Competing with Amazon

[2cents]

How Strong is the Amazon/Wal-Mart Competition?

I've been working on niche sites for a few months now and doing fairly well except I've only been doing information sites. I want to try myself in Amazon sites but I'm wondering how hard it would be to compete with Amazon if they're already ranked number 1 for a phrase.

I saw one site that had 200+ backlinks that was only ranked 2 or 3, following behind an Amazon page that had about 50 backlinks. This just got me wondering if I should even shoot for #1 against Amazon.

• What are my chances of beating out Amazon for #1?
• If I can't, is it worth only getting 2nd or 3rd for a Amazon niche site?

[altoro80]

It's not hard to beat amazon, they don't do much of backlinking, it is pretty easy i say go for it

[dadamson]

Originally Posted by 2cents

How Strong is the Amazon/Wal-Mart Competition?

I've been working on niche sites for a few months now and doing fairly well except I've only been doing information sites. I want to try myself in Amazon sites but I'm wondering how hard it would be to compete with Amazon if they're already ranked number 1 for a phrase.

I saw one site that had 200+ backlinks that was only ranked 2 or 3, following behind an Amazon page that had about 50 backlinks. This just got me wondering if I should even shoot for #1 against Amazon.

• What are my chances of beating out Amazon for #1?
• If I can't, is it worth only getting 2nd or 3rd for a Amazon niche site?

Don't think of it as trying to beat amazon. You are working with amazon and don't need to target the same keywords.

Most of the products they sell don't have strong rankings for the exact product name anyway.

If they do, it's an indication that there are a lot more people going for that term and it would be hard to rank anyway.

You can also go for longer tail kws like "product name review" or "product name best price" etc.

[2cents]

I'll give you an example of what I am worried about.

If you google popcorn popper amazon comes in 1st with 16 backlinks and popcornpopper.com comes in 2nd with 286 backlinks. It doesn't seem right but that's what comes up.

[dadamson]

Originally Posted by 2cents

I'll give you an example of what I am worried about.

If you google popcorn popper amazon comes in 1st with 16 backlinks and popcornpopper.com comes in 2nd with 286 backlinks. It doesn't seem right but that's what comes up.

That's what I mean, so you could spend months trying to rank for popcorn popper and finally get on page one. This would give you a load of untargeted traffic looking for information on popcorn poppers, not necessarily ready to buy anything.

Or, you could spend a few weeks getting your page to position one for one of the following phrases:

Buy popcorn popper
Buy popcorn popper cheap
Where to buy popcorn popper
Popcorn popper review

This would attract the traffic that has already been through the info seekers phase and now has a credit card in their hand ready to purchase..

-Dave

[2cents]

Ok, that makes a lot more sense now. Thank you

[dadamson]

Originally Posted by 2cents

Ok, that makes a lot more sense now. Thank you

No worries

Also, the fact that Amazon outranks sites with less back links would come down to many factors. The main one being that the amazon links are higher quality. Created by different people, on different domains, and naturally spread out over time.

Amazon is also an authority site and would not have much trouble ranking for tough keywords.

Cheers
-Dave

[2cents]

I have another question actually. If I did do say.."buy popcorn popper" then should I not expect much money from that site since it only has 210 searches a moth?

[dadamson]

Originally Posted by 2cents

I have another question actually. If I did do say.."buy popcorn popper" then should I not expect much money from that site since it only has 210 searches a moth?

Well it is more targeted towards buyers so the conversion rate will be higher but the traffic will be lower.

Create 20 of these pages targeting different popcorn popper products and you will have 4200 targeted monthly searches.

Rinse and repeat until you have as much traffic as you'd like

[2cents]

Neat. Thanks again!

[dadamson]

No probs

[Craig McPherson]

Originally Posted by 2cents

I'll give you an example of what I am worried about.

If you google popcorn popper amazon comes in 1st with 16 backlinks and popcornpopper.com comes in 2nd with 286 backlinks. It doesn't seem right but that's what comes up.

That is why you should never link back to amazon with the product name, or your keyword phrase, as anchor text. It is us, amazon affiliates, that give Amazon the #1 rankings by doing this. (plus being an authority site helps), but if you use the stock standard "click here" or similar it is no biggy

[Bingo123]

I do Amazon sites and usually outrank Amazon pretty easily. Don't worry too much about it.

[glacey]

Originally Posted by dadamson

Well it is more targeted towards buyers so the conversion rate will be higher but the traffic will be lower.

Create 20 of these pages targeting different popcorn popper products and you will have 4200 targeted monthly searches.

Rinse and repeat until you have as much traffic as you'd like

Hi Dave, great information but could you just explain the above quote. If the search rate is 210 per month for the phrase.."buy popcorn popper" and you create 20 pages on different products, would not the total number of people stay the same if they are searching for that phrase? Many thanks in advance

Gary

[paulgl]

Amazon easy to beat? Yeah right.

Amazon does not rank #1 or so because of backlinks. They rank because of
authority and they are the 800 pound gorilla.

Try and rank for generic category of products. You can "beat" amazon
by thinking outside the box. When people search for a product, let's
say kindles, people want info. They want to know what it's about.
Chances are, they gloss over the amazon results because they are
looking for info, pros, cons, etc. They find your site. Then buy off of it.

If people are looking for a "buy" link now, they will most likely be searching
for an amazon page. For that, it's hard, dang hard, to compete. You are not
only competing with amazon, but buy.com and others.

Think outside the box. Build a site for "solutions" instead of a specific product.

Paul

[2cents]

Originally Posted by glacey

Hi Dave, great information but could you just explain the above quote. If the search rate is 210 per month for the phrase.."buy popcorn popper" and you create 20 pages on different products, would not the total number of people stay the same if they are searching for that phrase? Many thanks in advance

Gary

I'm pretty sure he means that you will not only get the 210 for "buy popcorn popper" but you'll get the traffic from searches for other phrases like "MegaPopper 2000" etc. So the traffic for "buy popcorn popper" is the same but the overall site gets more traffic for targeting smaller phrases on different pages.
I hope that makes as much sense to you as it does in my head.

[glacey]

Hi 2cents, I thought the same but just wanted to have it confirmed. I am starting an Amazon site so want to get it right.

Many Thanks