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

[ranjim]

I have read the whole thread and understood that good keyword research is key to success. And a good keyword tool + real life necessity of the niche will push that research a bit higher. Just wondering what would you prefer, Ultimate Niche Finder or Lon Tail Pro? Just picking between the two. Any experience between the two? Thanks!

 

[Danny1111]

Of course you can do it in 8 pages - your trying to sell knives there is only so much information you need to do that ... Like I said you had a problem - Im telling you what I think the answer is - because selling Survival or Hunting Knives is not what I would choose from the thousands of products Amazon Sells.

NO - Information Articles are just to bring in extra residual traffic - as you can't expect reviews / articles / accessory pages to rank page 1 in a week - you need to find your niche and cover it well - the highest converting traffic will be the buying traffic - and the other traffic will be lower.

My impression from reading your comments/questions is you really don't grasp what is need to rank 1 in google - ultimately that is what has to happen.

Also you seem to be a person that wants a set of rules - and expects those rules to be adhered to 100%

So : I do A --> B Happens -->> so I do C ---> result = $100

Sorry but I don't see 100% success rate - sometimes no matter what I do - doing what I know works - it doesn't work out for me or it wasn't worth it.

Another comment for you is this : Have you ever actually researched your competition and seen what Keywords they are targeting ?? Then you can see where they rank now and obviously how easy/hard it is based on their Site / Content and Link Profile.

Simply opening a Keyword Tool and saying well I can't solve this problem - is not going to get you where you want to go.

 

[Danny1111]

To put it in Simple Terms -- If I want to be a build houses for a living .... I need many inputs/tools/knowledge ... to end up with a finished House.

I don't just turn up to the block of land with a hammer and some nails... and expect to build the house.

 

[Danny1111]

http://www.bestsurvivalknifeguide.com/
http://ultimatesurvivaltips.com/schrade-extreme-survival-knife-review/
http://survivalcache.com/bear-grylls-ultimate-knife-review-gerber/

 

[Danny1111]

From what I see those 3 sites in the Top 10 for what I searched - all have links to Amazon / Carousel Widgets and other Amazon Stuff

I would hardly say that the quality of Site is a Factor .. 2 are PR0 and 1 is PR4 .. you can check out what they have been doing with their Seo - I just looked at the PR as a quick guide.

 

[johnnyd77]

Hi all,

Here are my thoughts about those 3 sites.

1) http://www.bestsurvivalknifeguide.com/

The site is ugly. The chart is ugly. Nothing is good looking according to me. They use an amazon widget I believe. I'd rather build a customised chart with eye catchy color.

What I would do : change the theme, change the header, put something more trustable.
What I like about the site : The comments at the bottom

2) http://ultimatesurvivaltips.com/schr...-knife-review/

Site structure sucks. Design is ugly as well.
WHat I like :
- Youtube Video. This will help the average time onsite.
- Lot of pictures

Also, there are no links between the articles. It only goes straight to amazon.

3) http://survivalcache.com/bear-grylls...review-gerber/

Same problem as the other sites. Design is damn ugly. However, I find that the content is way better than the other site. The problem is that he doesnt have affiliate links in his articles but you get the picture.


All in all, i've been talking about the same thing for all the 3 site. No SEO, no KW research. I've been focusing on CONTENT in my analysis. Content is king? nope.. It's far more than that. Content is the kingdom. Also, I didnt see any social signals on those sites. That is something I would change as well.

Get a website that is worth being number one, get contents (Design, charts, articles, pictures, videos) that are way better than your competitors. Gain trust because you're the best. That's how you do it.

Cheers

JD77

 

[Danny1111]

those are my thoughts as well - pretty ugly sites - not really set up the best .. yet they are 3 of the top 10

enough said really ... anyway I got to get to work -- cheers.

 

[Deleted member 668629]

I got 744 clicks but NO SALES. How is this possible? :')

 

[audioguy]

I pick survival knife not because of I want it, but because the guy at NichePursuit.com picked it as an example, and built a site in front all of us, despite all the copycats. Still, he managed to rank number one. (Because he went public so I guess he didn't care if someone uses it as an example.)

Last month, the site was making money more than $350. The author's aim is to make $500/mo from that site alone. That is the kind of site I'm building, but with different themes and the model is more or less the same.

