help needed re amazon affiliate products

There are more ways to get traffic than just Google, so in many cases, outranking those sites isn't an issue. When it comes to search engines, though, yes - you'll be depending on long tail traffic unless you have solid SEO skills or you're the only person reviewing a particular product.

I should also point out that you really need to put more time into product selection than just deciding, "The iPad is a big deal right now, so I'll review that." There are plenty of popular products out there which don't involve that much competition.

Jon

Hey Guitar

You have basically hit it on the head, its really not rocket science.

I probably would not really advise a newbie to pick an ipod or iphone etc simply because the competition will be very tough with those keywords for someone just starting out.

As mentioned Google is not the only way to get traffic, but Google is the main way most try to get generic free traffic by ranking highly.

With Authority sites like the ones you are mentioning, its not as hard as you think to rank higher than them and to knock them off top spot for specific products

Anytime I see Amazon sitting atop of Google I get excited, because I know they will be easy to beat, but if on the other hand I see an Internet marketer or a couple of sites obviously owned by Internet Marketers, I know I may have to do a bit more work to rank my page.

Google likes Authority sites like Amazon, so anytime a keyword is placed in a search they tend to give extra love to sites like Amazon and will place them high on the search, but if you do just a little bit of research you will find that the actual Amazon product page is not well optimized and has very minimal backlinks for that actual product.

When this is the case it opens up an opportunity for you to optimize your page with the specific keyword and build quality anchored backlinks add some great content and you should easily out rank Amazon and sites like them.

Google will return the site with the most relevance for the search term and the last thing you should be worried about is seeing a site like Amazon sitting in #1 spot for a specific product, in fact you should get excited .

Kickin it on Amazon

Gaz Cooper
Amz Training Academy

iPads and iPods have very heavy competition. If you're a beginner try and look for niche products with a high search volume and low competition - there are many such products tucked away in Amazon. With regard to outranking retail store sites, the responses above pretty much sum it up.

The only addition I would like to make is that when a prospective customer is searching for a product he would prefer to read a review first rather than go straight to the product site on Amazon. If you rank in the first five results on Google's first page with a detailed review for the product on your site, there are high chances that the visitor may prefer to read your review and then click through to Amazon by clicking on your affiliate link.

first thing to do you if you're a newbie and yet you want to be successful in amazon niche website, I think you have to know and be able to rank the site in google page one. That's the key.

Take a course to SEO related information, and you'll be good ..

Hey Guitar,

I agree with many of the points above. One of the most important (and sometimes the most difficult) thing to do is research. You're goal as a beginner should be to find niche products where the demand is not being met and that you can rank fairly easy for. Make sure the products have a high enough price tag so you're not working for nothing. Find those longtail keywords that will drive high quality traffic and work hard to rank for them. don't waste your time on irrelevant keywords that won't convert.

There is obviously much more to it but this advice along with the above comments should give you a good start. I would also study up on the latest SEO techniques too. Good Luck!

There is a lot of good advice here so I won’t double dip and re-write the same things...

I would however like to add that even as a beginner I wouldn’t agree that you should only target products that are $200 and higher. There are a lot of great niches with quality in-demand products out there that cost less...much less in fact.

Also, as you learn more about Amazon you will see that your commission percentage increases with the more sales you make. This can happen pretty quickly by targeting those lower priced items, especially products people use everyday like toothpaste, shaving razors, personal hygiene items...etc etc. Sure, the money made on those lower priced items isn’t that great but those sales add up faster than you would think and the sheer number of sales from items like those can quickly increase your overall percentage which means you make more money on the bigger ticket items too.

Good luck...Amazon is a great avenue to IM, especially for newbies!
Robert

hey myob,

quick question about those 3 sites you just named. Would you call these amazon "authority sites"? if i was to build a site that has a ton of products like that, Would I simply bring traffic to it then? I guess what Im asking is if I was to go the route of building a authority site with a million products, instead of building a site reviewing one amazon product, what would be the difference in how to bring traffic to them? sorry if my question is kind of vague