If you want to build a successful online business, then the most effective way is to partner with other people who are already doing what you're planning to accomplish. That's where affiliates come in. They help others sell products and services for big businesses like Amazon, eBay, Google AdSense, etc., without having to worry about delivery or customer service.
In this article we'll show how easy it is to become an affiliate and learn more about creating an Amazon affiliate website. We will also explain why affiliate sites don't actually generate any income themselves. So keep reading!
Affiliate marketing requires two main things: traffic and sales leads. With these tools at hand, anyone can set up their own profitable affiliate website and begin earning money from home.
The easiest method of generating high-quality targeted visitors is by using pay per click (PPC) advertising methods such as search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing, video marketing, text link ads, banner advertisements, and ezine advertising. These techniques work best when combined together so be sure to try them all out until you find one which works well for you. It may take some time before you see results but if you stick with it, eventually you will succeed.
Once you have created your first affiliate website, focus on promoting only quality products instead of offering every product under the sun just because they might give you one extra commission here and there. Only promote highly relevant products related to your niche market. This ensures maximum profits since customers won't get confused trying to figure out what exactly you were talking about.
When starting your new affiliate website, consider adding reviews pages where you review different types of items available on Amazon. If possible, provide a short overview of each item including its benefits, features, pros & cons along with honest opinions. You could even write a few paragraphs discussing certain aspects that would appeal to potential buyers. Reviews are very helpful for both existing and prospective customers alike. They tell users whether an item meets expectations, has defects, or simply isn't worth buying. And yes, they can serve as testimonials for future promotions. You should also include plenty of pictures and videos whenever possible. People love visuals so providing images and clips can really boost conversions.
There are many ways to get started building an Amazon Affiliates Website. One popular option is to use WordPress.org. There are hundreds of themes available that offer everything from full-width sliders to sidebars and single column layouts. Even better, once you've installed the theme, you can easily customize it according to your preferences. Since you're not bound to the restrictions of prewritten code, you can completely change the appearance of your blog to suit your needs.
Another great advantage of using WordPress is that thousands of plugins exist which you can install to expand upon your website functionality. For example, there are several useful wordpress SEO plugins that allow you to optimize your content for major keywords within minutes. Additionally, many of the top rated wordpress plugins revolve around monetization options. A good place to look for these is our Best Wordpress Plugins page.
Since you probably know how to properly create HTML webpages, choosing a simple domain name and hosting package shouldn't pose too much trouble. But if you need assistance setting up your own self-hosted private server, you can always hire a professional. Or else you can opt for a hosted solution such as Site Rubix and HostGator. Both of these companies specialize in helping individuals quickly launch their own personal websites.
A final note about using WordPress - while it makes sense to choose a popular platform like Blogger or Tumblr during the early stages of developing your website, once you gain traction it's generally easier to migrate away from those platforms due to lack of support. Don't waste years of hard work migrating away later down the road. Just follow my advice and host your own custom domain right off the bat!
Here are two quick tips which will save you lots of effort when creating your first Amazon Affiliate Website:
Always maintain a consistent design throughout your entire website. Avoid switching back and forth between tabs. In fact, avoid changing anything whatsoever unless absolutely necessary. Users expect consistency so treat your website like a brand.
Avoid overloading your homepage with excessive information. Limit yourself to 2-3 featured articles, 1/4th of a sidebar widget area, 3-5 additional widgets, and no more than 5 external links. Otherwise, confuse readers and cause unnecessary stress. Remember, less is often more.
No, unfortunately you cannot run an affiliate website purely based on commissions alone. Without making actual purchases, your website will never turn into a real cash cow. However, many people think that running an affiliate website means getting rich overnight. Unfortunately, it doesn't work this way either. Here's why...
Let's say you receive $50 per sale generated via your website. Now let's assume another person comes across your webpage and decides to buy something after seeing your ad. Let's further suppose he orders a pair of shoes costing $90. Your total earnings for this particular transaction amount to $70 ($50 + $20 = $70). But wait! What happened to the remaining $10? Did someone steal it? No, you lost it to your shopping cart fees.
