My first ever IM journey. Amazon Affiliate Site to $1000/month

[ThaiDreamer]

Awesome progress! I have a similar post thread on here too. Just broke above $100 in Amazon per month but I need to spend more time on optimizing and adding content to keep it growing like you. Good luck!

Thanks, man! Link me up.

 

[blueboy121]

Thanks, man! Link me up.

This is my latest post: https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/m...o-starting-from-scratch.1217022/post-13818410

 

[ThaiDreamer]

This is my latest post: https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/m...o-starting-from-scratch.1217022/post-13818410

Watching now, mate.

Good luck!

 

[ThaiDreamer]

Early December update:

1) Placed my order for 2 guest posts from @Finn. Looking forward to seeing positive results as it's my first link purchase on BHW.

2) I've got Covid.

 

[blueboy121]

Early December update:

1) Placed my order for 2 guest posts from @Finn. Looking forward to seeing positive results as it's my first link purchase on BHW.

2) I've got Covid.

Ohh man. I had it a month ago and was one of the lucky ones with mild symptoms. Hope yours will be the same if not easier!

 

[ThaiDreamer]

/ The I'm Alive and Well Update /​

Hello BHW world,

Considering that the last update was in December, it's been a long-time-no-see yet again.

Even though I haven't done as much work as I would have liked during this time as for the large part I was exploring Mexico and the WIFI was pretty much non-existent (and when I was at home I was often a lazy bastard), my site continues to grow and I have high hopes of reaching the $1000 goal in a few months.

There are three months in total that need updating and summarizing so find all the info below.

/ December 2020 /​

Since November is the Black Friday / Cyber Monday craze, I never expected December to better it.

And it didn't - in terms of traffic.

But the conversion rate shot through the roof and it turned out to be by far the best month of my site's short history.

• Traffic

Month-to-month, December noted an 11% drop in terms of Organic traffic.

Total unique visitors: 6122
Total sessions: 6738

• Sales

It turns out the US is crazier about Christmas shopping than it is about Black Friday. At least that was the case in my niche.

Total Amazon earnings: $432,84
Goal completion: 43%

• Link-Building

During the last month of the year, I made my first link-building purchases on BHW, buying two links from @Finn.

I also acquired 2 niche-related do-follow links from high DA forums.

• Content

3 published articles.

/ January 2021 /
​

Because of my experience in the e-commerce field from my previous job, I know January and even February are probably the shittiest months of the year both in terms of sales and traffic, due to people shopping their hearts out during BF and Christmas.

I expected a noticeable drop from December but a near 3 times drop was a bit disappointing.

• Traffic​

Again, around 11% month-to-month drop in terms of traffic. TBH, I expected more.

Total unique visitors: 5405
Total sessions: 5935

• Sales

Massive drop - although the result wasn't helped by the fact that I noted a record-high number of returns from December, some really expensive products.

Total Amazon earnings: $172,32
Goal completion: 17%

• Link-Building

Nothing was done in this field.

• Content

4 published articles.

/ February 2021 /​

It would have been difficult for February to be worse than January and it wasn't. Even though there are 3 days less, I noted a satisfying growth in the revenue and also, for the first time in 3 months, growth in terms of traffic.

• Traffic

Pretty content with the result. A 9-10% growth in visits compared to January.

Total unique visitors: 5901
Total sessions: 6541

• Sales

A noticeable, near 2x increase compared to January. I'm a happy chappy.

Total Amazon earnings: $344,38
Goal completion: 34%

• Link-Building

Nothing was done this month either.

• Content

Pretty satisfied with the result, considering that I came back from a trip on the 20th of February and dig up 4 articles. Hope to keep up the momentum now.

/ Summary /​

To sum up, I'm pretty content with the progress the site is making towards the goal - although I want to truly up the tempo as I'm honest enough with myself to say I've been slacking a lot.

To up the productivity, I'm on a booze/party curfew till my birthday which is 2 months away. I've done this before, going as long as 6 months, so shouldn't be a problem. I'm on day 10 and I've already done way more than I had done in the previous months.

I want to reach the $1000 / month goal by June / July so it's not too far away and I'm pretty confident I can do it.

To conclude, attached some general stats about my site.

• Search Console​

• SERPs for main keywords

• Content count

Yes, all the articles are still being written by me.

Might need to start outsourcing soon, to up the tempo.

HAVE A PRODUCTIVE MONTH, ALL!

 

[ThaiDreamer]

Hello all, long time no see!

I haven't updated the journey for 6 months but that doesn't mean I haven't been working.

I've been through some shit here during my up-to-not-so-long-ago dream stay in Mexico as I've fractured both menisci in my knee and had to underway surgery.

Been in some really dark places physically and especially mentally but hopefully, the worst is behind me now.

I just wanted to post a quick update on how my website is doing and where I am regarding my $1000/month goal which at the beginning of my journey I expected to take up to 2 years. I have a quarter of the year left to reach it and I'm optimistic - especially considering the fact that the end of the year is always strong sales-wise.

Okay, let's go.

