazon is chapping my ass)
5/ maybe this time should be spent just writing great engaging content , really how much enthusiasm can you put into a casserole dish , or joint suppliments for dogs as a review and come up with a totally brand new take on it ? yep you can go to the manufacturers site and rehash their shit but hey
so the new plan
scrap amazon affil idea
focus on creating great articles with 1 pillar 5-6 k on 1 kw
related secondary kws will be used to silo to the main article
no monetization until a good amount of traffic is seen
focus on generating traffic from low kws to the main kw

probably end up sticking ads on it as amazon is squeezing the shit out of commissions making the above even less of a ROI . if you add up all the time /money headaches creating this type of project and then amazon are twisting your nuts on top maybe for me not a wise choice. Seemed like a winner at the start and im sure lots of people are making bank. but for 1 guy fitting in work kids life etc its a big ask.
anyway i needed to vent as ive spent 2 weeks on this and seemingly got nowhere in terms of words on pages. however thanks to this forum and other research its kinda opened my eyes to the enormity of the task ahead. im guessing youve all beaten yourself in this way at some point the forums are littered with failure stories. point is i guess is im not quitting every day is a learning day a refining day mostly a moving on day and grind it out...but seriously that amazon review shit chaps my sack ;-]]

 

[fasttrak]

Given your 544 word post, have you ever thought about just writing the content yourself with some decent grammar and making money?

There is money in Amazon, but like most things in life, if you pay monkeys, you get shit thrown at you!

 

[troythegreat]

Given your 544 word post, have you ever thought about just writing the content yourself with some decent grammar and making money?

There is money in Amazon, but like most things in life, if you pay monkeys, you get shit thrown at you!

This is my experience, finding decent content writers up to the task often involves monkey shit. And there is no guarantee that $1 a word monkeys will do any better. The forum is littered with disgruntled users who have bought from "gurus" and "experts" and have ended up very unhappy bears indeed. It seems to be the genesis of it.
In the beginning you pay your money you take your chances . The point is a few weeks ago id have probably taken that shitty content and posted it on my project oblivious to the fact that its 90% crap (grammaraly says 84% crap I just like round numbers). Today ive rejected 5 or 6 "expert content writers" who could not distinguish between pillar and response posts..literally didn't have a clue . Im sure there are tons of people earning with amazon. However many "gurus" identify that amazon recently slashing their commission rates has literally halved an affiliate earnings over night. The income school boys recently stated that after years with amazon they are now choosing other ad networks due to the aforementioned commission cuts. As for writing my own content and making money off it ..good idea i wish id thought of it really ..are you a "guru" or something

 

[fasttrak]

As for writing my own content and making money off it ..good idea i wish id thought of it really ..are you a "guru" or something

No, just someone who is not insane.

- "Definition of insanity is repeating the same actions over and over again and expecting different results."

If you don't like the shit, do it yourself. Seems pretty simple to me.

Still good money in Amazon, no matter what the so called gurus say! Just takes time and effort to implement.

 

[BassTrackerBoats]

As for writing my own content and making money off it ..good idea i wish id thought of it really

You don't even have to write it; you can speak it using something like Dragon Naturally Speaking.

 

[troythegreat]

No, just someone who is not insane.

- "Definition of insanity is repeating the same actions over and over again and expecting different results."

If you don't like the shit, do it yourself. Seems pretty simple to me.

Still good money in Amazon, no matter what the so called gurus say! Just takes time and effort to implement.

like i said fella some "gurus" talk more shit than others. its all relative (see what i did there with einstein/google),
Just takes time and effort to implement: exactly my point fella question is 18mths or 5 years of work worth it if the site makes 100 bucks a month (if that and there are tons that make sod all) ive recently seen a 7 yr old site making $70 bucks a month with 500 thousand words and thousands of articles..so not all sunshine n rainbows

dont forget 1 update or a shitty link can screw it all up at any point .

those income school guys churn out hundreds of thousands of words a year, enough to form an academy charging $499 a term and run a 24 month program. so yea when those guys that have been with amazon for years and are jumping ship largely , say "hey maybe its time to think of other money stream", then only someone insane would not at least look into it and ask the question..which is what i did seems pretty simple. so the question remains is it a good investment:
the question isnt : if you dont like shitty content what are the options:

 

[zimba]

There is definitely Amazon affiliate sites that have better content than the Amazon product descriptions. You can add unique content by making product comparisons, rating the products based on different categories like best value for money, best quality, most durable etc.

