The Ultimate Amazon Thread Mark 2 - Q/A - Good/Bad

Let's Clarify a Few Things First :

** there is absolutely no way to make the money I make if you start today within 6 months if your relying on Search Traffic alone .. it requires testing / tweaking / content / Seo / Keyword Research .... its not like all of a sudden you know how to do these things perfectly - it takes time / money and practice.

... I personally have been slaving away through FSB Sites / Amazon Autoblogs / Magento Stores and These WP Blogs .. so I have way more practice than most people.

** I own and use pretty much every theme / tool / shortcut there is .. so my time spent is way lower than most people.

Next you have to realize not everything I've done has been successful - I've lost money on some things that I really don't do anymore.

** Lastly I have 50 WP Sites and the Rest are Magento - Magento Suck Im not sure how many times I have said it - but getting into them was a mistake for me. I manage my Sites via CMS Commander / Ubots and my Seo Tools -- this is fairly easy - but some things take time to do.

So my earnings have grown from $600 a month to $1700 a month and now $3700 ish ... and if all goes well then I hope to hit $5000 a month.

Probably the last thing I need to mention is - when you have 1 Site - alot can go wrong -- when you have 10 Sites its easier to have Sales everyday and when you have 20 Sites well then you start to really get somewhere.

Many people have chimed in on this thread - saying they prefer the Authority Site Concept and are more comfortable doing that -- there is absolutely nothing wrong with doing it that way - its just I can't help much with how to optimize them and rank them to the best of their ability ... and ultimately that's what it takes to make the most money.

Never forget this is a business - treat it that way -- and it will never be a Get Rich Quick Scheme - Amazon is Work.

I think I have said more than enough - I'm going to let you guys post your end of month payments / comments on how things are going .. and I will come back to the thread in a few days .... I just think it can be distracting when I post too much.... I don't want it too sound that this is too easy.... cheers.
 
1 site, SEO, authority (40 pages), not paid yet, waiting for my check.

400$ earning so far in May, 150$ comission pending, because items are not shipped yet.

Site is 3 months and a half old.

Maybe at the end of this month .. We can have an Amazon Check In.

People who get paid from Amazon ..

Just write something like : 5 Sites / seo,social / niche or authority / paid

or. 2 sites / social / niche or authority / banned

Just so people get a better read on people who are getting paid or banned.
 
i've had some success and a few cheques from amazon in the past.. but never had any focused sites like these... just registered about 8 domains for this purpose and will give this a go.. i KNOW amazon works because I've gotten paid from them before.. it's just time i stopped being lazy and implement the sites.. I'll post progress as soon as I see any sales from this.
 
I am really surprised that we don't have more people posting stats and results. The first couple of pages is all you really need from this thread. Danny clearly outlines EVERYTHING you need to know in the very first few pages. Don't over think it people, just do it! :cool: Im on site number 7 so far. My plan this week is to focus on content for all 7, then I plan to start 7 more next week, if my regular job doesn't get all crazy.

Good luck everyone!!!
 
Well, I started in mid feb. I have 1 authority site 300/400 visits a day, 4 other websites the authority is making 60% of my earning. Last month earning $500 this month it would be $500 too. Not too much seo, I just gave a try to a service in here but i've got no result. Only onsite SEO.
Btw last month i've sold a $1900 item and this month a $1300 item. My commission is 7%. I hope those datas would help some noobs in here even if i'm considering myself a noob too lol.
My aim is 2k/3k by the end of the year. Doable?

PS: I own 4 other websites that didn't convert well and that I've abandonned.
 
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Well, I started in mid feb. I have 1 authority site 300/400 visits a day, 4 other websites the authority is making 60% of my earning. Last month earning $500 this month it would be $500 too. Not too much seo, I just gave a try to a service in here but i've got no result. Only onsite SEO.
Btw last month i've sold a $1900 item and this month a $1300 item. My commission is 7%. I hope those datas would help some noobs in here even if i'm considering myself a noob too lol.
My aim is 2k/3k by the end of the year. Doable?

PS: I own 4 other websites that didn't convert well and that I've abandonned.