• Traffic

Since my last update, my website has more than doubled its traffic. Nowadays, I average between 500-550 organic visits per day.



There's also a considerable improvement in terms of my visibility in GSC.

• Sales

Last month (September) was the best so far in terms of the revenue generated.

Current goal status: 65%

• Content

Since the last update, I've upped the content production:



Currently, the overall stats look like this:



What worries me is that Google is super slow with indexing some of my posts, particularly in the last 2 months or so. You can read about my issue here (feel free to suggest more solutions).

• aHrefs

Below find my aHrefs stats.

/ So, What Next? /​

As already mentioned, I'd like to reach the $1000/month goal by the end of the year, as planned at the start of the journey.

To do that, in the next 3 months I plan to concentrate on:

• mass content addition (the goal is additional 100k words until the year is over). Part of the content will be outsourced.
• more aggressive link-building - a combination of user-generated content by me, niche edits, and guest posting. My budget for this is $500 and I plan to spend it wisely.
• improving on-site experience (speed testing, small layout tweaks)

I wish you all a really productive month and hope to be more regular in updating this journey thread!

 

[clientica]

Enviable diligence! Good luck with link juice!

 

[ThaiDreamer]

Enviable diligence! Good luck with link juice!

Thanks mate.

 

[ThaiDreamer]

Hola amigos y amigas!

I haven't updated the thread in the last Q of 2021, so it's about time.

And the big news is...

My first IM journey has turned out to be a success!

When I first started this thread in January 2020, my goal was to reach $1,000 of passive (or semi-passive) income in 2 years.

The goal was reached in November 2021 and vastly surpassed in December 2021, which makes the journey complete!

However, I'm just getting started...

But let me first show you the results for the last 2 months of the year that contributed to me reaching the goal.

/November 2021/​

Because of Black Friday, I was kinda hoping that this could be the month that the goal was reached.

And I was right

• Traffic

November turned out to be the best month traffic-wise (outwith the following December that outdone it).

The website had over 21k organic users + additional 2k organic users that aren't included in the pic below because for some reason Google indexed some pages with the "RSS" and is showing the traffic in the "Other" source in GA.

Total organic users: approx 23k.

• Sales

Yay! November reaches the 2-year goal!

I made just over $1,000 across three Amazon markets which made me incredibly happy.

Total earnings: $1,015
RPOV (Revenue-Per-Organic-Visit): $0,4

• Content

In the month of November, 8 articles were added, with an average of 2934 words per article.

Total words added: 24961

/December 2021/
​

Quite frankly, December exceeded my expectations as I noted a 50% growth in my earnings compared to November which surpassed my end-of-the-year goal by 50% as well.

• Traffic

Again, December proved to be the best month traffic-wise to date. The site recorded over 23k organic users + 3,5k organic users from the RSS channel (again, not sure why Google does it. Can someone explain?)

Total organic users: approx. 26,5k

• Sales

As already mentioned, the December earnings result surpassed my goal by 50% and although I'm an optimist, I was positively surprised by the result.

Total earnings: $1,551
RPOV: $0,06

• Content

The content result is very akin to November which I was happy with as that meant consistency on my side.

In total, 8 articles were added, totaling 25,246 words with an average of 3,156 words per article.

/Overall Site Stats After 2 Years/​

All right, so how does my website look after 2 years of more-or-less regular work?

• aHrefs

• GSC (last 3 months)

• Google Analytics (last 2 years - monthly)

• Content

/What's Next?/

Well, I couldn't have been happier with the fact that for once I stuck to my plan and achieved my goals. Consistent work does really pay off!

I wish I updated the journey more often but the mere fact that I put it on here kept me motivated to keep going, so thanks BLACKHATWORLD, I guess!

A new year just started and I have high hopes for the website but also some worries!

If you've read my thread, you know that I'm struggling badly with getting new articles indexed. The November and December results could have been so much more impressive if it wasn't for this issue!

In short, since around July, I've been experiencing super slow indexation of new articles on my site. There's no rule to this: some articles index in a couple of weeks but most take forever (I still have some August articles yet to be indexed!).

I've been scratching my head what can be the cause of this and so far I've done the following:

• Vastly improved my website performance

After Google rolled out their Core Web Vitals, I had issues with many of my pages regarding speed. I wasn't paying much attention to it till this week when I considerably improved my site's performance with the help of WP Rocket and @nSnoopy (thanks, mate!)

My current website performance looks like this:

Desktop:



Mobile:

After finishing the work with speed performance, I asked Google to verify the Core Web Vitals via GSC. It says it takes 28 days for the verification so I'm waiting.

• Put more effort into link-building

For 2 years I focused mostly on content, but now I want to pump more link juice into the site, particularly to the Root Domain as I've heard this may help the cause, too.

• Increased the number of internal links

I published more internal links pointing to the unindexed pages, hoping this will speed up the process.

If you have more ideas on what I can do to get the pages indexed quicker, please let me know!

/Plans for 2022/

Okay, if you've made it that far, you might as well learn about what are my goals for the new year!

