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State of the game regarding Amazon affiliates?

by BrandonMason
8 replies
Hey guys, I was into affiliate marketing a few years back. Made some money, had front page rankings for few decent keywords, but nothing too noteworthy. I find myself missing the thrill of the hunt, if you will.

Looking around however, it looks like it's a completely different market now. I know a Google update some time ago gave more leverage too authority sites, and less to "sniper" sites, but just how drastic are the changes from 2013. Is it even possible to rank Amazon affiliate sites well anymore?

Any rundown of changes, opinions, or advice are welcome.
#affiliates #amazon #game #state
  • Profile picture of the author James McAllister
    I started one of these Amazon affiliate sites about 6 months ago and it's been doing very well so far for the amount of effort I've put into it.

    I think the only difference between then and now is your content actually has to be valuable. Throwing up a 500 word "review" with 10 links to Amazon is no longer going to cut it.
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    • Profile picture of the author jan roos
      It 8s working better than before. I build authority sites and use mainly paid traffic as well as some seo.

      Cheers
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      • Profile picture of the author nik0
        Banned
        Originally Posted by jan roos View Post

        It 8s working better than before. I build authority sites and use mainly paid traffic as well as some seo.

        Cheers
        What kind of paid traffic do you use? PPC, PPV, newsletters?

        Do you drive your traffic to a list first or directly to your monetized pages?
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      • Profile picture of the author BrandonMason
        Originally Posted by jan roos View Post

        It 8s working better than before. I build authority sites and use mainly paid traffic as well as some seo.

        Cheers
        Thanks for the info guys. Jan, it's especially good to hear your take on this, as I bought your physical affiliate program in the past. Knowing you're still going strong with it certainly means something.
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    • Profile picture of the author nik0
      Banned
      Originally Posted by James McAllister View Post

      I started one of these Amazon affiliate sites about 6 months ago and it's been doing very well so far for the amount of effort I've put into it.

      I think the only difference between then and now is your content actually has to be valuable. Throwing up a 500 word "review" with 10 links to Amazon is no longer going to cut it.
      Actually it still does cut it, I have plenty of such sites and customers with such sites that make good earnings from it, you just have to target the right buyer keywords and once they end up on Amazon through your affiliate link a portion of them still buys.

      The clue is that you also need non monetized content to pull it off in terms of Google rankings.

      Besides why stuff 10 affiliate links in 500 words, why not just 1 or 2 to keep it a bit more Google friendly.

      The reason most people fail with ranking affiliate sites is because:

      - they are too impatient, they want to rank tomorrow, it takes 4-6 months these days
      - they over monetize heavily
      - they over optimize their anchors
      - they still keyword stuff their articles in absurd ways
      - they think a 3 page site is enough to rank well (I suggest minimum 20 pages)
      - they only link to the homepage
      - they build links with no value or strength to start with.

      All these are very classical mistakes that almost everyone makes, once you know this it should not be a problem to rank, just give it some time, build powerful links and commit your self to these rules.

      Yes I also hate waiting 4-6 months but it is what it is.
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      • Profile picture of the author jan roos
        I do PPC mostly. The key is to be able to track conversions which i can do on amazon with a plugin i had developed in house.

        I focus on both driving traffic to my review pages as well as driving traffic to my squeeze pages in the same niche. Build a list and promote my own info products, Cklickbank offers as well as related amazon offers.

        Make sure to build your authority site in a big niche with lots of people buying both physical and info products.

        Cheers
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        • Profile picture of the author nik0
          Banned
          Originally Posted by jan roos View Post

          I do PPC mostly. The key is to be able to track conversions which i can do on amazon with a plugin i had developed in house.

          I focus on both driving traffic to my review pages as well as driving traffic to my squeeze pages in the same niche. Build a list and promote my own info products, Cklickbank offers as well as related amazon offers.

          Make sure to build your authority site in a big niche with lots of people buying both physical and info products.

          Cheers
          Wouldn't Google see that as a doorway page when you link directly to your review pages? Lol ignore that, forgot there's also Facebook, Bing, what not.

          Just completed building a baby product site and increased the size of my hair styling tool site as well, I suppose at least for the baby niche some info products can be sold, though I mostly focus on Amazon products like car seats, strollers and such.

          I was giving some thought to StumbleUpon Paid Discovery last night, they provide traffic at $0,10 a click though it's way less targeted then PPC obvious so maybe a big waste of money.
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          • Profile picture of the author jan roos
            Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

            Wouldn't Google see that as a doorway page when you link directly to your review pages? Lol ignore that, forgot there's also Facebook, Bing, what not.

            Just completed building a baby product site and increased the size of my hair styling tool site as well, I suppose at least for the baby niche some info products can be sold, though I mostly focus on Amazon products like car seats, strollers and such.

            I was giving some thought to StumbleUpon Paid Discovery last night, they provide traffic at $0,10 a click though it's way less targeted then PPC obvious so maybe a big waste of money.
            I've had my sites personally approved by the adwords team. Lots of review sites are on Adwords. One just have to have the end user in mind and make some tweaks to the landing pages to be compliant.

            Bing, Facebook etc does not have that requirement.

            Build a list on your baby site. It is a huge niche for info products as well. Check the babysleep site and also the one on Clickbank about potty training. They make serious bank.

            Cheers
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