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[Journey] Amazon Affiliate blog to $10/day

JRFisher

Junior Member
Joined
Aug 10, 2013
Messages
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Welcome to my journey!

I have been on BHW for a long time and have always wanted to make money online, but never committed fully to it, but I am changing this.

Today I am starting this journey to motivate myself to stay focused and on track to my small goal of $10. The method I will be using is Amazon affiliate blogging which many of you have likely heard of, it is already popular in the journey section.

Plan:
  • Use pure white hat SEO methods to rank my site as fast as possible.
  • Add a mix of useful informational content and buyer targeted content.
  • Build a social presence and expand further into the niche.
  • Improve my knowledge of SEO and affiliate marketing to expand to more sites.
What I have so far:
  • A website that I have setup with Wordpress. I have set it up to be as clean and fast as possible and have optimized as much as I can with my relatively limited knowledge of Wordpress.
  • Researched my main niche and some potential keywords, I only use free tools for this, if you would like me to go through what tools I have tried and used let me know.
  • I have posted 1 informative article (about 2000 words) and aim to post another 4 articles by the end of the year and reach 10 articles in January of next year.
My focus for the first few months is to optimize my website and content for SEO and focus on content that will drive traffic to my site and build my site's authority, to do this I will be focusing on a mix of high volume (relative to my niche) keywords and low volume KGR long-tail keywords which offer high-quality information.

Once I begin to see a steady stream of initial traffic, I will start to mix in buyer targeted articles which will be in the form of buyers guides and product reviews to direct readers to my Amazon affiliate links and earn commissions.

I have read through a lot of guides and feel I have enough information and ability to do well in this niche, I am just hoping I can stay motivated early on to pump out content in order to start seeing results!

Thank you for reading my journey introduction, I will try to give a main weekly and monthly update but will also post smaller updates and responses regularly, I am hoping to use this journey as an opportunity to both teach and learn by sharing experiences with others who are embarking on similar journeys!
 
Any information on total amount of words or articles, you want to have on your site. Good luck
 
Any information on total amount of words or articles, you want to have on your site. Good luck

I don't have any numbers in mind, it isn't a massive niche but I would say it is big enough to have 50 high-quality articles, probably a mix of 50-60% informative articles and 40-50% money articles. For total words I have no idea, my current plan is to analyze all page 1 results for a keyword I am writing for and take note of their content style and word count. My aim is then to write higher quality and longer content to help me outrank them quicker.

The final size of the site depends on its success, if it becomes successful and gains a lot of organic traffic and some authority, I will expand its content and broaden the niche slightly. My initial goal is just $10 per day though, but after that, I want to expand it to $100 per day and then expand from a single site to 2 or 3 sites.
 
As you're going whitehat, make sure the on-page SEO is optimized as much as possible and try to target long tail keywords, good luck! Are you starting with a fresh domain?
 
Nice to see realistic goals. Remember it takes time but you'll get there, you seem to have a good understanding of what's needed :-)
 
As you're going whitehat, make sure the on-page SEO is optimized as much as possible and try to target long tail keywords, good luck! Are you starting with a fresh domain?

Yes, fresh domain, a few weeks old at this point. Once I see results I plan to reinvest profits into high-quality backlinks to help give my site a boost.

Nice to see realistic goals. Remember it takes time but you'll get there, you seem to have a good understanding of what's needed :)

Thanks, I am hoping to see results in the next few months, hopefully I can stay motivated that long because I am sure it will be worth it in the end.
 
what tools did you use for niche and keyword research?
 
what tools did you use for niche and keyword research?

There are already a lot of guides on finding a niche, and I did have difficulty, in the beginning, choosing a niche (and I still don't know yet if the niche I chose will be successful). The best method is really to just browse the internet and think of products people buy online, use google trends, auto-completion and Amazon product categories to come up with some initial ideas and then dig deeper, depending on on how specific you want the niche to be.

For keywords, I mainly use SEMrush (you can get 30-day free trials through BHW), and then free tools like Ubersuggest, Answer the Public, Keyword Planner, LSI graph and Google itself, looking for auto-complete suggestions and suggested search terms (found at the bottom of Google results).

You can also look at the competition in your niche for keyword ideas, look at what they're ranking for and copy them and use better content and SEO to outrank them or use their keywords to find long-tail keywords.
 
I will follow your journey :)I also just built a website to make money from Amazon Affiliate about a month old! A little bit different from you because I used the old domain to build a money site. The initial results are not what I expected :(
But never give up!
I hope there will be something new in the second month :)
Good luck!
 
I was unhappy with the layout of my website, so I changed it to something I think will convert better. For anyone interested I am using the GeneratePress theme with the premium plugin, it is really clean and fast.

Last night I scoped out a lot of my competitors for one of my main keywords and collected ideas for articles, I currently have a list of over 70 articles (and a good mix of information and buyer intent, 35+ of each) ideas, not including individual product reviews! My plan is still to have 5 articles by the new year, 10-15 by the end of January and then to add 5-10 articles each month. I write all the articles myself currently if I am struggling to write the content I may look at outsourcing my content writing once the money starts to come in.

