Steps to Make Money with Your Own Amazon Affiliate Site

Introduction

On the Internet, there are many options for making money online. There are large and small niches. The earnings niche on Amazon is one of the largest and most popular, as Amazon is the world leader in terms of turnover in e-commerce.

Amazon is the largest online store in the United States. More than 3,000,000 users make purchases on it daily, and log in on this website still several times more users. Users from all over the world also shop on this website. For a year the international e-market Amazon is selling goods over $ 50 billion.

Amazon started more than 20 years ago and remains almost the sole market leader. People who sell their products on Amazon do not need active advertising. Users are brought by the service itself. It is enough to choose the right product, price and respond in time to incoming requests.

Let’s discuss how to make money on Amazon and how much you can earn in the end by working with this service. There are different ways to make money on Amazon. The main methods are as follows:

• Sale of products;
• Intermediary sale of goods;
• Affiliate program.

Selling products on Amazon requires a lot of investment. Intermediary sale of goods is a boring affair, extremely poorly scalable and low margin. The least costly investment is the method of earning using an affiliate program from Amazon.

Affiliate marketing is a useful way to earn extra income if you have your blog or website. The Amazon affiliate program, called Amazon Associates, allows you to earn from 4 percent or more from each purchase made through a special link that is located on your blog or website. To make money, it’s enough to attract users to purchases on the Amazon website. The partner receives a percentage of the purchase made by the user.

In this article, we would like to consider the steps that will help you make money with your own Amazon Affiliate Site.

Registration in the affiliate program

The first step to making money with Amazon’s affiliate program is to sign up for the Amazon Associates affiliate program itself. Registration in the affiliate program is simple, but requires knowledge of certain nuances, for example, in the matter of confirming your phone number.

To create an account on Amazon Associates, just go through the simple steps:

• Filling in account information;
• Filling in information about a site or application for mobile devices;
• Filling in user information;
• User identification by phone.

An important nuance when registering in the affiliate program is the confirmation of the user profile by phone number.

At the moment, in the affiliate program, there is no way to confirm phone numbers that are registered outside the United States. But, there is a solution to confirm the number. There is a way to get the United States phone number without even coming to the United States.

How to confirm the number? So, to confirm the phone number you need to register your number in the United States. To get the number, it is enough to use the special TextPlus program. The application has built-in purchases, but receiving a number does not require payment. The service is free. Amazon rules are not violated. The rules for participating in the affiliate program cannot be violated since the process of unlocking an account is extremely complicated.

The rules for using the affiliate program are not obvious. For example, according to the rules:

• The partner must post on the website a message about working with the Amazon affiliate program, otherwise, the partner’s account will be blocked;
• You cannot use Amazon words or similar variations in a domain name.

By the way, be sure to include information when registering that the person registering the profile is not a resident of the United States (if you live outside the United States).

So, the process of registering a user in an affiliate program is completed. Next, you need to understand the payment methods.

Choose a payment method.

The second step is to choose a payment method. There are different payment methods. Amazon supports payments through the following channels:

• Deposit in the bank;
• Amazon Gift Card;
• Check.

Banking is available only for some users. Only residents of the United States of America can count on withdrawing money to the bank.

Checks are accepted in many countries of the European Union, but there are countries without the possibility of collecting checks, for example, Ukraine. A fee of $ 15 is charged for issuing a check.

Using an Amazon Gift Card is a good way to start earning money on Amazon because gift cards can be sold. The next step is to find a way to choose the right product on Amazon.

Start browsing products at Associates Central.

The next step on the path to making money on the Amazon affiliate program is to select the product links for which you plan to place on your website. Select a few items that you can include in your posts. It’s useful to use the “Bestseller” filter to find the most popular products in any category.

Next, place the link on your website. You can place an image, an image with text, or just text as a link, depending on how you want it to look. Use the toolbar at the top of the page to get a link to the products you want to place on your website.

Attracting buyers.

The next and important step is to attract customers from you on Amazon. There are different ways to attract customers on Amazon. For example, you can use the search engine optimization channel. The process is simple:

• Search engine optimizer creates a special site for a niche, publishes reviews of products available on Amazon;
• Search engine optimizer creates a network of satellite sites to promote a site with reviews;
• From satellites, it places links to the site with reviews.

The advantages of this method include the fact that the work is scalable, delegated and requires minimal participation. The disadvantages include the high level of costs, the volume of investment in creating a network of websites, content and website design.