No information based articles, just reviews and the main keyword is product category: "best survival knife" and there is where all the information there is to the site. The rest is product review.

Perhaps I'm a bit methodological and process oriented, but from my perspective, I can't get it to work. Surely I'm not the only one here to have the same problem.

But yeah, I think I got it the answer there. You build a site around ONE keyword and your informative articles are just supporting the main keyword while it is still crawling up ranking, not THE way to drive traffic. That makes sense now.

@johnnyd77 No, I have no problem analyzing competitors' sites, researching keywords, etc. My question is how to build information based sites around survival knife, wireless routers, or whatever keyword. How to pick the keyword, whether to target low volume keywords, etc.

 

[audioguy]

From what I see those 3 sites in the Top 10 for what I searched - all have links to Amazon / Carousel Widgets and other Amazon Stuff

I would hardly say that the quality of Site is a Factor .. 2 are PR0 and 1 is PR4 .. you can check out what they have been doing with their Seo - I just looked at the PR as a quick guide.

No, I didn't wonder why the site ranks. Even if I did, the owner revealed it all in this blog journey.

What I'm curious about is how to build a site around information, whatever the keyword is. Again it makes sense for me now that you are just targeting ONE main keyword per site.

 

[daddymax]

I pick survival knife not because of I want it, but because the guy at NichePursuit.com picked it as an example, and built a site in front all of us, despite all the copycats. Still, he managed to rank number one. (Because he went public so I guess he didn't care if someone uses it as an example.)

Last month, the site was making money more than $350. The author's aim is to make $500/mo from that site alone. That is the kind of site I'm building, but with different themes and the model is more or less the same.

No information based articles, just reviews and the main keyword is product category: "best survival knife" and there is where all the information there is to the site. The rest is product review.

Perhaps I'm a bit methodological and process oriented, but from my perspective, I can't get it to work. Surely I'm not the only one here to have the same problem.

But yeah, I think I got it the answer there. You build a site around ONE keyword and your informative articles are just supporting the main keyword while it is still crawling up ranking, not THE way to drive traffic. That makes sense now.

@johnnyd77 No, I have no problem analyzing competitors' sites, researching keywords, etc. My question is how to build information based sites around survival knife, wireless routers, or whatever keyword. How to pick the keyword, whether to target low volume keywords, etc.

I'm an active member on that blog and i doubt that Spencer is really making $350 a month of that site. considering the average items price and the local searches number for that exact keyword, it seems like a load of BS to me. and the site doesn't even look good .

 

[gromhold]

bestsurvivalknifeguide_com semrush report
http://d.pr/f/dtOa

 

[audioguy]

Even if it is, site design has little to do with earnings. As long as the message is clear and the design is not that ugly.

 

[Danny1111]

Its hard to comment on what other people are doing - and almost impossible to know their true earnings -- all I can say from my experience - is the 3 sites I searched out - would be lucky to be making $50 a month.

As far as what this guy is doing your following - same thing - if its working for him great -- but imo quality and content will win the day in the long run.

In terms of the guy with 733 clicks and no sales or something like that - your obviously doing something very wrong.

 

[johnnyd77]

Even if it is, site design has little to do with earnings. As long as the message is clear and the design is not that ugly.

I totally dont agree with this.

If a restaurant serves good hamburgers, but the building and the interior is dirty, old color, crappy atmosphere, will you still eat those hamburgers ?

I personally wont.

Design is part of the trust process. If it doesnt bring trust, how are you going to make any sales?

My point is not to invest all your money into design. But those 3 knife sites are ugly. I would not buy from them because I dont trust them enough.

Same thing goes with site structure. You want to make a structure meant for your audience, so it increases the trust. You want to be a figure of authority at the eye of your audience.

 

[quartz]

Been a while since I've chimed in but I read the previous two pages and I like Danny's idea, it's motivational (at least for me) to see earnings and it would be fun to see what other people are making. This month amazon sales have been bad for me, my rankings fell a lot for some of my larger keywords (I haven't been link building) and I haven't had time to work on my sites much because of other projects. I have two sites that make money (last month's earnings were around $150)

authority site (multiple keywords) / electronics / 5 months old / organic traffic / ~$70
micro niche site / electronics / 3 months old /craigslist traffic / ~ $25

 

[justme2013]

Slightly off topic - ive read the thread twice and used searched but cant find an answer so excuse me if it has already been asked.

