Passive income is a burning topic. The experts are pretty much divided on this. Does the passive income really exist and if does how passive is that? I won’t go into a debate on that BUT… We are going to discuss one pretty much passive income stream which not only allow to follow your passion but it is as scalable as it can be.
We all somehow jump into the online world with a falsely held belief shrouding our dreams or maybe manipulating our dream churning factory, that once we are in, we won’t be leaving without making money that lasts for a lifetime. This preconceived notion never allows us to delve into the subject properly to know it takes a great deal of effort and patience before you even consider yourself in the race to the fancied world.
An Amazon affiliate site is an affiliate program for Amazon.com, which means that you incur a commission on every sale through your referral link. You can embed this link in a Youtube channel, create a niche blog to review products and produce informational content to keep the audience engaged, or any website where you can recommend the Amazon product.
A concoction of the right amount of passion and adherence to the following steps will help you create an Amazon affiliate site that once erected on a firm footing will fulfill your dream of owning a lucrative site. Let’s get down to the 7 insanely actionable steps that set the path to the #1 e-retailer of all the products.
1. Finding a Profitable Niche
Your niche forms the pith and core of your website. It is not only dependent on what is your preferred topic for starting a site but also on what is trending and can generate you significant traffic. Including every single Amazon product would do your site no good.
To build a successful site, you will have to narrow down your market preferences and the products you wish to sell on Amazon. Niches can be categorized into High competition niches such as laptop niches, Medium competition niches such as home appliances, and Low competition niches clothes and accessories. This means you have to make a lot of effort in picking the right niche to move your way up the game.
2. Setting Up the Blog
Getting Domain Name and Web Hosting
With the hefty task of niche selection done, we next move to the construction of the website. Domain forms the prerequisite of a website. You have to come up with a smart domain name, which is short, precise, and brandable. It is a reflection of your website so you can get it for free online or you can contact your hosting company. Collaborating with a hosting company is hassle-free and affordable, so it is wise to contact one.
Next comes hosting. Go for a decent web hosting company which will be responsible for hosting all the files essential for the functioning of your site. Once you have your hosting account, all you have to do is enter your domain name, and you get access to WordPress.
Choosing a Theme and Design
With all the rudimentary tasks done, let’s get down to setting up your website.
Picking a theme and design of your website is a subjective matter, yet there are few things you can be mindful of so that you ace even in the minutest of details.
You can take ideas from other sites and see what suits your likes and dislikes. Just be moderate in your choice. Don’t make it very simple or go overboard, as both will create a bad impression upon your user. There are free sites such as GeneratePress, where you can let your creativity loose.
However, they come with certain limitations. If you are not on a very strict budget, you can also buy themes. Just be original in whatever you choose.
3. Amazon Associates Program
You can join the amazon associates that apart from following certain requirements comes with no strings attached. You are free to join without even any traffic on your site, all you need to do is answer a few questions and try making three sales within 180 days of joining Amazon. You don’t have to stress over not being able to make a sale as you can always rejoin.
The perk of joining amazon associates is that getting links is just a walk in a park. Just be vigilant and make sure you do not deviate from the rules and adhere to them at all times.
4. Producing Content Both Search Engine & Humans Love
We have come down to the most important and labor-intensive part of your website. It is what lures in the audience and makes you stand out among the rest of the sites. Do it yourself or get it outsourced, both will require a lot of effort and money. The higher quality of the content means a higher quality of your site, and both are mirror images of each other. Your content has the power to give you an edge over your competitors.
Brainstorming the Content Ideas & Scheduling Content Calendar
Before you get down to writing content for your site, it is imperative to search for keywords upon which you can base your content. You have to analyze the content competitiveness so that you have an idea of how long or short your articles need to be. While drafting content, it is imperative not to drift away from the purpose of the content. You are both a validator and a recommender, as it is you who would be pushing or barring someone from buying a product. Go for a mild tone, convincing but honest so that it sounds coming from a professional.
The two types of content that are used to populate the site.
Commercial Content
These mainly include the roundups explained below and are an excellent source for affiliate links. Make sure you don’t go high on this with a lot of affiliate links as you can end up being banned by Amazon.
Single Product Comprehensive Review
The comprehensive reviews are there to guide your audience and give them all the information that they need to know. It is also to convince them to buy the product, so you have to be careful of your tone. Be vigilant when covering all aspects of the product, any information that the amazon site might be missing, and a very neutral verdict that informs them of all the benefits and drawbacks.
In short, you pick a product and covers everything under the sun regarding that product. Every single aspect. Review it in as much detail as possible. Typicalling talking about who is the ideal consumer for this, who should buy this and who not, the pros, the cons, features and what not. Customer would have probably made the buying decision already but you help them educate more and put the final nail in the coffin.