• Treble my earnings by December 2022 (the result must reach $4,500)
• Treble my organic traffic by December 2022 (the result must reach 79,5k)
• Publish 500,000 new words (approx. 155 new articles)
• Diversify my income stream: apply for platforms such as Ezoic
• Reach $200 income per month on two new websites I just bought domains for
• Update this journey more often!

I wish you all a Happy New Year. Let it be better than the last one!

 

[b2btradeworld]

It seems your journey is most focus on content creation

 

[Digitalcitizen]

I’m glad to see that you achieved your goal, and I admire your persistence. Best of luck to you with your future endeavors.

 

[ThaiDreamer]

It seems your journey is most focus on content creation

We can say so.

I’m glad to see that you achieved your goal, and I admire your persistence. Best of luck to you with your future endeavors.

Thanks mate.

 

[xstyle]

Just started to read the thread. Did you work on your site every day during these last years or did you get any job? I didn't see what theme you used but you mentioned elementor. Is this necessary or what is your thought on not using this? Do you see any benefit using it or can you be without it because I read from different threads that it just impact the site speed in a negative way.

I did not see in the thread how you re-applied to Amazon or if they appealed your application from the first time, think I didn't see that part but if you can share what happened and how you solved it, it would be great. Not that I use their photos, just good to know.

You seem to have solid backlinks. Can you share some ideas and methods to generate good do-follow links?

Do you write informational articles and throw in affiliate links or how do you do?

 

[blogmen]

Good job! Are you monetizing it strictly with Amazon?

Throw in some display ads and you'll earn an extra couple hundred with that traffic, but get ready to ruin your perfect speed score (no biggie, totally worth it).

Don't worry about indexing, everybody has the same problem, it's the new normal.

 

[BabyJoker]

Excellent journey! I'll definitely be following!

 

[ThaiDreamer]

Just started to read the thread. Did you work on your site every day during these last years or did you get any job? I didn't see what theme you used but you mentioned elementor. Is this necessary or what is your thought on not using this? Do you see any benefit using it or can you be without it because I read from different threads that it just impact the site speed in a negative way.

I did not see in the thread how you re-applied to Amazon or if they appealed your application from the first time, think I didn't see that part but if you can share what happened and how you solved it, it would be great. Not that I use their photos, just good to know.

You seem to have solid backlinks. Can you share some ideas and methods to generate good do-follow links?

Do you write informational articles and throw in affiliate links or how do you do?

Hi mate, thanks for the reply.

a) I wouldn't say I worked on my site "every day" but I tried to reach between 800-1000 words of written content daily (monthly average). During the 2 years, I only published around 30k words of outsourced content.

b) Elementor is of course not necessary but it helped me design the pages the way I wanted them to look. Now researching more about it, I'm thinking about moving away from it as it's not the lightest of theme builders. At the moment, though, I'm sticking with it as the current page speed performance is really good.

c) Regarding the Amazon re-application, unfortunately, I had to start all over again in the sense that I needed to deliver the first 3 (or 5 - don't remember) sales for them to review my site. The problem was the images I was using. I think to stay on the safe side, I bought an Amazon affiliate plugin already before applying 2nd time. To this day I'm using Amazlinks Pro and I'm really satisfied with it.

d) Thanks but I think backlinks are my weakest point at this stage, hence I want to concentrate more on improving the profile this year. I didn't build a lot of backlinks as I didn't have much budget. Nowadays, I try to spend up to $200 monthly on improving the backlink profile.

My favorite method is to scan competitors for their backlinks and pick out sites I like (good DR and a good amount of organic traffic). I then contact the website regarding a guest post opportunity. If they say they only accept paid posts, I ask for prices for a new article and a niche edit of an existing article.

Then I proceed to scan these websites for articles related to my niche and usually pick the one with the biggest amount of juice (most referring domains and most organic traffic). In the end, I made a decision whether to purchase a fresh article or add a link to an existing one depending on the price difference and the quality of the existing article (again, the number of RD and organic traffic it has).

I also do some forum links.

e) The informational-to-money article ratio is around 10-90 right now. I focus mostly on money articles but I try to make them as informational as possible too.

Good job! Are you monetizing it strictly with Amazon?

Throw in some display ads and you'll earn an extra couple hundred with that traffic, but get ready to ruin your perfect speed score (no biggie, totally worth it).

Don't worry about indexing, everybody has the same problem, it's the new normal.

Hi mate.

Yes, I only use Amazon at present. Would you recommend any display ad platforms that accept sites with my traffic?

Excellent journey! I'll definitely be following!

Thanks mate!

 

[blogmen]

Would you recommend any display ad platforms that accept sites with my traffic?

I'd start with Adsense, Ezoic or Monumetric. See which is better for you.

 

[ThaiDreamer]

I'd start with Adsense, Ezoic or Monumetric. See which is better for you.

I've been hearing positive stuff regarding Ezoic. What's your experience?

 

[blogmen]

I've been hearing positive stuff regarding Ezoic. What's your experience

Personally, not a great one. But to others it's better than adsense, so you have to test it and see.