 

[troythegreat]

You don't even have to write it; you can speak it using something like Dragon Naturally Speaking.

yea ive recently downloaded it looks good cheers.

 

[troythegreat]

There is definitely Amazon affiliate sites that have better content than the Amazon product descriptions. You can add unique content by making product comparisons, rating the products based on different categories like best value for money, best quality, most durable etc.

yea but imagine the work in that i get the silo creation thing. for sure but ive seen mostly rehash of amazon though. people are more savvy these days and with prime buying habits have changed the multi buy to get free shipping days are over so people can order one thing multiple times a day without charges. this with commission cuts ban hammers for thin affiliate content make you wonder if its worth the effort . the content i recieved today was exactly that virtually word for word taken from amazon product page. I rejected it and got me thinking if this is the way forward yes you can do all that you suggested but is it a good ROI

 

[hiepdn]

We need more people to see this post so they can see AM is difficult. That’s it, less competition for us.

 

[troythegreat]

We need more people to see this post so they can see AM is difficult. That’s it, less competition for us.

It is difficult and if you show me 10 making bank they’ll be 100 making nothing or little . IM isn’t easy and incurs a lot of learning and failure and disappointment . Someone recently posted top 1000 amazon affiliate sites some making great money .most sort of ok ...loads making none . For those making none or little that is a poor ROI in time resources life energy hopes dreams . It’s estimated you need around 30k page views a month to make a grand . 1000s of sites don’t see this a year . And have to wait 6-18 months to rank for anything . Is amazon they way to go when you do rank ? Seems to me the smart money is in other networks rather than being a franchise for amazon esp when they are banning hard and cutting commissions hence devaluing your efforts to make them money as well as you

 

[zimba]

Yes I see your point, I don't do Amazon affiliate myself so I can't judge but I always wonder why if people making all that effort to promote Amazon, why not do it for dropshipping products which you will be able set the price yourself and not worry about Amazon commission cuts. And if they start to generate steady sales then look for manufacturer and get them produced even cheaper

 

[Harlet]

Given your 544 word post, have you ever thought about just writing the content yourself with some decent grammar and making money?

There is money in Amazon, but like most things in life, if you pay monkeys, you get shit thrown at you!

in my experience, everyone in content creation thinks they are worth at least twice as much as they are actually worth. I have gotten great content for peanuts and terrible content for bars of gold. Price is really no guarantee of quality. I've got quite a few talented writers at 0.01$/word. Arethry undervaluing themselves? Probably. But before the content is king wave came along, $5 for 500 words was pretty good. Then sudxenly there was more demand for good writers and so the value went up and now suddenly it's boo hiss how can you do that. Now you have shit writers charging 0.1$/word and laughing their way to the bank. Fortunately not everyone is so delusional.

 

[troythegreat]

Yes I see your point, I don't do Amazon affiliate myself so I can't judge but I always wonder why if people making all that effort to promote Amazon, why not do it for dropshipping products which you will be able set the price yourself and not worry about Amazon commission cuts. And if they start to generate steady sales then look for manufacturer and get them produced even cheaper

Exactly or downloadable owned content pdfs courses write once sell hundreds this chicken picking for scraps seems more work than it’s worth . Sure some are making cash the majority aren’t . Or little not enough to warrent the graft . People talk about owning real estate (sites) owning traffic (organic not Facebook) and yet give that hard work to amazon seems flawed to me

 

[troythegreat]

in my experience, everyone in content creation thinks they are worth at least twice as much as they are actually worth. I have gotten great content for peanuts and terrible content for bars of gold. Price is really no guarantee of quality. I've got quite a few talented writers at 0.01$/word. Arethry undervaluing themselves? Probably. But before the content is king wave came along, $5 for 500 words was pretty good. Then sudxenly there was more demand for good writers and so the value went up and now suddenly it's boo hiss how can you do that. Now you have shit writers charging 0.1$/word and laughing their way to the bank. Fortunately not everyone is so delusional.

