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A Different Approach To Amazon Affiliate Marketing?

by JamesPenn
16 replies
Hi Warriors

A lot of the Amazon affiliate training I've been through suggests that to earn a decent income as an Amazon Associate you should find product keywords with low competition and high searches and then try and rank for those keywords with things like "review" on the end of it.

That's great and I can see why that works so well since the visitors you get will be highly targeted and convert into a lot of sales...

But I hate keyword research and I'm not very good at it so I'm trying a different approach.

I have a blog in the natural health market. 90% of my traffic comes from the search engines from around 120 different keywords each day.

I have all types of different posts and each post plucks a different kind of reader interested in something different from the search engines. For example:

- I have posts about the health benefits of certain foods
- I have posts about natural ways to get rid of acne, stretch marks, lose weight, look younger, get clear skin etc.
- I have posts about yoga, meditation and massage.

Over the last few weeks I've been adding Amazon links to certain products relevant to each individual post.

For example, I have one blog post about the best oils for getting rid of stretch marks - so I've added links to those oils.

I have one post about yoga, so I've linked to a DVD for Yoga beginners

I have a post getting loads of traffic from a variety of "belly fat" keywords so I link to a book about getting rid of belly fat.

What I'm trying to say is that instead of plucking traffic from product specific keywords, I'm getting traffic from other types of keywords from people looking for a solution, and then, after giving them some cool content, presenting them with an Amazon affiliate product.

This gives me a much greater potential for generating traffic and getting Amazon clicks, while I understand that the traffic won't convert so well.

So far this month I have a 4.18% conversion which isn't bad - but could be better.

I'm in the very early days of testing this strategy and will head off now to add more links to more posts, but I want to ask if anyone else is having much success as an Amazon Associate without setting up product specific minisites?

I hope this makes sense. I always find a way to word simple things in a much more complicated manner.

James
#affiliate #amazon #approach #marketing
  • Profile picture of the author HammerFist
    That's a solid content strategy. Talk about the problem and solution(s) and provide links out to relevant products.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ehsan_am
    This isn't really a new concept. Many prople do that on a regular basis. However, this strategy needs you to rank for some other keywords which are probabaly way harder to rank than a basic amazon product name. The whole concept behind chosing the product names as keywords is the fact that it is pretty easy to rank for them.

    I understand that you get more traffic with a content based website. Nveretheless, If you take the higher conversion rate into account, chances are that you need to work much more for a generic niche website compared to a review site that targets specific products for the same amount of sales.
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  • Profile picture of the author SeoWizzard
    Hey, what you are actually doing is, creating a lot of content, then you either rank for many many long tail keywords, and you also get an occasional visit from other keywords. I'd imagine a lot of traffic is from google images, is it not?
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    • Profile picture of the author Hamida Harland
      I think if you're building an authority site targetting lots and lots of keywords, in the long run you'll probably make as much as (if not more than) product specific sites. It will take longer, and the conversion rate will likely be lower, but you have so much more potential in terms of traffic.

      For Amazon I mainly do product specific sites - I either create a site entirely around one product (which makes for a really high conversion rate), or I create a site around a group of similar products (e.g. reviewing different brands of breadmaker). Both work really well, but the traffic is relatively limited compared to what you could achieve with a more general site.

      I do have a few more 'general' sites like the one you described but I tend to stay away from Amazon with those as the commission percentage is so low. I normally only promote products over $100 with Amazon so I have to pick and choose a bit more carefully. If you're good at traffic generation though, there's no reason why you couldn't be really successful using your strategy for Amazon regardless of the product prices.
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  • Profile picture of the author AnniePot
    This is exactly what I've been doing with my broad spectrum pet website for a long time. Of course, it's not good practice to try to sell something with every post, besides which, many are not written to sell anyway.

    It actually amazes me what does sell after people have arrived at Amazon via one of my links - bicycles, skate boards, folders, winter coats, computer cables and more Today my conversion rate sits at 7.4%

    Of course, I'm also able to promote many pet related ClickBank products.
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    • Profile picture of the author JamesPenn
      Originally Posted by AnniePot View Post

      This is exactly what I've been doing with my broad spectrum pet website for a long time. Of course, it's not good practice to try to sell something with every post, besides which, many are not written to sell anyway.

      It actually amazes me what does sell after people have arrived at Amazon via one of my links - bicycles, skate boards, folders, winter coats, computer cables and more Today my conversion rate sits at 7.4%

      Of course, I'm also able to promote many pet related ClickBank products.
      Hi Annie

      Thanks for your reply. That's a really good conversion rate. Any tips?

      I've had a lot of orders for products I haven't promoted, but they're normally pretty relevant to the products I do promote.

      I did have one person order two Kindles ($190 each) and two Kindle covers ($60 each). That was a nice surprise.

      James
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  • Profile picture of the author JamesPenn
    I'm aware it's not a new strategy, but I'd just like to see if anyone else is having success with it.

    Essentially I'm plucking people from the search engines for a variety of long tail keywords and then offering free content with the occasional subtle Amazon affiliate link.

