It is very important to educate yourself on the best ways to promote and market your affiliate programs. Most people find that by improving their website and learning the correct techniques for marketing their products, they are able to make money quickly.
In this post, we review How To Start An Affiliate Marketing With Amazon, amazon affiliate program requirements, and is amazon affiliate marketing profitable.
How To Start An Affiliate Marketing With Amazon
Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular ways people make money online. It is a strategy where an individual partners with a business in order to make a commission by referring readers or visitors to a business’s particular product or service. But that really is quite a simple explanation. To be really successful at making money with affiliate marketing there is a little more to it.
Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular ways people make money online. It is a strategy where an individual partners with a business in order to make a commission by referring readers or visitors to a business’s particular product or service. But that really is quite a simple explanation. To be really successful at making money with affiliate marketing there is a little more to it.
First, let me explain what affiliate marketing actually is:
It is simply when someone pays you to promote their products and services for them (affiliates). You will find many different kinds of affiliates including bloggers, YouTube channels and even Instagram influencers who are promoting products on behalf of certain brands through sponsored posts etcetera which pay them commission when someone clicks through one of those links and makes purchase on Amazon (affiliate link).
Choosing the product was easy. But that was only step one! The real question was, would people purchase the products from her? Could she sell them?
Choosing the product was easy. But that was only step one! The real question was, would people purchase the products from her? Could she sell them?
She started with a few small items and began advertising on Amazon. She had no idea what she was doing, so it wasn’t long before I realized my mistake: I had picked a product that didn’t have much demand. In other words…I lost money because I gained no sales!
I quickly sold off those products and moved onto something else. This time around I made sure to do some research first so as not make any mistakes again.
An affiliate marketing program is a lot of work, and in most situations there’s a lot of competition so you’re not going to be bringing in money immediately. Business owners and entrepreneurs suppose that all you need do is setup a site and choose an affiliate to associate with and then just let it run its course. But according to Three Ladders Marketing, only 0.6% of affiliate marketers surveyed have been in the game since 2013. That means that affiliate marketing takes time and effort to build and make money.
Before you can even think about making money from your website, you need to select the best affiliate program for your website and product.
It’s important to choose a niche that will not only be profitable for you but also for your readers. If the niche isn’t profitable enough, then no one will be interested in buying it. You should also make sure that there are plenty of products available in this niche before committing yourself to creating content related to it.
If there are too few products available, then people won’t be able to find what they’re looking for on your site – which could hurt sales at first because no traffic means no visitors means no sales!
In order to start any type of effective affiliate marketing strategy, what you need right now is access to products that will help you acquire some profit later on down the road. Whether you are looking for physical products, digital products or services allow me to guide you through some resources that can help you get started on your own journey without spending any money for anything other than your domain name and hosting provider.
In order to start any type of effective affiliate marketing strategy, what you need right now is access to products that will help you acquire some profit later on down the road. Whether you are looking for physical products, digital products or services allow me to guide you through some resources that can help you get started on your own journey without spending any money for anything other than your domain name and hosting provider.
First things first: In order to actually make money selling anything online (or offline) there has to be something available for sale in the first place. This means that if all else fails then we will have at least something out there with which we can begin our mission!
amazon affiliate program requirements
Get your page speed, crawling, and all 11 important parts of SEO right for greater online visibility and higher search rankings.
Getting the key elements of SEO right can help you win clients, conversions, and sales.
Are there only 11 parts of SEO you need to know? Far from it.
However, getting these important pieces right is a great start. It’ll put you well on your way to implementing the best possible SEO strategy for you and your clients.
1. Your Audience & Industry
Your primary industry and its audience should be the number one consideration behind any viable SEO strategy.
These questions and more will determine your next steps in forming your SEO strategy and these various moving parts will soon come into full focus as you nail down what to do next.
2. Keyword Research
As you nail down your audience and industry norms for SEO, keyword research is necessary to pinpoint the best possible user intent to go after and find what your audience is searching for.
But, not only that, what your audience searches for is just as important as how they search for it. Subtle shifts in keyword research can make or break an SEO strategy.
And you better have a firm grasp of the norms in terms of industry market shifts, as well as buyer personas and how they impact the overall SEO strategy.
3. User Intent
User intent behind keywords is the next thing that is absolutely vital to the success of any SEO campaign.
For example, let’s say that your audience normally searches for “widgets that I want to put together” as a primary starting point.