 

[Sherb]

It sounds like you've got your head on straight, but you may be going about things wrong.

Don't buy a pre-existing site. And for god's sake, don't thing that someone writing at $1 per 100 words is going to be able to "beef up" an article. Expect to pay 5 times that for content that even starts to scrape at money site quality. Hell, I charge 7-8 cents a word and still have to go back and revise a few times before I'm satisfied.

Find a niche that you feel like you can write about. Work on your grammar. Do some serious keyword research. That was the catalyst for me. I thought I was doing everything right, and then I discovered that I was writing 100,000 words on a website and I wasn't targeting the right keywords.

It's a process. I break it down into clusters and put everything into a "strategy suite" that I have cultivated over a year-plus of in-depth research and reverse-engineering. And it's not an easy process.

1. Find a sub-niche worthy of a buyer's guide. Something relatively broad.
2. Start with an introduction, then a table with affiliate links to check prices.
3. Introduce your top X products. Write 200 or so words on each. Highlights, pros, cons, etc.
4. Then transition into the buyer's guide. Things to look out for. Features to note. FAQs. Conclusion.
5. Go back and revise. Over and over and over again. Ensure you are hitting the right keywords.
6. Use images. If you can get unique images, do so. If you can make regular images unique, do that too.
7. Take those 200 words each and turn them into far longer product reviews, around 1,000 words each.
8. Link to both your product reviews and the Amazon page for the products in your sub-niche.
9. Get obsessive about your on-page SEO. Use Rank Math, not Yoast. Follow their suggestions.
10. Write 5 or more informative articles of relevance. Link internally throughout your cluster.
11. Spam your stuff everywhere. Not low-quality spam. Cross-niche guest posts, relevant longform comments, etc.
12. Repeat the process with a new cluster. Make sure to go back and check your existing cluster every few months.
13. Every month, add a new informative article. Go in and internally link where applicable.

Every day, Amazon affiliate sites get harder and harder to successfully turn a profit on your investment and time. If you want to get things right, do it yourself, and put some passion into it. Make it a brand, not a grow and throw. A complete brand with a social presence, Google Maps listing, owner persona and everything. Cement your presence as a thought leader. Then enjoy your bank.

 

[nextlvlig]

It sounds like you've got your head on straight, but you may be going about things wrong.

Don't buy a pre-existing site. And for god's sake, don't thing that someone writing at $1 per 100 words is going to be able to "beef up" an article. Expect to pay 5 times that for content that even starts to scrape at money site quality. Hell, I charge 7-8 cents a word and still have to go back and revise a few times before I'm satisfied.

Find a niche that you feel like you can write about. Work on your grammar. Do some serious keyword research. That was the catalyst for me. I thought I was doing everything right, and then I discovered that I was writing 100,000 words on a website and I wasn't targeting the right keywords.

It's a process. I break it down into clusters and put everything into a "strategy suite" that I have cultivated over a year-plus of in-depth research and reverse-engineering. And it's not an easy process.

1. Find a sub-niche worthy of a buyer's guide. Something relatively broad.
2. Start with an introduction, then a table with affiliate links to check prices.
3. Introduce your top X products. Write 200 or so words on each. Highlights, pros, cons, etc.
4. Then transition into the buyer's guide. Things to look out for. Features to note. FAQs. Conclusion.
5. Go back and revise. Over and over and over again. Ensure you are hitting the right keywords.
6. Use images. If you can get unique images, do so. If you can make regular images unique, do that too.
7. Take those 200 words each and turn them into far longer product reviews, around 1,000 words each.
8. Link to both your product reviews and the Amazon page for the products in your sub-niche.
9. Get obsessive about your on-page SEO. Use Rank Math, not Yoast. Follow their suggestions.
10. Write 5 or more informative articles of relevance. Link internally throughout your cluster.
11. Spam your stuff everywhere. Not low-quality spam. Cross-niche guest posts, relevant longform comments, etc.
12. Repeat the process with a new cluster. Make sure to go back and check your existing cluster every few months.
13. Every month, add a new informative article. Go in and internally link where applicable.