I have also slightly expanded my niche to allow for this increased number of articles, I use the SILO content strategy so I decided to expand my niche now rather than later, as not to interrupt the websites layout and sitemap later in the journey. I have basically split my site into categories that will contain just guides and informational articles, and categories that will contain guides as well as buyer intent articles, with all of my buyer intent articles loosely SILO'd into sub-categories by product type.

My goal for today and this weekend is to publish another article and have every other aspect of the website completed (about, contact, disclaimers, etc...) so I only have to focus on writing articles and SEO.
 
Small update, my website is now almost complete (I might make a few tweaks and changes) and has been optimized well, here are my GTmetrix scores:

5vqbvwC


I have also set up all of the social accounts I think I may need, let me know if you can suggest any more useful ones. So far I have a Facebook page and group (will be using the page, to begin with, might use group later on), Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Quora, Wikipedia and WikiHow (I will try and get some Wiki backlinks from these) and Youtube (I may try my hand at making animated how-to guides with voice-overs, I feel it will do well in my niche and will add further depth to my content as well as more links and possible improved EAT signals. I also need to make a Reddit account, but I think it should be a non-business style account with no ties to my website since Reddit is strongly against self-promotion.

With my website setup complete, I am ready to go full speed ahead with content, and I have added a few steps to my content writing. My current plan is to find keywords, either low-comp with medium traffic, keyword golden ratio keywords or good buyer intent long-tail keywords. Once I have my keyword I research LSI keywords to use in the article as well.

For content I do a chunk of research which involves reading authority sites, gathering a list of the top-ranking sites for my focus keyword and collecting their content (for copywriting and content ideas). After the research, I then outline my article structure and begin writing using my own knowledge and copywriting content from the sites I just collected. I then find high-quality images, remove all exif-data and edit them in photoshop to make them as unique as possible whilst remaining high quality.

I am behind where I would like to be in terms of the number of articles, but my goal is quality over quantity, so I believe the time and effort I have put into refining my article writing research will pay off better than pumping out fast, lower-quality content.
 
Happy New Year BHW!

So for the past few days, I haven't put too much work into this because of Christmas and New Year, but now that is out of the way I am hoping to push forward.

I have had some recent concerns over my niche of choice, whether it is good enough, if I can succeed with it and if it is oversaturated. Since I am a beginner I have no experience to look back on to answer these questions.

The only thing I can do is push forward and try to ignore my concerns (it is mostly just from overthinking, and if I let it stop me I will never succeed in IM), I am confident I can produce better sites and content than my competitors, I just need to focus.

To help me, I am setting myself the following goals:
  • 500+ words per day.
  • 5000+ words per week.
  • 1+ article per week.
  • Spend time to research either my niche or my competition every day, this will help me to write higher quality content and find better keywords and low comp longtail keywords.
Currently, I am at one article posted, the article is really high quality in my opinion and adds a lot of value and useful information and even a couple of little tools for the user.

No idea what to expect in terms of time to rank, since the website is new I guess articles won't begin ranking for at least another few months, so perhaps focusing on long-tail golden ratio keywords would be better for now?
 
I didn't want to make a guide but hopefully this can help you or someone who can do this - I don't like Amazon Affiliate so I stay away from them but here it is.
What you can do is make a website like "Top 5 Things" and pretty much do like:
"Top 5 Controllers for Playstation"
"Top 5 Equipment for Streaming on Twitch"

And you can pretty much get away with a bunch of niches like this and also do the same for YouTube.
Just wanted to drop this here as I didn't want to make a whole thread about it c:
 
Following your journey.

You should have a look at Income School on youtube for some golden nuggets. Goodluck mate!
 
As you're going whitehat, make sure the on-page SEO is optimized as much as possible
100% agree
and try to target long tail keywords, good luck! Are you starting with a fresh domain?
I dont agree with this.

Long-tail keywords are a thing from the past.

You´re better off targeting medium-tail keywords and move from there.
For keywords, I mainly use SEMrush (you can get 30-day free trials through BHW), .
Even tho this is true, you can reuse the 30-day trial to use SEMRush as much as you want, i personally don´t like SEMRush for keyword research.

I prefer Ahrefs, their database is huge and it has a shit ton of feature that makes the process a lot smoother.
and then free tools like Ubersuggest, Answer the Public, Keyword Planner, LSI graph and Google itself, looking for auto-complete suggestions and suggested search terms (found at the bottom of Google results)..
I use the same.

In regards to smashing Google autocomplete feature, i strongly advise you to use Keyword Researcher.

You can get it from the Members Download area.

In fact...

I opened a thread requesting it and a member kindly shares it with me.

The program explodes Google autocomplete by adding "*" to the keyword you input there and it auto populates google autocomplete feature automatically, generating thousands of keywords in a matter of minutes.