And yet again, what happens if that same visitor buys three pairs of shoes totaling $150? Well now your total earnings increase to $140 ($50+$80= $130), plus a bit of profit left over for taxes. See how this cycle goes forever? As long as you continue spending money on advertising costs, you'll end up losing more money than ever.
So how did you end up in this mess in the first place? Why aren't you profiting from your efforts? Simple, you haven't taken the time to research your target market thoroughly enough. Unless you understand which demographics tend to spend most of their money, you'll likely lose money rather than make it.
Luckily, there are numerous tools available today that will help you analyze consumer behavior patterns. The best ones are detailed below:
Google Analytics: This tool provides loads of statistics regarding user activity on your website. Most importantly, it reveals which areas require improvement. For instance, if you notice that 90% of your clicks happen inside the "Shopping Cart" tab, perhaps you should rethink your choice of topic. On the flipside, if 10 percent of your hits occur outside the Shopping Carts section, maybe you should reconsider your approach.
Moz Pro Tools: Another excellent tool dedicated solely to analyzing your traffic data. Its standout feature is the ability to track multiple campaigns simultaneously. MozProTools shows you exactly which pages convert the highest, generates the most revenue, and gives you valuable insights into your competitors' strategies. Although it's quite expensive, MozProTools is definitely worth investing in given its remarkable return rate.
Conclusion
If you want to get started in the world of online marketing, there are some things you need to know about it before diving into the deep end. One of these is how to set up an amazon affiliate account and what's required if you're going to be selling their products yourself. This article will help explain all this in detail as well as give you tips on where to find quality content for your new business.
There are several ways you could go when setting up your own affiliate website or blog. You could use WordPress (which we'll discuss later), but there are other tools out there like Wix which have also been proven effective at driving traffic to affiliate sites. If you choose to work with someone else rather than build from scratch, they should provide you with hosting options so you don't have to worry about any technical issues. These days many people prefer using web hosts like GoDaddy because they offer great customer support, although there are others who swear by BlueHost.
It doesn't matter whether you decide to purchase hosting services or not though -- once you've chosen a domain name you must then register it with one of the major domain registrars such as Godaddy, NameCheap, etc. This may seem pretty straightforward, but in my experience most people either forget to renew their domains after buying them or just aren't aware that you need to pay annual fees to keep them registered. Don't let this happen to you! It won't take long to figure out how easy it is to buy a domain and host it properly if you follow my instructions below.
Once you've purchased your domain name you'll then need to install a blogging platform onto your server. There are dozens of platforms available that cater to different needs and preferences, but today I'm only interested in recommending two: Wordpress (WP) and Joomla!. Both are very powerful open-source CMSs designed specifically to allow users to easily customize pages and add functionality without having extensive knowledge of HTML coding. We'll talk more about why choosing between WP & Joomla! later. For now, it suffices to say that both systems have plenty of tutorials available online that walk you through installing plugins, uploading media files, creating categories/posts, adding images, editing templates, etc. Once you've installed WordPress or Joomla!, you can begin building your website right away.
I recommend starting off by writing short articles related to whatever niche you intend to target. Write about something related to your product/service that gives potential customers enough information to feel confident purchasing. Remember: You're trying to sell stuff here, not promote it. After you write your initial content, copy paste it over to your newly created website using FTP software like FileZilla. Make sure you change the file names appropriately however. Next upload photos to your site using image resizers such as ResizeMe [Broken URL Removed] or PicResize. Now simply fill out the rest of your page with relevant text links pointing back to your main salespage. When you finish, remember to preview everything first to check for errors before publishing anything live.