But, throughout your keyword research, you find variations for “widgets for sale,” “DIY Widgets,” and “widgets that get things done”. Each of these variations results in at least a ten-fold increase in searches leading back to your landing page.
It would be a good idea to integrate these into the overall SEO process, now, wouldn’t it?
If you hadn’t done this keyword research and made adjustments based on market shifts in audience search behavior, you likely would not have found these deeper keywords that were worth targeting.
It’s all in how you approach how deep you want to go in keyword research. The deeper you go, the better opportunities you may end up eventually uncovering.
4. Analytics and Reporting
If you can’t report on results that the campaign achieves accurately, then how can you expect to make the accurate adjustments that an SEO campaign requires?
Let’s also get real about something else. Some industries don’t require by the day or even by the week adjustments to keyword strategy. Most industries don’t even require adjustments every six months.
But, if you’re in a rapidly changing industry where the market shifts quickly, it may be important to integrate a quarterly or even bi-monthly keyword research task into your SEO process so that you know exactly what audiences are searching for next.
How does this fit into analytics reporting? When you attribute keywords and landing pages, it is easy to see exactly what keywords and landing pages are primary drivers of your SEO process execution and your overall SEO strategy.
By doing this effectively, it is possible to make adjustments properly and eventually find the next big thing in your market industry shift.
This is why it is so important to get analytics reporting correct. If your analytics reports that you get approximately 6,000 visits a month in bot traffic, have you really been successful at all?
5. Mobile SEO
The mobile-first index is Google’s de-facto standard for search, with a focus on mobile websites in its mobile-first index.
It is important to note that this does not exclude desktop – desktop sites will still perform in search results if they are the best result for the query. But, Google’s move to mobile-first signifies the beginning of a new era – an era of dumbed-down search results for the masses.
Just a warning and it is this author’s opinion: you may be shocked that I said that. Dumbed-down? But aren’t they supposed to be going smarter? Well, unfortunately, mobile is part of the lowest common denominator in search now.
No longer will web designers have great canvases to create amazing website designs. Everything will pretty much lean towards one standard – iPhone or Android, and you’d better make sure that everything works fine on both, or else.
Aside from my rant on the evils of mobile SEO (I do apologize), while it is unfortunate that Google has chosen to go in this direction, forsaking all that is beautiful for a few measly increases in visits, this is an important aspect of SEO to get right.
As Google’s mobile index grows beyond the first several waves, we can expect to see algorithm shifts and updates just as we did with the normal index.
Now, m-dot (m.domain.com) mobile websites are not recommended and should go the way of the dodo. Aside from major issues with duplicate content, these types of mobile sites can also introduce canonical URL issues with indexation, and many other issues.
It is recommended by this author that all sites adopt a best-practice of mobile-friendly, responsive designs moving forward.
The reasoning behind this is that it gives all versions of your site an equal opportunity to get indexed and remain competitive in the coming mobile-first index.
5b. Google’s Upcoming Core Web Vitals Update
Just in case you have been living on a desert island without access to SEO resources for a few months, Google’s set to launch their latest page speed update in May, called “Core Web Vitals.”
What, exactly, are core web vitals?
These are a set of speed metrics designed to help webmasters enhance the performance of their pages.
The metrics described by core web vitals include:
All of these metrics will be front and center in Google’s latest upcoming Core Web Vitals update. While it won’t necessarily cause significant chaos, this is likely to shift the focus on page speed from an afterthought to an integrated point of optimization.
Be sure to get your websites ready for Google’s upcoming Core Web Vitals update in May!
6. Crawling
If your website architecture is out-of-whack, or your internal linking is off, or if you don’t even have a sitemap.xml file (shame on you), it will be difficult for search engines to crawl your site.
In addition, major issues with 404 errors on the site can hurt crawling and indexing as well.
Other issues include technical implementations that prevent spiders from crawling the site. One obvious solution for most SEO pros is making sure the following line is removed from robots.txt:
This is entirely different from the “disallow: ” directive. While the difference is subtle, the meaning behind both can mean the difference between successful crawling and indexing of your site.
The first directive tells your server to disallow all search engines from crawling your site.
The second will allow all robots complete access.
This is why it is so important to make sure that your site is 100 percent functional, and crawlable from the start.