Every day, Amazon affiliate sites get harder and harder to successfully turn a profit on your investment and time. If you want to get things right, do it yourself, and put some passion into it. Make it a brand, not a grow and throw. A complete brand with a social presence, Google Maps listing, owner persona and everything. Cement your presence as a thought leader. Then enjoy your bank.

I am a bit confused about the informative article part (Step 10). So let's say I write a buyer's guide on this keyword: Best TEAS Test Prep Book. I would include features to note, FAQs, pros and cons of the products in my buyer guide. But now once I'm done writing my 5,000-word buyers guide, haven't I already covered all areas of this sub-niche? Can you give some examples of some of the informative guides I would write about?

Second question: what do you consider "worthy" of a buyer's guide? Let's say I have my keyword: Best SAT Prep Book. It has 3,600 searches per month and authoritative websites ranking already. So I decide to target a more specific keyword: Best SAT Reading Prep Book. It has 90 searches per month and let's just say the competition is weak and it's fairly easy to rank top 3. Is it worth it to pour hours of work and write 10,000+ words into targeting a keyword of 90 searches per month? Or should I go for the main keyword of the niche?

And if you're gonna ask about my abilities, I have barely any experience in SEO. Thank you for your time!

 

[DonaldDonalson]

Pay 20 bucks for 2000 words and expect shit.
I reject 95% of the content samples I receive

 

[troythegreat]

Pay 20 bucks for 2000 words and expect shit.
I reject 95% of the content samples I receive

in a recent thread titled "2 year old site how did they do it" an example of a "Winner" , half a million words 30/70 silo of product reviews surrounded by guides. Introduced as a "team" of reviewers this site has either a dedicated group all busy typing away towards a common goal or a heafty budget. So instead of 2 cents i pay $1 a word..In the above example thats a cool 1/2 mill or 400k saying i bang out 100 k of them myself.

if it is a team surely the profit on this site is split
if its not again deep pockets ..not just on content links/seo eyc etc etc

who knows what they are making but they sell a range of items £38.99...£600 etc
low items you need to sell a load of
high items people usually are in the thinking research mode rather than buying mode (mostly)

you'd have to sell a ton (commission on £38.99 is under £3 )to make decent cash....mind you they have a pounding device for knocking in nails ...£252 !!! its a Hammer !!£252 !!! ok so £15 commission but i bet they dont sell many £252 hammers!

why not save that 30% of time investment and let the ad networks take the load. If your going to give your traffic away for a click make it a sure thing. Or If not develop your own product where you get 100% commission. ebooks/ courses /dig products its a big list. Point is when the visitor hits your site you own that traffic if only briefly. You dont own your facebook following , you can pay to reach your subscribers... Facebook are nice like that....if you own traffic use it to its most effective. Is amazon the best use of that traffic ?

Ive seen a ton of sites like the one above and when im researching kw competition most page 1s have some affil site on it. Who knows how many are making enough cash a month to say it was a great ROI. Not just in terms of cash but in terms of time. sourcing content /reviewing rejecting shitty content..rinse repeat..
i get the write great content bit
i understand you get what you pay for
I know long engaging articles create great sites and produce value
i understand silos interlinking link juicing to money pages etc

what i don't get is after you've bust your balls or bank balance to make such a spectacle ..what do you then do? give your
visitor away for 7% 4% 2% or nothing if they buy nothing.

it seems if i'm smart enough to create a good site i should be smart enough to monetize if to its best ability . I know i rattle on about the income school boys but these guys have walked the same walk. At first Producing crappy content making a load of mistakes buying shitty links and articles. But learning from it.

When they say this site will not see any traffic for 8 months but once it takes off it should see £1k form 30,000 ..they are usually right because they have analysed the metrics and can back up their view with hard data.

So when these guys are saying "ah maybe after the commission slashes amazon isnt as attractive as it once was". maybe they are right. They report sites that were making 1k a month on amazon making 4 k from switching networks.
This isn't a beat down on amazon im sure there's lots making bank. Traffic is tough to get is amazon a great ROI for some yes for me no

 

[hiepdn]

Guys, it is as OP said. AA is very hard and not profitable, dont go into this road or you will regret it.