For those with multiple sites - is there an easy way to copy everything from one wordpress installation to another (ie -duplicate/clone one site to another server/WP installation)

I tried googling but it ranges from moving the folder and messing with databases to using plugins to duplicate it. If anyone knows a simple or half easy way to do it they would be doing me a favour and save me a lot of time trying different things that might not even work.

At the minute im doing everything by hand - adding plugins, editing php, adding menus etc etc... surely there is an easier way to duplicate your blogs - where all your settings are saved and you just change the header etc and add content?

 

[Danny1111]

CMS Commander does that - but someone else pointed out something that was free -- there are also plenty of clone products if you search for them.

 

[audioguy]

Have you tried ugly long form sales letter? Design has to support content, not the other way around.

http://www.marketingexperiments.com...-research-topics/call-to-action-location.html

And oh, what is this ugly website

http://www.drudgereport.com/

It's in 500th most popular sites on earth.

Don't get me wrong. I don't mean you should overlook design and skip that. No but you can start with ugly. Then when your site performs, launch a new design. Tidy it a bit.

Launch fast. Launch a bunch (or whatever tasks more important). Then based on your results, adjust.

I don't care losing some customers at first, but I'll save hours and hours by not wasting time on design.

Ideally I wish I have the resources to be like Basecamp.com. Their pages always look very attractive, even they try to push visitors to sign up immediately. From time to time they test new layouts but still very eye pleasing but remember for every beautiful site, there are ugly sites that work out there.

Direct response marketer will argue about how a simple post card works better than beautiful post card. In the former, people actually look at the message instead of just glimpse on it and spend more time on the beautiful post card pictures.

That's why I have friends who still use XSitePro. Looks like websites from 90ish, but due to speed, they rank very well and make money. One reason is because of speed. Google puts a lot of weight on that nowadays, so chuck out those beautiful and bloated jQuery, if possible.

Guess I made my point.

Again i don't say there's an absolute truth in this. Just the way I operate. It works in my info business. And it will work in affiliate marketing too. I guess we can just agree to disagree.

I totally dont agree with this.

If a restaurant serves good hamburgers, but the building and the interior is dirty, old color, crappy atmosphere, will you still eat those hamburgers ?

I personally wont.

Design is part of the trust process. If it doesnt bring trust, how are you going to make any sales?

My point is not to invest all your money into design. But those 3 knife sites are ugly. I would not buy from them because I dont trust them enough.

Same thing goes with site structure. You want to make a structure meant for your audience, so it increases the trust. You want to be a figure of authority at the eye of your audience.

 

[jtdoesit]

Yep, I disagree

Have you tried ugly long form sales letter? Design has to support content, not the other way around.

http://www.marketingexperiments.com...-research-topics/call-to-action-location.html

And oh, what is this ugly website

http://www.drudgereport.com/

It's in 500th most popular sites on earth.

Don't get me wrong. I don't mean you should overlook design and skip that. No but you can start with ugly. Then when your site performs, launch a new design. Tidy it a bit.

Launch fast. Launch a bunch (or whatever tasks more important). Then based on your results, adjust.

I don't care losing some customers at first, but I'll save hours and hours by not wasting time on design.

Ideally I wish I have the resources to be like Basecamp.com. Their pages always look very attractive, even they try to push visitors to sign up immediately. From time to time they test new layouts but still very eye pleasing but remember for every beautiful site, there are ugly sites that work out there.

Direct response marketer will argue about how a simple post card works better than beautiful post card. In the former, people actually look at the message instead of just glimpse on it and spend more time on the beautiful post card pictures.

That's why I have friends who still use XSitePro. Looks like websites from 90ish, but due to speed, they rank very well and make money. One reason is because of speed. Google puts a lot of weight on that nowadays, so chuck out those beautiful and bloated jQuery, if possible.

Guess I made my point.

Again i don't say there's an absolute truth in this. Just the way I operate. It works in my info business. And it will work in affiliate marketing too. I guess we can just agree to disagree.