Round-ups Posts
Here you compare two or more top-selling products to guide your readers. This is to help them pick a product that is closer to what they wish to have. You can put a few elements from a comprehensive review, but your aim is to highlight the differences.
Round-ups and listicle posts are popular as they are easy to read and saves time by directly referring to the bullet of your choice. This ease is why they are shared and preferred more, which means you end up with a lot of traffic on your site.
Eg: “Best Gaming Laptop Under $800” is a keyword having around 3000 searches and medium competition. The user intent clearly shows that the audience is probably looking for a gaming laptop under $800. So, in the article, the editor put together a round post on the topic and reviewed 10 gaming laptops which gamers should probably consider and making it easy for them to make a calculated and educated buying decision.
Informational Content
The informational content encompasses all the other kinds of content. If you focus too much on commercial content that bursts with affiliate links, you can embrace yourself for the dislike of Google and Amazon. Such content barely adds value to the internet. Therefore, it is where the informational content comes in handy.
The how-to-posts zero in your target market by introducing them to the techniques and methods of using a product. These strategies are also devised to help them take benefit from a product through different uses.
5. On-Page SEO
By this time, you have your website, and both content ready, what you need to know is how to structure your site and fit in the material for optimum on-page optimization.
You have two methods of structuring your site. Some people prefer using the static homepage to target the prominent keywords. This means your Homepage is going to be laden with keywords, which includes the menu and sidebars that link to internal pages that will be targeting secondary keywords. The other way of structuring your site might use the Homepage or not, as it will showcase internal pages that will target the keywords.
The latter method is more suitable and popular as it allows the creation of broader sites that encompasses a broad range of products within the common niche. Create a catchy title with the keyword closer to the beginning. Do not under or over-optimize a page, and you are good to go.
6. Link Building & Outreach to Increase Website (SEO) Authority
Time to shine! Now that you own a functional site, another mandatory step is to make it visible to the audience. To make sure that all the people are searching for products that are available on your site, you have to bring it on the top of the search lists of the various search engines such as Google. Now how do we do that? The answer lies in link building!
Be careful when you do this as there are many spammy packages out there to put a smokescreen around you. The best link building ways are:
- Community site links: Here, you post your content along with your link on a community site. Finding a community site is not a hair-splitting process as they are in abundance. You have to register with the site and maintain a blog under your name.
- Skyscraper Technique: A skyscraper technique involves three steps. First, you get link-worthy content, that is valuable and useful. Then come up with a material that is equally amazing or even better, which should be relevant and up-to-date. This is followed by the last step, where you reach out to the right people. The right people are the site owners, and they can only be impressed if you come up with something that matches their standard.
- Blog commenting: Blog commenting serves as one of the initial steps of link building. It involves using a name in the comment section of other blogs, that is used in your niche site and acts as an anchor taking the person to either the HomePage or internal pages of your site. This will, in addition, improve the anchor-text profile of your site.
- Guest posting: Guest posting falls among the powerful methods of linking despite many wrong assumptions regarding its effectiveness. However, you have to guarantee high-quality content that can compete with the sea of content full of top-notch content. Set a powerful pitch and then hand them over unparallel content that they find hard to refuse.
- Use of infographics: If you have no idea about infographic creation, you can always outsource. Once you post an infographic on your site, you can share it with sites that do the same. This way, you will generate a chain of links. This way, your infographics gain popularity, and your site is profited in the process.
- Resource page link building: It is not only a great way but also one of the fastest and easiest ways. It’s a two-step path that involves first, searching for relevant resource pages that fall within your niche site and link to other sites similar to yours. Second, you try reaching out the webmasters of those pages to know if it is possible to get a link for your page by sending an email.
Other link building strategies involve question-answer type sites such as Quora and Yahoo. There are also high-quality social bookmarking sites like Reddit. You can easily lay hands on top-notch web directories that too are a good source of link building.
Bear in mind that link building if done the wrong way can harm your website, therefore stick to these methods to be safe from any penalization.
7. Conversion Rate Optimization Strategies
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is the bridge that takes all your site visitors to the Amazon product page and compels them to push BUY NOW!
The perfect CRO techniques to follow are:
- Include a minimum of two above-the-fold links to Amazon. In case you are drawing up a table, keep it at the top the above-the-fold links so that it catches everyone’s eyes.
- Write catchy lines to make them click on the affiliate links
- Do not cram the table with a lot of information
- The product pages on your site should redirect them to the Amazon site
Wrap Up
Once you start earning, do not sidetrack and keep scaling up your site. For the continuous growth of your amazon affiliate site do the following:
- Keep on introducing more content that is relevant and keeps the visitors hooked to your site
- Increase the focus of your site by bringing in more products
- Top up your link building and outreach strategies, and you can reinvest in the growth of your site
- Improve the looks of your site
With all said, follow these seven insanely actionable steps and who knows one day, you might be searching for a way of flipping your niche site for big money!