For example, let´s assume you´re targeting "Gym Bags".

All you need to do is to write down queries like...

* gym bags
gym bags *
best gyn bags for *

and son on...

And let the program do the rest.
You can also look at the competition in your niche for keyword ideas, look at what they're ranking for and copy them and use better content and SEO to outrank them or use their keywords to find long-tail keywords.

I didn't want to make a guide but hopefully this can help you or someone who can do this - I don't like Amazon Affiliate so I stay away from them but here it is.
What you can do is make a website like "Top 5 Things" and pretty much do like:
"Top 5 Controllers for Playstation"
"Top 5 Equipment for Streaming on Twitch"

And you can pretty much get away with a bunch of niches like this and also do the same for YouTube.
Just wanted to drop this here as I didn't want to make a whole thread about it c:
I strongly agree with this.

"Best X for Y" have proven to be the best and highest converting types of informational articles you can possible write.
Following your journey.

You should have a look at Income School on youtube for some golden nuggets. Goodluck mate!
I also strongly agree with this.

I don´t care what people say but after watching hundreds and hundreds of hours of SEO related tutorials and videos on YouTube from dozens and dozens of channels i must say the knowledge and advises shares from the guys from Income School seem to be genuine and legit.

I am not stating you should join their "Income 24" course, but just by browsing at their videos you will get enough information i have found to be really valuable.

I also like GotchSEO a lot.

Feel the guy it´s right up there with the guys from Income School.

I myself started an affiliate journey back in October and after having all sorts of issues in the last couple of months of the year, i am ready to go strong and "smash that bitch" :D :P.

Something i am currently learning and have to spend a ridiculous amount of time, especially in the last few months of the year, is working to improve/develop my writing skills.

Been reading and watching courses and tutorials on storytelling and how to write articles that resonate with the reader.

Anyway, i am following now your journey.

Best of luck mate.
 
I didn't want to make a guide but hopefully this can help you or someone who can do this - I don't like Amazon Affiliate so I stay away from them but here it is.
What you can do is make a website like "Top 5 Things" and pretty much do like:
"Top 5 Controllers for Playstation"
"Top 5 Equipment for Streaming on Twitch"

And you can pretty much get away with a bunch of niches like this and also do the same for YouTube.
Just wanted to drop this here as I didn't want to make a whole thread about it c:

Could work, but I think there are already some very big authority sites that do top 5s and top 10s. I think a niche is easier to rank because it’s less competition and also you get more authority for that single niche which helps with ranking.
 
Following your journey.

You should have a look at Income School on youtube for some golden nuggets. Goodluck mate!

100% agree

I dont agree with this.

Long-tail keywords are a thing from the past.

You´re better off targeting medium-tail keywords and move from there.

Even tho this is true, you can reuse the 30-day trial to use SEMRush as much as you want, i personally don´t like SEMRush for keyword research.

I prefer Ahrefs, their database is huge and it has a shit ton of feature that makes the process a lot smoother.

I use the same.

In regards to smashing Google autocomplete feature, i strongly advise you to use Keyword Researcher.

You can get it from the Members Download area.

In fact...

I opened a thread requesting it and a member kindly shares it with me.

The program explodes Google autocomplete by adding "*" to the keyword you input there and it auto populates google autocomplete feature automatically, generating thousands of keywords in a matter of minutes.

For example, let´s assume you´re targeting "Gym Bags".

All you need to do is to write down queries like...

* gym bags
gym bags *
best gyn bags for *

and son on...

And let the program do the rest.



I strongly agree with this.

"Best X for Y" have proven to be the best and highest converting types of informational articles you can possible write.

I also strongly agree with this.

I don´t care what people say but after watching hundreds and hundreds of hours of SEO related tutorials and videos on YouTube from dozens and dozens of channels i must say the knowledge and advises shares from the guys from Income School seem to be genuine and legit.

I am not stating you should join their "Income 24" course, but just by browsing at their videos you will get enough information i have found to be really valuable.

I also like GotchSEO a lot.

Feel the guy it´s right up there with the guys from Income School.

I myself started an affiliate journey back in October and after having all sorts of issues in the last couple of months of the year, i am ready to go strong and "smash that bitch" :D :p.

Something i am currently learning and have to spend a ridiculous amount of time, especially in the last few months of the year, is working to improve/develop my writing skills.

Been reading and watching courses and tutorials on storytelling and how to write articles that resonate with the reader.

Anyway, i am following now your journey.

Best of luck mate.

Thanks for the supports, I have watched a few income school videos and they are very useful. In fact, one of my niches is actually one that they have talked about in a video and post on their website (didn't know this before I chose it) which is one of the reasons I was worried it may end up saturated and difficult to rank with.

I am still confident in this journey since I set my goals low, and this is also largely a learning journey, any profit and knowledge I gain through this journey will all go back into more sites and methods.
 
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