Don’t wait until an audit reveals that you missed a step during the setup of your new site. That will make you look silly.
is amazon affiliate marketing profitable
For years, Amazon has been the undisputed king of the $12 billion affiliate marketing industry. The Amazon Associates affiliate marketing earning made thousands of marketers rich. Although that overlordship was struck when they decided to cut back commission rates in 2017, they have decided to slash the commission rates for some categories again.
Since Amazon claims themselves as the most significant affiliate program in the world, and most of their sales come through the affiliate program, many affiliate marketers are left wondering if Amazon affiliate marketing earning is still attractive enough after this decision.
Sit tight if you have the same question(s). This article is exclusively crafted to answer all of them!
Here’s a quick overview of what we will discuss throughout the article:
Earning with Amazon Affiliate Marketing: An in-depth Study
The commission rate may be one of the attractive factors for affiliate marketers. But it certainly isn’t the only one. You can generate thousands of affiliate revenues in a few months, or all of your efforts may result in nothing at all! It can go both ways.
Your earnings on Amazon affiliate marketing can depend on a lot of factors. I will discuss those factors, how earning works in Amazon affiliate marketing, and what you can do for better results. So by the end of the article, you’ll know what to expect in Amazon affiliate marketing.
1. Things to Consider Before Choosing a Platform
Most affiliate marketing efforts are solely purposed to generate a smart flow of passive income. If you want to find out if an affiliate platform is profitable, you need to know what makes up for a good affiliate platform.
Commission Rate
The higher the commission rate, the higher the revenue. It’s as simple as that. Good affiliate marketers always consider the commission rate as one of the prime factors. If you want to make the most out of every sale you make, it would be foolish not to consider the commission rates.
Products Available
Unless there’s a wide range of choices, all your marketing efforts might fail under high competition. Let alone the competition; you won’t even find your desired niche if there’s not enough product. So it’s essential to choose an affiliate platform that offers a wide selection of products.
Reputation and Security
Building your reputation is one thing, but if your audience doesn’t trust the platform you’re sending them to, they will hesitate to buy from there. Besides, everyone would want to buy in a secure environment. If your affiliate platform doesn’t qualify as a reputable and secured one, your marketing efforts are likely to go in vain.
Payment Methods
Payment methods are possibly one of the most expected features of any affiliate platform. Both your buyer and you need ways to pay or to get paid. If an affiliate program fails to offer a few conventional payment methods, you risk losing sales, and your audience will lose the opportunity to buy products that you’ve promoted.
Cookie Duration
Cookie duration is a calculation process in which an affiliate program calculates if you are qualified to get the commission or not. For example, if you have promoted a product of an affiliate platform that stores a user’s cookie for three days, you will get the commission if your audience buys the product within three days.
The feature comes handy, especially if your audience doesn’t make the purchase imminently but make a plan to buy the product in the recent future. Most online shoppers like to hang a bit before making a purchase, and that’s why good affiliate marketers always consider cookie duration as a vital element of an affiliate program.
2. What is Amazon Affiliate Marketing?
We all know that marketing is promoting a product, and Amazon affiliate marketing is no different. Amazon affiliate marketing is a way of earning commissions by promoting products that are available on Amazon.
If you have a website, YouTube channel, or blog, you can sign up to amazon associates right now and start promoting from Amazon’s wide range of products to earn commissions.
Since the beginning of the program in 1996, Amazon associates have paid out more than $1,00,000 to at least 1,68,000 of its associates(AKA Affiliates), according to Statista. So it does make some sense to start as an amazon affiliate, right?
About Slashing the Commission Rates
Although Amazon associates marginally lost its popularity due to the setback in 2017 (decreasing affiliate commission rates for multiple categories), it still holds the topmost position for the most popular affiliate program with over 1 million active affiliates!
Despite the recent changes to commission rates, the number of Amazon affiliates kept increasing. If you want to know the reason, you should move to the next section to understand how earning with the Amazon affiliate program works.
3. How Earning With the Amazon Affiliate Program Work?
Earning with the Amazon affiliate program works the way most affiliate programs do. As I have said earlier, If you have a blog or YouTube channel with reasonable traffic, becoming an Amazon associate is a pretty straightforward process.
Once you’ve done that, you can find your desired product from Amazon and get your unique affiliate links. It is a pay per sale affiliate program that will pay you commission on each sale coming from your affiliate links.