How often you post new articles on your website?
 
I know some people may not like to share their results good or bad -- but I agree with ChargeSpeed - in that there are alot of shortcuts and ideas in this thread to help you get going - that I wished I had

when I started ..... so I hope more people can be more Open about how its going with their efforts .. as really this thread is only as good as the ideas/feedback contained in it.

At the end of the day I didn't start these threads to tell everyone how much money I make - I made this thread so other people can jump on the bandwagon and start earning some money themselves.

Everyone has to start somewhere ... so don't be afraid that your opinions / experiences are not important.
 
I would like to extend some advice that goes against what Danny says. I respect Danny tremendously, and I have had success with Amazon largely because of this thread. But there is one tip that I find very important that I don't remember being mentioned. This can help increase anyones earnings a lot in any given month.

Danny says to ignore products under $100. This is good advice for the majority of your money making sites. But here's the thing, if you don't have 30-50 sites you might be struggling to hit the higher percentages of payout. If your like most people your probably looking at between 3-10 sites. With this many sites, unless you are getting a lot of traffic, you are probably not hitting the higher percentage tiers. I suggest going after a very low priced item on one or 2 of your sites in your portfolio. Not directly to get commission for the products, but to help bump up the % your making.

Let me give you an example...

Most of my sites are targeted at products that are $100 plus, this is how it should be. But I created a site around fall last year targeting a certain kind of popular wrench. Well, this was apparently a very hot item when christmas rolled around. It was a $10 item and I was selling hundreds of them in november and december. This helped bump up my tiering so I got higher percentage on all my other higher item products.

I agree you should be targeting higher priced items, but why not have a couple sites where you have lower priced items just to get your commission percentages up?

If you have 10 sites, I would say have 2 of those sites targeting lower items with high search. Your commissions will go up if that lower priced item converts better. If you have a good site with good info, your smaller priced items will convert MUCH better than the higher priced items. Also, since most people coach others to always target higher $100 or higher items when promoting amazon, sometimes the competition is much less.

Hopefully this makes sense and helps some people.

Opinions?
 
Exactly my strategy. When I find a very good keyword, I tend to go with it even if the product price is low. Why skip an opportunity, especially an easy one. The commission is low, but having enough of sales, it can increase commissions by 50 percent.

Back when I got started, when one month I recall making 6 sales, just a tad to get an increase from 4 to 6 percent. If only someone bought a $5 product, I'd be making $50 extra.
 
I think that was the purpose of the accessories page. He did mention that every site you build should have an accessories page. But you are absolutely right you have to target a few of those little items to get the commission up.
 
Good point charges speed. An accessories page would act as a smaller priced niche website. I forgot that he covered that part. But still no reason not to target lowered priced products for an entire site. Not all of them, but a couple.
 
37 Sites // Seo // Not cashing in this month // Sites are 1 month - 2 years old.

Most of my earnings still come from semi autoblog sites. Not very proud of that, so I'm glad to say over 25 of the above 37 sites are now in the development process to grow into a mini niche or semi authority sites. I'm trying a few models out as I always like to experiment with site development, strategy and SEO tactics.

I'm not cashing in because I want to pile up earnings. Cashing a check costs $20 here, but definitely I was paid a few times for $2000 - $3000. Once with these autoblogs. A few when I promoted Amazon using direct linking with PPC a few years ago (those were the days)

Now on to questions. You know I always have these :) To Danny or everyone who uses a model outlined here. For you, maybe it makes perfect sense, but I've been struggling with this over and over again. Even though Danny has explained repeatedly about this, I am still confused.

So let me give this another shot. This time with an example. Let's assume I stumble on a keyword: "survival knife" and "best survival knife". The latter is obviously better for this kind of site, so I use keyword research to figure out which content to build the site around.

To NO suprise, as usual, the keywords returned are product based, NOT informational based. Let me show you what I mean. Here are some of the keywords in the format of keyword: local searches

- survival knife: 6,600
- best survival knife: 4,400
- gerber survival knife: 320
- buck survival knife: 110
- cold steel survival knife: 73

Notice that from 2nd-3rd rank, the gap is huge. The number of searches go way down. The rest of the keywords have only 2-3 dozen searches per month.