Now that you've got your basic website built, you can focus on getting visitors. In order to drive targeted traffic towards your site, consider investing in Google AdWords. Although this method isn't perfect, it certainly beats spending money on advertising space on Facebook or Craigslist, which tend to attract random people looking for hookups instead of those actually intending to buy your products. Another popular way to generate organic search engine traffic is to submit your website link to social bookmarking websites like Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, etc., but again, you really shouldn't rely solely on these methods. At best, they might bring you 1 visitor per month. Instead try following our guide on SEO techniques to increase rankings and see results within weeks.
With that said, you still need to ensure that your site looks professional. People are bombarded daily with hundreds of thousands of ads promoting cheap electronics deals or weight loss pills even though they probably already know exactly what kind of device they'd like. They usually ignore these ads because they believe that "if it was good enough for Steve Jobs, it's good enough for me." A huge part of the equation involves making sure your site has a clean design and layout. As far as colors go, stick with white backgrounds unless you absolutely need to include color. Black tends to blend together with surroundings better than any other shade, especially against dark colored background. Also avoid bright red fonts since they contrast poorly against black and blue, which are typically used in headers. Finally, make sure all links lead somewhere useful. Most importantly, make sure your homepage loads quickly. No one likes waiting 30 seconds for a single webpage to load!
One last tip you should heed while designing your website is to always strive to have no duplicate content whatsoever. Duplicate content occurs whenever you publish identical copies of existing posts on multiple locations across the Internet. Even worse, duplicate content often appears under completely unrelated titles and URLs, further confusing readers who expect unique entries. Search engines like Google penalize websites containing large amounts of duplicate content, so if you plan on generating income via clicks on your links, it would behoove you to remove duplicates wherever possible. With that said, having duplicate content isn't necessarily bad. Many bloggers post similar material on their blogs due to copyright restrictions. Whatever the case, duplicate content does little for increasing your visibility in search engines.
You can use prewritten articles posted elsewhere on the Web to replace original content, but bear in mind that you will lose ad revenue if you choose to do this. Simply cut and paste the pieces of content into your own blog entry without altering word counts or removing advertisements.
In conclusion, affiliate programs are extremely lucrative if done correctly. However, it takes time and hard work to learn how to market effectively. Fortunately, there are countless resources available online that teach affiliates how to maximize profits. Best of luck to everyone!
Have questions regarding how to set up an amazon associate website? Feel free to comment below!
If you are a webmaster, then I am sure at least once in your life time you have heard about the term "affiliate marketing". But what is it really and how does it work? An affiliate marketer is someone who promotes other people's products or services for commission (a percentage of the sales price). In order to promote these products/services, they need access to them first. So where can we find such products/services? It is all thanks to one of the largest shopping websites ever created - Amazon.com!
Amazon has been around since 1994, but only became popular after starting its online retailing business in 1995. Nowadays, it sells everything from books to electronics, clothing, food products and more. As of 2012, there were over 20 million active affiliates selling product across millions of items sold per month by Amazon. That means anyone with a website could be considered as an Amazon affiliate marketer. And if you want even better things, why not consider creating your own website based on Amazon's template and start promoting Amazon products yourself.
But before getting into this topic further, let me tell you something else... There are many ways to become an Amazon affiliate marketer. You can either join their affiliate program directly or use any of the available software programs to help automate some tasks. Either way, here is a step-by-step guide on how to become an Amazon affiliate marketer using Wordpress.
Before diving into the steps, let me explain briefly what Amazon affiliate link looks like and how it works. When you click on an item on Amazon, ecommerce giant will redirect you to third party seller's page. This is called "secure" because it uses HTTPS encryption, which ensures that no unauthorized person might intercept your sensitive information while communicating with merchant's server. Your browser identifies secure transactions automatically so that you don't accidentally submit your credit card number when checking out. On top of that, most merchants offer refunds within 90 days so that you won't lose money due to frauds. However, if the transaction fails for any reason, you may contact Amazon support team for assistance.
Now that you know what kind of links look like, lets move on to the next part of this article. First thing you should learn is how to get Amazon Affiliates Program.