By the way, the classic way to make money is to use blogs. Amazon’s best partners are blogs or websites that host links leading to Amazon and also provide quality content. Launch one of the following websites:

• Launch a free blog or similar site using Blogger or WordPress. Since creating such blogs is free, the only price you need to pay is the time to develop them and add content. Choose an item that you are interested in so you can add interesting content and collect subscribers.
• Develop the website. Professional thematic or commercial websites can also take part in an affiliate program. However, it’s best to do this if you don’t sell similar products on your website, as the Amazon marketplace can crowd out other trading companies. If you have a website that advertises other products, a club, a non-profit organization or service, then you can recommend high-quality Amazon products on it and still receive money. The best example is the website Bestforacar.com where you can find any information you need about the best spare parts for your car or other automotive components. After that, you can go to the Amazon website and purchase the product you are interested in.
• Create an account for your blog or website on social networks. This is a great way to improve the site’s position in search results, stay in touch with your readers and increase the number of link reposts. You can post links to Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn if you want to recommend a product.

You should remember that you attract readers with the value of your content, so publish interesting posts on your blog/website at least once a week.

People who think that you are making money on them are unlikely to return to your website again. Therefore, you need to earn the trust of your readers. Include affiliate links as recommendations, lists of the best and preferred products, and not as obvious tricks for making money with the help of readers.

The more efficiently you place links, the more chances you have to make sales. For example, you can make a post about the “Top 7 Oil Filters for Car” or the “Best Car Chargers”. At first, this business may not seem very profitable, but some sites, multi-million dollar sites, are based only on income from affiliate programs. For example, Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income generates most of his monthly income through affiliate marketing.

When creating an affiliate site, you can base your income on product recommendations and reviews, or you can integrate affiliate marketing into an existing blog by showing off the products you recommend.

How to attract visitors to your site when no one knows about you?

This can also be attributed to an important step on the way to making money. If you recently launched your project and want to quickly attract visitors, then you need to follow 7 proven methods that will help you quickly attract visitors. But first, determine who your readers are and find out what they believe in, what they fear, what they know, and what they would like to know. Continue to research and study until you have a clear portrait of the audience, and only then proceed to attract the visitors. And so, ways to attract:

Step 1: Be prepared for the first visitors.

In the best case, the new site will have no more than a couple of visitors per day, so you need to try hard to get their attention.

In this difficult task, these ways will help you:

• Interesting content for first visitors;
• A website with adequate design;
• An effective way to capture email addresses.

If you have interesting content, then most likely the first subscribers will become the most devoted. Therefore, allow them to continue communicating with you by inviting them to subscribe to the newsletter. Remember that you will not have a million visitors from the very beginning, but if you can interest users and maintain a strong relationship with them, then this will be an excellent foundation for future success.

Step 2: Answer the questions.

Once you have identified the ideal subscribers, it’s time to think about how you can help them. One of the best tactics is to answer every question that you heard or read about your topic.

No need to rush to write a 100-page guide. Instead, make different posts in your blog where you answer each question separately. We think that needless to say, the answers should be simple and understandable to the reader.

There are many advantages to this approach:

• It allows you to avoid the syndrome of “clean slate”, as the answers to questions do not require much imagination.
• You will identify your knowledge and skills gaps.
• You will have a desire to constantly look for these issues, and in the end, you will better know your audience.
• It will help create a stream of fresh content, which is useful for search engine optimization and, more importantly, interesting for readers.

Make a calendar for future posts. Such answers are fairly easy to do, so you can easily publish at least two articles a week, and once every two weeks release a detailed study on a selected topic. It’s also a great way to start developing your editorial skills and habits.

Step 3: Do something cool.

If you want popular bloggers to link to you, potential clients wrote to you and shared your content on social networks, you need to do something cool to deserve their attention. You should do something cool.

You can do something incredible or perform weirdly tricks, but in our case, we will focus on creating truly valuable content. Boring blog articles, bad videos, or copied podcasts will not work. Not every article will hit exactly the target, but this does not mean that you need to give up.

Schedule time to create and publish more mature, creative, and engaging content. You will surely make bumps before you create something cool, so it’s better to start right away.

Step 4: Become a social “guru”.

You can love social networks or avoid them like fire, but this is a great place to expand your audience and promote your content. Schedule one or more short sessions per day for social networks and make posts in the large groups which are connected with your topic, also publish content on your page, or meet other web publishers. Something one thing can work, but the combination of all actions will most likely be the most effective.

At the moment, the most popular network is Facebook, but it is far from the only one. Recently Instagram has been developing rapidly, Pinterest is the best choice for certain niches, and in the B2B segment, LinkedIn will become the solution (if you are not afraid of blocking).

When you develop a new site, then you simply do not have time to sit on social networks, but a couple of short sessions of 10 minutes a day will have a striking effect. If you can not resist a long viewing of a feed or photos, then an application for monitoring performance will come to the rescue.

And remember! No need to build an audience on social networks to the detriment of your site. It’s best to devote time to optimizing and creating quality content that will be shared.

Step 5: Don’t be afraid to speak.

In social networks, we constantly encounter people who start screaming and cursing in the comments on any topic. Communicating with them is tiring. But for those who never take a difficult position and do not take part in disputes, there is a special word: boring. And believe us, controversial issues and topics can be found not only in politics.