Also, from the 44 keywords returned ("Only show ideas closely related to my search terms" ticked) there is NO single keyword that is informational in nature, except if I turn them into "reviews."

Now here's where I got confused:

How do I develop an informational site around this keyword?

(Note that most of the keywords I researched--and I've done thousands of them--typically look like this. Heavy on product categories, brands, and product names... but very light on informational side.)

If I target keywords such as "what survival knife is for", "survival knife usage tips" or "how to use survival knife", "types of survival knife"... the searches are close to zero, so I assume I should stay away from that?

(I asked once how people come up with ideas for informative content. I thought they just come up with those from thin air, or from researching forums, without checking if users are really searching for them. But obviously I was wrong, each page has to target a keyword to be worthwhile. They make sense though. How else do I attract traffic without targeting the right keyword. It got me really confused that I thought they did!)

This is the reason the most informative site I built is ALWAYS around "reviews".

"Best survival knife": so I picked a few high rated products and review those, with links to Amazon. Also in the "best survival knife" page, I list 5-10 products I reviewed, along with buttons and images. On the home page I use sliders to display latest product reviews.

I know I can build a site around "bandaging a wound" or "camping" or "rock climbing" and they may need survival knife, among other things... but I can't see how the click rate and conversion rate for that kind of site, which only promotes survival knife... can be very high. Unless, of course, I develop this into a real authority site with hundreds of pages so I can review other products as well. But that is not the model explained here.

So help me out, please. I really like the idea of building sites around information, not only reviews. I know this has been covered countless of times. But again please, do me a favor here. Lead me to the right track. And I'll be forever thankful :)

Cheers.
 
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I'm also in your situation, audioguy. I'm also building sites around "reviews" and "best". They are really highly targeted. As to informative sites, maybe I need to brainstorm, I should research further to how to get visitors into buyers.
37 Sites // Seo // Not cashing in this month // Sites are 1 month - 2 years old.

Most of my earnings still come from semi autoblog sites. Not very proud of that, so I'm glad to say over 25 of the above 37 sites are now in the development process to grow into a mini niche or semi authority sites. I'm trying a few models out as I always like to experiment with site development, strategy and SEO tactics.

I'm not cashing in because I want to pile up earnings. Cashing a check costs $20 here, but definitely I was paid a few times for $2000 - $3000. Once with these autoblogs. A few when I promoted Amazon using direct linking with PPC a few years ago (those were the days)

Now on to questions. You know I always have these :) To Danny or everyone who uses a model outlined here. For you, maybe it makes perfect sense, but I've been struggling with this over and over again. Even though Danny has explained repeatedly about this, I am still confused.

So let me give this another shot. This time with an example. Let's assume I stumble on a keyword: "survival knife" and "best survival knife". The latter is obviously better for this kind of site, so I use keyword research to figure out which content to build the site around.

To NO suprise, as usual, the keywords returned are product based, NOT informational based. Let me show you what I mean. Here are some of the keywords in the format of keyword: local searches

- survival knife: 6,600
- best survival knife: 4,400
- gerber survival knife: 320
- buck survival knife: 110
- cold steel survival knife: 73

Notice that from 2nd-3rd rank, the gap is huge. The number of searches go way down. The rest of the keywords have only 2-3 dozen searches per month.

Also, from the 44 keywords returned ("Only show ideas closely related to my search terms" ticked) there is NO single keyword that is informational in nature, except if I turn them into "reviews."

Now here's where I got confused:

How do I develop an informational site around this keyword?

(Note that most of the keywords I researched--and I've done thousands of them--typically look like this. Heavy on product categories, brands, and product names... but very light on informational side.)

If I target keywords such as "what survival knife is for", "survival knife usage tips" or "how to use survival knife", "types of survival knife"... the searches are close to zero, so I assume I should stay away from that?

