Starting out with Amazon affiliates.

My first Amazon site is up and running. Fortunately/unfortunately, I have just about all the time in the world to work on this right now.

I picked a kw/topic that is popular and I'm familiar with. I have enough to figure out with this that is admittedly overwhelming, so familiarity with popular products provides some level of comfort for me.

So, my basic Amazon friendly WP site with appropriate theme is up. I'm adding my preferred plugins and I need to make a graphic header, since the text based generic one looks...generic.

Right now my posts are all items/links. I'm researching where to purchase good quality articles and looking for supplemental videos and other content in order to have good quality content overall, not just item descriptions. I'm not a great writer and I want this site going and making money as soon as possible, so I'd rather outsource articles than write them myself.

I plan to make many more sites, but to start with I want to get this one as good as I possibly can, and use it as a model for the sites to come in the future.

Much of my time now is also spent on research. I realize I have a lot to learn so I've just been throwing myself into it completely the past few days. I've wanted to get started with this for about a year and I got sick of waiting for the various reasons why I kept putting it off...while other work is very slow for me, now is the time. I'm very determined for this to work.

All the Best and keep us updated about your journey

Nice mate, you need to learn how this affiliation world works. And there isn't better method then simply trying! Good luck, we're with you.

If you build other sites you've to periodically manage all the sites, old and new, to see if there is new competitor on the orizzont!

All the best

I'm a hands-on learner. I can read all there is to read, but I need to follow along and figure it out on my own, too. No better way than to just do it!

Thanks guys.

Good luck on your journey.

Have you got a plan for off page SEO to get your site ranked well? This seems to be the most difficult part with gaining success with an Amazon site.

Hm, a loose idea. That's part of my research. Obviously I'm very much a beginner with this!

you need to find buyer keywords

you need to optimize your site to sell

you need great content

and before you do anything you need to research what your getting into -- if you can't rank top 5 for the keyword then forget it you will not make any money.

lastly as a piece of advise -- total traffic is not so much of a concern - but converting them is -- if your site can sell at 10-15% and it has $1000+ products - then your going to get somewhere ... if you convert at 1-2% then it is going to be very frustrating.

It will take a few months for all this to make sense - as you need to learn some of the lessons by experience.

Danny1111, two of the threads I've been reading through here are yours. Good info to get me started. Like I said above, during the week I have pretty much all the time I want to put into this. I understand there's work and learning to be put into it...that's fine, I'm not afraid of hard work and not looking for a get rich quick scheme, which is what brought me to this method of IM in the first place.

This morning, I've been focusing on the cosmetic aspects of the site. I made myself a header, and that alone helped immensely. Through various freelance sites, I've made countless headers, logos, and cosmetic customizations to people's IM sites so this part is easy work.

Later today, I'll be back to working with my SEO plugin of choice for the individual pages and products that are currently loaded in the site. I'll also be making some article purchases, and embedding the videos I've picked out via YouTube.

Yesterday was just a research day. I had to go to a family member's graduation which ended up being huge and several hours...so I sat there on my iPhone reading, reading, reading, and working here and there on SEO via the WP app (it was an outdoor graduation and so big, we weren't anywhere remotely able to see the stage, so I wasn't being too rude, I promise!).

After all of that, the boyfriend and I were pretty exhausted so I sat in bed and read more until I fell asleep...until I woke up this morning, and read more while drinking my coffee...the Amazon obsession is strong with this one.

Keyword research is the key.

1. You must have started with some niche (cross niche works, but takes longer time)
2. Go to http://www.soovle.com/ and check keyword ideas
3. Now, go to Google Adwords to check monthly searches and buy intent (CPC is a good indicator)
4. Check with keyword in Google search results (log out of Google before you search, or use another browser). If you have installed Moz or SEOQuake Toolbar, you can more or less understand how competitive is your keyword

When you are done with these 4 things, start ordering articles here at BHW or from oDesk/iWriter. Have one home page article that is 2.5k words, and other lesser mortals. Do remember to link out to relevant sites (wikipedia articles are good).

Forget about all cosmetic parts for now. Yes, it is important for conversions but you will have time to do that while your site ranks for the keywords. I am not saying this out of hubris, I have done the same mistakes (and continue to do some of them to this day)

Hey antha1, thanks for your post. I'm at the article ordering step. I've edited/spun several so far today, with posts scheduled out for the completed ones. I have about 10 more to go, I'll be finished by the end of the day with that. I've been including relevant outbound links, videos, and photos. From what I've read, I'm off to a decent start I think...just want to hurry and get good content up so it isn't just a site filled with products. Definitely need to order a home page article. I'm happy with the ones I purchased today.

Cosmetic stuff took me maybe 30 minutes total today and there's no need to touch that part again for awhile. The default site colors and header were just so ugly, it had to be done. I'm a visual person, I couldn't stand looking at the site the way it was. But now that it's presentable, yeah, there's definitely more important stuff to keep working on.

SincerelyPariah,

Countless IMers take a stab in the dark and expectantly, the MAJORITY of them either walk away from this industry frustrated, or, they hang around generating peanuts for income.

Don't get caught up in that tire spinning madness; if you do, you will burn a lot of rubber while getting nowhere fast.