On the net, any statement can become controversial. No matter what you do: fitness, dog training, finance, cars, parenting or knitting. For each topic, there will be several warring camps.

Do research, weigh the pros and cons and don’t be afraid to find evidence that contradicts your point of view. And when you are sure that your point of view is supported by evidence, join one of these camps.

You can make some people angry by claiming that the earth is round. Seriously, your attempt to calm the ignorant is unlikely to affect the shape of the Earth. Therefore, never be afraid to express your opinion.

Step 6: Don’t waste all the money on traffic.

If you have already begun a stream of useful information (answers to questions), you publish cool content from time to time and are not afraid to talk about your point of view … So what else should be done to grow the audience? You can attract traffic with social network ads.

The rules in this game change almost every day, but it is worth playing. Choose the most effective platform for yourself and buy some traffic. By “a little” we do not mean “pour in 50 thousand dollars at once.” Try spending $ 50 this week, and then the same amount next week if your budget allows.

Buying a small amount of traffic will help you increase your audience. Besides, you will gain experience that will be useful to you in the future for the promotion of projects and services.

Step 7: Invest your time in traffic.

Another way to drive traffic is to write articles for other blogs or participate in podcasts. As in the case with paragraph 6, this only works if you have useful content on your website.

Publications on other blogs will expand the audience and help develop relationships with other authors and resources. This will also have a positive effect on SEO, but the effect will be noticeable after a while.

And remember: you need to post only top-notch content. It would be foolish to submit an unfinished article to your readers through the world.

Optimize your earnings.

The next step to increasing profits with Amazon Associates is to optimize your earnings by regularly posting links. That is, look for creative ways to include product recommendations in your posts, while at the same time providing readers with specific and useful information on the subject of your website. Amazon Affiliate links clicked by a prospective customer are valid for 24 hours. Fresh links are new ways to make money.

Add widgets to your website.

The next step towards increasing profits is the placement of widgets. Amazon Associates has widgets and online stores that you can add to your website structure. Include some recommended items in your sidebar.

Advertise for products that are above $ 100.

The more expensive products that your readers buy, the more commission you will receive, so be sure to recommend expensive and useful products.

Optimize your blog or website.

Use search engines optimization techniques, such as keyword usage, short URLs, and trackbacks to increase traffic to your site. The more visitors to the site, the more clicks will be made on your links from Amazon Associates.

Conclusion

Summing up, we want to note that no one limits profit margins and it all depends on your efforts. You can earn decent money on the Amazon Associates affiliate program, but for this, you should get the right start, also you should work hard and stubbornly, as, indeed, at any other highly paid job. And also do not feed yourself with hopes for instant money from the first day of the start of work, it will probably take you from a year to a maximum of two years while remembering that you will fill the site with content and pay for the hoster’s services, which will incur additional costs. Such projects, as a rule, come to self-sufficiency in 2-4 years. As you begin to grow your income with Amazon Associates, consider registering for other affiliate programs. Amazon Associates can be of great benefit to you as a huge number of people shop on Amazon; however, other affiliate programs offer higher commissions percent. To work on the Amazon Affiliate Site doesn’t require some talent or specific skills. Here, only the desire and perseverance to achieve the intended goal is important.

Summary

On the Internet, there are many options for making money. There are large and small niches. The earnings niche on Amazon is one of the largest and most popular, as Amazon is the world leader in terms of turnover in e-commerce. The least costly investment is the method of earning using an affiliate program from Amazon. Affiliate marketing is a useful way to earn extra income if you have your blog or website. The Amazon affiliate program, called Amazon Associates, allows you to earn from 4 percent or more from each purchase made through a special link that is located on your blog or website. To make money, it’s enough to attract users to purchases on the Amazon website. The partner receives a percentage of the purchase made by the user. To achieve a large profit from this affiliate program, you should use the following steps:

• Sign up for an Amazon Associates affiliate program;
• Choose a method of paying to you the interest;
• View merchandise on Associates Central;
• Attract potential buyers to your blog/website;
• Understand how to attract visitors to your site when no one knows about you;
• Optimize your earnings;
• Add widgets to your website;
• More often advertise products for prices above $ 100;
• Optimize your blog or website.

With these steps, you will understand how to make money on the Amazon Associates affiliate program; the whole process from creating a site and keeping it up to date to select affiliate links should be as meaningful and focused as possible. From the very beginning, it is necessary to adhere to certain recommendations based on the experience of a large number of users. You will find more detailed information in our article: “Steps to Make Money with Your Own Amazon Affiliate Site”.

About the Author

Marie Barnes is a writer for Bestforacar and an enthusiastic blogger interested in writing about technology, social media, work, travel, lifestyle, and current affairs. She shares her insights through blogging. Follow her on Medium.