(I asked once how people come up with ideas for informative content. I thought they just come up with those from thin air, or from researching forums, without checking if users are really searching for them. But obviously I was wrong, each page has to target a keyword to be worthwhile. They make sense though. How else do I attract traffic without targeting the right keyword. It got me really confused that I thought they did!)

This is the reason the most informative site I built is ALWAYS around "reviews".

"Best survival knife": so I picked a few high rated products and review those, with links to Amazon. Also in the "best survival knife" page, I list 5-10 products I reviewed, along with buttons and images. On the home page I use sliders to display latest product reviews.

I know I can build a site around "bandaging a wound" or "camping" or "rock climbing" and they may need survival knife, among other things... but I can't see how the click rate and conversion rate for that kind of site, which only promotes survival knife... can be very high. Unless, of course, I develop this into a real authority site with hundreds of pages so I can review other products as well. But that is not the model explained here.

So help me out, please. I really like the idea of building sites around information, not only reviews. I know this has been covered countless of times. But again please, do me a favor here. Lead me to the right track. And I'll be forever thankful :)

Cheers.
 
audioguy, i have same problem. i was created few local websites based on informational. and i got no traffic.
 
I'm also in your situation, audioguy. I'm also building sites around "reviews" and "best". They are really highly targeted. As to informative sites, maybe I need to brainstorm, I should research further to how to get visitors into buyers.

I'd like to know how you brainstorm. If you have a process involving research online, the better.

In my case, I tried using the "Only show ideas closely related to my search terms" option unticked in AdWords Keyword Tool. It returns many relevant keywords. Tried a bunch of them as seed keywords. Didn't return anything that could be useful for any informational piece. Well, useful and at the same time has enough search volumes, that is.

Perhaps my process is backwards. I like to see a keyword, then think about what a search user wants when they use the keyword.

I mean, I tried doing it forward, but it doesn't work.

For example... I can think of a dozen questions, answers and information related to "survival knife." Even if I stuck with ideas, doing a quick research in Google reveals that survival knife can be used for many things and there are many types of them.

Guess many people want to know what are they, right? No. A quick search for these keywords:

- types of survival knife: - -
- types of survival knives: 12 global < 10 local
- type of survival knife: - -
- type of survival knives: - -

I don't think I'll spend time writing an article that gets at most 12 impressions per month, let alone views.

Believe me, I've gone through this too many times. Every time, I research online, it triggers a few ideas for informative articles, but none of that matters unless there's demand, which is shown by local searches column.

So I'm back again at square one.
 
The Answer To Me Is Simple :

You have to build a Site about survival / hunting / trekking / fishing -- and include hunting knives and other products to make a Site - where you can get decent traffic.

If it were me I would never make a site on Hunting Knives - there are so many other things to choose that are so much easier - but if your interested in that maybe you can make it work.
 
or in other words you cant focus on the knives - you got to focus on the animals your hunting or the activity your doing where you need a hunting or survival knife.... and you gotta be saying well if your doing this activity then a knife is a necessary and these are the ones you recommend - or the ones you see bear grylis or whatever his name uses.
 
If I have to build a fishing or hunting site just to sell survival knives, then it doesn't fit into 8 pages, even as a start. At least there should be product reviews about hiking boots, backpacks, etc., etc if I am to get click rate anywhere near 10 percent to Amazon, let alone more. Obviously $100 / month with a mini site is not possible in this niche, but much more is possible with authority site.

To continue with your example, best routers for gaming, best router to buy,etc. All those are product category keywords. Reviews for those are easy. But when it comes to building information pages, there's where I get stuck.

- best place to put wireless router: 73 global 36 local
- best place for wireless router: 58 global 28 local
- best place to put router: 36 global, 22 local
- best place to put a wireless router: 28 global, 22 local
- best place for a wireless router: <10 global, <10 local

Those with >300 searches per month in the list are all product categories, product names, brand names, etc.

Do you guys target such keywords? Perhaps you get traffic from many long tail keywords with one long article?

Or is the purpose of these informational pages merely to get "extra" traffic, while the main traffic comes from the "best wireless router" keyword?

From my understand, you use product reviews as monetization, while information pages are used as main traffic source. Tell me where I get this wrong please :)
 
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