There are two ways to sign up as an Amazon affiliate:
1) Directly joining Amazon's affiliate program
2) Using WordPress plugin to generate Amazon Associates Links
Both methods require you to set up a new account with Amazon, and provide personal details including name, address, email etc. Once done, visit your dashboard and choose "Affiliate Programs", followed by "Get Started With Amazon". Then select "Create New Account" button. After filling in required fields, hit "Next Step". From now onwards, whenever you see an Amazon product being mentioned in this article, please assume that I'm talking about those items offered under "Create New Account" option.
After signing up, you'll receive instructions via email regarding the types of content allowed on your blog or website. These guidelines include:
Only write articles related to the topics covered by Amazon, i.e., fashion accessories, baby toys, pet supplies etc.
Only post original content. Original content includes images taken from public domain sources or stock photos provided by royalty-free image sites like Unsplash.
Write reviews instead of just posting an ad. A good review would inform readers about pros and cons of certain products, thus enabling them make informed purchasing decisions.
Don't add too many ads along side the article body. Keep them minimal and relevant. Too many ads distract reader's attention away from main focus of reading the article.
Do NOT insert Amazon links anywhere outside the text box. If you're unsure about where to put the links, simply paste the URL of the product you wish to promote inside quotation marks (""). For example, if you wanted to talk about camera lens, type "[http://www.amazon.co.uk]lens" without closing bracket."
The best practice when writing articles is to avoid keyword stuffing. Avoid repeating keywords too often throughout the entire article. Instead of saying "camera lens," say "buy cheap digital cameras." Also, try to keep sentence structures simple. Use short sentences separated by commas rather than long run-on paragraphs. Make the length of the article proportional to the subject matter. Short articles generally attract higher traffic because users tend to read fewer pages per session compared to lengthy ones.
It is also important to note that Amazon affiliates cannot sell physical goods themselves. They can only recommend certain products to customers. All they can do is send potential buyers to the official sellers' website. Therefore, if you plan on running a site solely dedicated to selling Amazon products, you must register separately with Amazon.
Once registered, you'll receive a special code allowing you to track unique visitors coming from specific locations or categories of products you've selected. To activate tracking feature, go to your Dashboard > Click on Tracking Code > Select appropriate options depending upon the location(s) / category(ies) you'd like to monitor.
Another great feature offered by Amazon is the ability to customize banners. Simply navigate to "Design & Edit Banners" section on your dashboard and follow the instruction given in the screen. Alternatively, you can download pre-made banner templates directly from your dashboard.
And lastly, another tip I learned during my research is always check whether the affiliate product you intend to promote is still available. Most often times, discontinued products are removed from marketplace quickly due to low demand. Hence, it is advisable to take extra measures when selecting suitable products to endorse.
As previously stated, you can either apply directly with Amazon itself or use software tools to assist you. Both approaches result in identical payout structure. Here's what you'll get every month:
Month 1: $0.00
Month 2: 10% ($10.40)
Month 3: 15% ($15.59)
Month 4: 25% ($25.35)
Month 5: 35% ($36.50)
Month 6: 50% ($51.96)
Month 7: 65% ($69.12)
Month 8: 85% ($94.44)
Month 9: 110%($125.71)
Month 10: 140%($179.14)
Month 11: 180%($227.86)
Month 12: 220%($278.89)
Note: Please bear in mind that actual payment amount varies according to the total number of qualified purchases generated monthly. Qualified purchase refers to a customer visiting your blog or website, making a purchase and providing his shipping address.
Also, remember that Amazon pays twice a year. Usually January and July. Payment amount differs slightly between both months. For instance, July payouts are usually bigger than Jan payouts.
I never thought I'd hear myself uttering such words. No, you don't have to spend a dime setting up an Amazon Associate account or installing any software application. Even though most of us think otherwise, becoming an Amazon associate isn't as difficult as it seems. Just follow the easy steps outlined above and soon enough you'll begin earning handsome bucks. Best of luck!
Just follow our battle-tested guidelines and rake in the profits.