    Last night I went through my Google Analytics account and looked through my most viewed pages and the keywords that people are using to find these pages.

    For example, I have one page revealing the top 3 oils for reducing stretch marks and that page is getting about 20 visitors per day and the keywords people are typing to find that page almost always contains the phrase, or a variation of the phrase, "wheatgerm oil for stretch marks".

    Now using that data I've simply linked to a wheatgerm oil on Amazon. 20 visitors per day is never going to make me rich, but I have many pages doing the exact same for me right now, and I'll be adding new pages quickly over the next few weeks.

    James
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  • Profile picture of the author Mike Hlatky
    Originally Posted by JamesPenn View Post

    So far this month I have a 4.18% conversion which isn't bad - but could be better.


    With review sites, I can usually get anywhere from 10-12% conversion. But, this is actually really good, considering selling is not your focal point.

    While your strategy still works, I would rather create a dozen review sites rather than setting up one major blog that occasionally promotes Amazon products.

    Let's say you get 1000 daily visitors to your blog. In the time it took you to build up your authority, I could have built 10 review sites each bringing in 100 visitors per day. So then, my conversion rate doubles yours. But then, I don't have to do anymore work, everything is on autopilot. Whereas you have to keep posting to retain the constant income.
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    • Profile picture of the author JamesPenn
      Originally Posted by Mike Hlatky View Post


      With review sites, I can usually get anywhere from 10-12% conversion. But, this is actually really good, considering selling is not your focal point.

      While your strategy still works, I would rather create a dozen review sites rather than setting up one major blog that occasionally promotes Amazon products.

      Let's say you get 1000 daily visitors to your blog. In the time it took you to build up your authority, I could have built 10 review sites each bringing in 100 visitors per day. So then, my conversion rate doubles yours. But then, I don't have to do anymore work, everything is on autopilot. Whereas you have to keep posting to retain the constant income.
      Your point about me having to continue posting to retain the income is interesting.

      I haven't made any posts in March, one post in Feb, and then four a piece in Jan and Dec. There's been some occasions with this blog where I haven't posted for 4-5 months - yet every single month my traffic either stays the same or rises.

      This month has been my biggest traffic month ever. Perhaps the Google update was kind to my site but according to my Google Analytics account, my traffic is up 19.83%.

      I know that when I start posting again my traffic will rise even faster (I just have to get these pesky university exams and coursework out of the way first!)

      Now that I have an established site though that's indexed and ranks pretty highly within minutes, I could create a Product Review section where I pick an Amazon product and review it.

      As long as I provide content 9/10 posts, I'm sure the occasional Amazon review won't affect my readership and it should rank pretty well given my existing ranking.

      James
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  • Profile picture of the author Jason Perez O'Connor
    How about you start mixing the two together I have product specific reviews, and I also have posts related to things you do with the product.

    If it were to do with weight loss, I'd possibly do an honest review of a product (in the review section of the site), and then in an article about a routine that you can do to lose weight, I might introduce that product link as a good match for the routine.

    And if I don't link to amazon, I may just link to the review itself.

    The only problem is people may be misguided from the whole focus of buying, and begin to read articles, whilst on a site simply to do with reviews, the user has no other choice but to read the review, follow the link, or leave.
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  • Profile picture of the author lstoops
    James, that is a good idea and I have done this in the past. Thanks for a reminder to go check out what keywords ppl are finding my sites with...makes for great content/product ideas! Also, I don't see anything wrong with having a call to action on each post. If done properly it doesn't hurt a thing!
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    • Profile picture of the author Sun Richard
      I appreciate the advice in the thread, I am a new Amazon affiliate, testing the market with books and your comments are very helpful.
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      • Profile picture of the author JRCarson
        A good way to take advantage of having a big "authority" site, and sell a lot of Amazon products is to break it down into categories, then sell a product (or products) for each category.

        So Category 1 is...Yoga
        - Link to a Yoga Product review within the text, have a YOGA PRODUCT AD (or ad for your review) on the side bar for every post within the category.

        Category 2 is...Belly Stretch Marks
        -Link to Belly Stretch marks review within text of posts within this category, have an ad in the side bar that points to your review, or have a specific Amazon Ad in the side bar for every post in the entire category.

        How to put a specific ad (different ad) for each category? Use a category ad plugin

        I think this is the best way. It's been working well for me, and I don't have to worry about making more and more sites. Instead each new post uses the power of an established site and ranks quicker, much easier to bring visitors, etc...
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  • Profile picture of the author Tom Oxby
    While my focus is review sites which I find are more profitable I do have two authority sites.

    I found I had better results with the authority sites when I took the approach mentioned by Jason where mixed the two together by sprinkling a few related product reviews amidst the general posts.
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  • Profile picture of the author yssync
    I was doing a similar thing last year. I put articles on IBS forum site and linked to the product that cured my IBS. I got suspended from the forum saying I was advertising the product. So I went to look for a different IBS forum site and I got the worst virus ever...
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