But what you may not know is that the sold product doesn’t necessarily have to be the product you have promoted. As long as the shoppers enter into Amazon from one of your affiliate links, you will get paid for whatever they buy within 24 hours.
Wait, I know what you are thinking, 24 hours is a pretty short time, and it’s unnatural that your audience would buy a product within 24 hours in 2020. However, Amazon took care of that part too!
How?
If you were able to catch your audience’s attention, it’s very likely that they will add the product to their shopping cart. In case they did that, Amazon will extend the cookie duration period from 24 hours to 90 days. Which means you will still get the commission if they make the purchase within those 90 days.
The reason why Amazon is so generous to affiliates is that 53% of all Amazon sales comes from affiliate marketing. Why would they worry over paying small commissions as long as they are making much more from sales?
That’s not all; there are a few reasons why the Amazon associates program is so popular. Let’s find them out!
4. Why is the Amazon Associates Program So Popular?
By now, you may have understood that Amazon associate is the World’s Biggest Affiliate Program. There are a number of reasons and statistics which will justify that statement perfectly:
Annual Net Revenue
Amazon’s annual net revenue has hit the $280 billion mark by the end of 2019. It would be surprising if they don’t hit the $300 billion mark by the end of this year!
Number of Products Sold Every Minute
On average, Amazon sells 4000 units per minute. The number is even more than the entire monthly sale of some top brands.
If I try to be approximate, 53% of that revenue came from third-party sellers, who are Affiliates!
Low Entry Barrier
Most beginners started their journey with Amazon, and much of that credit goes to Amazon’s low entry barrier for affiliates. You don’t have to have exceptional achievements in order to become an Amazon associate. All you need to have is a website or a YouTube channel with a decent number of audiences.
Unlimited Categories & Product Choices
If you’re looking to promote products, more than 350 million products are listed on Amazon from different retailers, local stores, Brands, and manufacturers for you.
Not just 350 million products, there are a lot of categories and countless sub-categories in Amazon. So no matter which category your expertise falls under, you will find it on Amazon!
Easier to Convince People
Since it is well established, it’s easier to convince people to buy from Amazon. Be it a guy next door or be it someone who doesn’t even know you, if they reach the Amazon store, they won’t hesitate to buy.
That’s because of the trust Amazon has built over the years; they don’t compromise anything regarding user experience, including the product, its shipment time, or the buyer’s personal information. All they need is people who are willing to make a decision. Obviously, that’s your part as an affiliate marketer to convert visits into your Amazon affiliate marketing earnings!
Best Conversion Optimization
Besides the fact that it’s easy to convince people to buy from Amazon, Amazon’s Store itself is highly optimized for sales! Every product page of Amazon contains some mind-blowing features that help customers make buying decisions.
If you want to know how, go to an Amazon product page. You’ll find all the necessary details of a product, such as specifications and images. People can also make use of the answers, ratings, and comparisons.
Personally, I’d only check the price and specifications of a product. But two features of Amazon always attract my attention. One is the combo deals, and the other one is, what others are purchasing!
For instance, if I want to buy a mobile phone, Amazon might suggest a combo deal, including the phone, earphones, and a storage card for a more affordable price! That would be more than a great deal for me as I’d love to have an earphone and a storage card for my phone! And again, I might be attracted to one of the products others are purchasing.
Since Amazon will reward an affiliate no matter what the prospect is purchasing, that shouldn’t be your concern! It’s a good deal for you as long as you’re earning as an Amazon affiliate marketer!
Consistent Source of Passive Income
As I said earlier, people trust Amazon and the service they provide. Once you’ve built a group of audience, people will start entering Amazon from your affiliate links.
Once they have a visitor, Amazon will take up from here and play their part intelligently to persuade people into buying. So you will start earning commissions on a very consistent basis.
Amazon Affiliate Sites Sell Quicker
So what if you’re not satisfied with the progress your website is making? Surely you’ll try to sell it instead of letting all your efforts go in vain, right?
Here comes the speciality, Amazon affiliate websites are much more likely to be sold at a high price than other affiliate websites. Average Amazon affiliate websites that merely make $500 profit/month can be sold for up to $25000! Who’d say no to a consistent source of passive income after all?
In addition to this, there are even more advantages to Amazon affiliate marketing. And if you’re not happy with the amount your Amazon affiliate marketing website is earning, you can still make the most out of it. That’s why Amazon Associates is the biggest affiliate program in the world, with nearly 200 million associates!