Site cosmetics mean squat in the grand scheme of things.

If you doubt that FACT, take a look at this highly trafficked website:


That UGLY site is making CASH MONEY!

To be clear, I am not saying build UGLY sites, I am saying FOCUS your energy, attention and money on the Proper Priorities "IF" you want to succeed NOW!

Your first priority is to learn KEYWORD RESEARCH as it relates to AMAZON.COM. Not as it relates to PPC, Adsense or Kindle, but as it relates to Amazon.com. got that?

If not, you will spin your wheels for an INFINITY!

At the same time you need to learn NICHE RESEARCH!

These two learned skill sets separate the IM MONEY MAKERS from the IM WANNABES!

Once you have learned these two skills, you need to learn "ON PAGE" and "OFF PAGE" SEO.

And finally, you need to learn AFFILIATE MARKETING.

Take it one step at a time, but you also need to be no holds barred aggressive!

Learn to do things manually, then upgrade your skill sets to automation.

Hope that helps!

I can't afford to buy tools for automation so learning to do everything manually is my only option. I'm doing this all on a tiny budget. Honestly, I'm okay with that -- I want to know exactly how to do things, not depend on other people/services. I'm a bit of a control freak when it comes to my work. When I'm making money and have a better understanding of what I'm doing, automation will be nice, especially when I have more sites. I'm already writing down ideas for the second site as I work on this first one...

You did bring up a good point, Crewchief -- I've been researching those topics you've listed, but just in general -- not Amazon specific. So thanks for that suggestion, I'm adjusting some of what I'm reading now.

And yes, that is an ugly site!

Crewchief007 said:

SincerelyPariah,

Countless IMers take a stab in the dark and expectantly, the MAJORITY of them either walk away from this industry frustrated, or, they hang around generating peanuts for income.

Don't get caught up in that tire spinning madness; if you do, you will burn a lot of rubber while getting nowhere fast.

Site cosmetics mean squat in the grand scheme of things.

If you doubt that FACT, take a look at this highly trafficked website:



That UGLY site is making CASH MONEY!

To be clear, I am not saying build UGLY sites, I am saying FOCUS your energy, attention and money on the Proper Priorities "IF" you want to succeed NOW!

Your first priority is to learn KEYWORD RESEARCH as it relates to AMAZON.COM. Not as it relates to PPC, Adsense or Kindle, but as it relates to Amazon.com. got that?

If not, you will spin your wheels for an INFINITY!

At the same time you need to learn NICHE RESEARCH!

These two learned skill sets separate the IM MONEY MAKERS from the IM WANNABES!

Once you have learned these two skills, you need to learn "ON PAGE" and "OFF PAGE" SEO.

And finally, you need to learn AFFILIATE MARKETING.

Take it one step at a time, but you also need to be no holds barred aggressive!

Learn to do things manually, then upgrade your skill sets to automation.

Hope that helps!

Click to expand...

what do you mean by keyword research for amazon? ive been starting these sites by finding keywords that have buyer intent and that i can rank in the top 10 in google. Then I've been just finding products and putting them on the site with reviews. what's this got to do with keyword research at amazon? Please clarify...

Yeah, I was under the impression of looking at Google searches too.

Woke up to a sale though! It hasn't shipped yet so I'm not getting too excited, but since my site has been up for all of three days I'm happy.

bristol1, you asked...

bristol1 said:

what do you mean by keyword research for amazon? ive been starting these sites by finding keywords that have buyer intent and that i can rank in the top 10 in google. Then I've been just finding products and putting them on the site with reviews. what's this got to do with keyword research at amazon? Please clarify...

Click to expand...

When searching for Keywords for Amazon, you NEED to first extract your data from Amazon.com.

You can start this process by using, "Amazon's Auto-fill Feature." You will find GREAT seed keywords using that feature.

Take your SEED keywords and build from there.

That stated, doing Keyword Research manually is a HARD ROW to TOW! It takes TIME; valuable, precious time.

I'd rather you sacrifice the cash and purchase LTP and AmaSuite. Used in conjunction with each other, YOU WILL FIND GOLDMINES effortlessly!

Hope that helps!

Remember, it takes $$$ to make $$$!

Crew Chief

I literally don't have the cash to sacrifice. Trust me, I understand that it makes it much easier and when I'm able, I'll certainly start to buy tools. I do have time, though, for the most part. A previous IM client of mine is back for more design work, so I've been working on those jobs at the moment. I also remembered I have an old Pinterest account that I'm going to start using with my site, see how that helps.

Okay, finished up a job for my IM client and I'm back to work on my own site. Today I'm doing the Pinterest thing. Are there any particular techniques to Pinterest? Do you just pin products and articles? Have links to the site in the caption or assume people will click the source link? That's a project for today, as well as getting Twitter going.

Pinterest generated a nice spike in hits and click throughs. I like that and want to automate that.

Otherwise, I'm frustrated today...my site's theme sucks and I'm not finding anything that I really love to use instead.

I downloaded a trial of Longtail Pro as recommended by someone else here to help find keywords to target for this site, as well as the next sites. I'm still kind of lost and frustrated, but pushing ahead nonetheless! I added my Skype name to my profile here if anyone wants to talk.