5. Selecting the Perfect Niche for Amazon Affiliate Website
One of the fundamental issues of affiliate marketing is the extreme competition. But if you can select a good niche, that won’t be an issue at all!
Less Competition, More Success
Even if you are an affiliate, you are doing business. If you are not investing much money, at least you will be spending your time in that business. Time is money, and there’s no point in investing without a return over your investment.
Keep this one simple rule in mind; the lower the competition is, the more you’re likely to succeed. So if you expect to earn money by affiliate marketing, you must choose a niche with low competition.
So try to do the research before you step into the market.
Is the Niche Profitable?
You might be able to choose a niche that isn’t that competitive. But it won’t make up for a good choice unless it is a profitable one. By profitable, I don’t necessarily mean a particular category which offers higher commission rates. A niche can still be profitable with lower commission rates.
For example, you may have decided to promote Musical instruments to your audiences. Your commission rate would be 4% lower compared to the current highest paying category(Digital Video Games, Luxury Beauty, Amazon Coins). But what if your niche products are priced at 2X more than products at the highest commission paying category? Yes, you’ll get 2% more commission!
That’s only one numerical example of a profitable niche. Selecting a profitable niche requires a more in-depth analysis, and you need to consider a lot more about any niche before you pick one.
Understand the Needs of Your Audience
Most people ignore this part, but one of the crucial elements of selecting a niche depends on understanding the needs of the targeted group of people. If you are promoting something, you need to put yourself in their shoes.
For example, suppose you want to promote kitchen appliances. But most of your website visitors are businessmen. In that case, your selected niche won’t get you much affiliate commissions.
So if you want to start a niche website, make sure that you understand the needs of your audiences, know their problems, and give them the right solutions. It will not only help your viewers, but will also build trust.
6. Best Practices to Drive Traffic into an Amazon Affiliate Website
I’ll get straight to the point. There’s no point in running a business without buyers on it. Unless you have a good amount of traffic who are willing to buy products, your marketing efforts won’t make sense. That’s why you need traffic and a lot of them!
Here’s what you can do to drive traffic into your website:
Produce High-quality Contents
As an affiliate marketer, you should be familiar with selling content. If you aren’t, selling content refers to producing high-quality contents that provide value for the audience.
Think about it, how often do you open a random website and actually read a post? Most general audiences only try to find the solution from a content. If that takes too long, they quickly make a switch. You should keep this in mind when creating content for your audience; selling a solution is much better than selling a product.
If you’ve looked at earlier statistics, you know that 200 million affiliates are promoting Amazon products. Only 40000 among them made at least $500000. People trust these affiliates and choose the solution(product) they offer through their contents. Not because they sell products, but because they provide them with solutions!
While most affiliate websites use a product-specific, hard to understand, spun contents only to spoil the user experience, these people make thousands by offering high-quality contents. If you want to be a successful Amazon affiliate, you must produce high-quality contents.
Invest in SEO
Regardless of what they need, be it a product or a solution to their problem, most people will try to find it from a search engine. If your affiliate website holds a high search ranking, they might seek that product or solution from your website.
One of the ways to appear in search engines is advertising in Search Engine Marketing. However, it requires higher spendings. Besides, it may not provide you with a stable audience, which is key to stable earning. Moreover, it’s not profitable to promote a product only to earn small commissions.
SEO is an efficient way of growing a stable audience. If you want to maximize the potential of your website, you should invest in SEO. You can find plenty of blogs and websites about how to do SEO, and if you still need help, it would be wise to hire a freelancer
Social Media Marketing
Although it’s not possible to advertise Amazon products through social media advertising, it’s possible to promote them organically. Most people don’t visit a website regularly. If you want to cover that gap, social media marketing can be an effective strategy.
That’s why you should have a dedicated Facebook page or a YouTube channel for your website’s followers. Everyone’s on social media, and it’s a great medium to keep in touch with your audience.
Build Email Subscribers List
Again, it’s unlikely that people will visit your websites regularly. While it’s already hard to drive the right type of audience, it’s almost impossible to control their actions. That’s why it’s crucial to utilize every marketing opportunity.
Building an email subscriber list is one of those opportunities which will help in keeping your audiences engaged. That’s why you should always try to convert your audience into your subscribers. Once they have done that, you can keep them updated with your new posts.