Amazon Affiliates - how do you make your sites

32 replies
Hi all - I have a question for the Amazon affiliates out there: When you build your affiliate sites, what website software do you use?

I understand many people use blog software to create micro-stores and mini review sites, but the sort of affiliate sites I am talking about are the larger scale types that seem more like independent stores - where the user has no idea Amazon is involved until theycheck out. I am interested in starting these sorts of affiliate websites because I think they will have the best chance to be successful but have no idea where to start!

Thanks in advance.
#affiliates #amazon #make #sites
  • Profile picture of the author Sonomacats
    Wordpress. It's fast, easy and makes life (and website building) a heck of a lot easier.

    Best of all, it's free and so are most of the themes and plugins.

    I would, however, recommend getting Daniel Brock's program on creating Amazon affiliate sites. His WSO is over, but you can get it at Dan Brock's Profitzon - Amazon Affiliate Marketing Revealed. It's well worth it and he explains really well how to set everything up.
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    Writing as Kieran McKendrick
    You can find the first prequel to my Purgatory series (How Blended are Dust and Fire) on Amazon and Smashwords.

    Whether you think you can or think you cannot, you are right. -- Henry Ford

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  • Profile picture of the author tonyaphx
    I use wordpress to build the site and then in the amazon affiliates page I make a widget and I then post best products, top selling products, or the new things I start doing was the I recommend part of the widget. Then you can put as many items you want and then it will make html code you pick the form of a banner, or a carousel that spins around, and more. Then you take the code and place in the side bar of your site or where ever you want. Then when they check it out if they buy from you site your get commissions from everything they buy. If they buy a box of band-aids on you site for a couple of bucks and buy a TV while there on amazon you get that commission too. At least that is how I understood it from someone else do correct me if I am wrong. So it's pretty cool to have Amazon on your site.
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  • Profile picture of the author Blase
    just for fun I put this into Google...

    "build an amazon site" without the quotes.
    15,200,000 results.

    There seems to be a number of ways to do it. :confused:
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    • Profile picture of the author zronald.barker
      WordPress, SEO plugins, Free Theme (everything is running) Quickly

      I have a question now,

      From a seo prespective, you make the category name of your site

      product name? niche name ? category name?

      as it helps on driving traffic for the website.

      Thanks,
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      • Profile picture of the author TammieJJ
        In addition to wordpress sites and the aStores, I use the Amazon webstores, which cost $59.99 per month for unlimited sites (I'm under the old plan), and currently have 18 webstores. The only difficult thing with the webstore is getting them ranked in the search engines.

        The webstore sounds like what you're talking about doing with your sites, since the visitor isn't really aware that the site is an Amazon site until check out. My webstores are still fairly new, so I can't really give you any reliable stats regarding the success rate, but it will be interesting to see how they do this year during the Christmas shopping season.

        Good luck, and let us know what format you ultimately choose to use in your Amazon affiliate ventures.
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        • Profile picture of the author sickbaomei
          Hi Tammie,
          would you be able to give an example of such a store ?
          Is this subscription paid to Amazon or some 3rd party membership site to build the store ?

          Many thanks in your tips
          Chris

          Originally Posted by TammieJJ View Post

          In addition to wordpress sites and the aStores, I use the Amazon webstores, which cost $59.99 per month for unlimited sites (I'm under the old plan), and currently have 18 webstores. The only difficult thing with the webstore is getting them ranked in the search engines.

          The webstore sounds like what you're talking about doing with your sites, since the visitor isn't really aware that the site is an Amazon site until check out. My webstores are still fairly new, so I can't really give you any reliable stats regarding the success rate, but it will be interesting to see how they do this year during the Christmas shopping season.

          Good luck, and let us know what format you ultimately choose to use in your Amazon affiliate ventures.
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          • Profile picture of the author Alton Hargrave
            I prefer Associate-O-Matic. You can build a niche store all the way up to a store with everything in it. But, niches are better. They have a free and a paid version.
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          • Profile picture of the author TammieJJ
            Originally Posted by sickbaomei View Post

            Hi Tammie,
            would you be able to give an example of such a store ?
            Is this subscription paid to Amazon or some 3rd party membership site to build the store ?

            Many thanks in your tips
            Chris
            Sorry for the delay in answering your question - I've been off the forum for a couple of weeks. Here's one of my stores: For the Beach

            The agreement is directly with Amazon, and if I choose I can even sell my own products in my stores. Right now I am using them as affiliate sites only.

            Amazon has a new version of the webstore available, however, they haven't built the "unlimited" functionality into the stores yet, so I am waiting to convert to that version.

            Good luck and let us know what you do!
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            • Profile picture of the author TimG
              Originally Posted by TammieJJ View Post

              Sorry for the delay in answering your question - I've been off the forum for a couple of weeks. Here's one of my stores: For the Beach

              The agreement is directly with Amazon, and if I choose I can even sell my own products in my stores. Right now I am using them as affiliate sites only.

              Amazon has a new version of the webstore available, however, they haven't built the "unlimited" functionality into the stores yet, so I am waiting to convert to that version.

              Good luck and let us know what you do!
              I saw you posted earlier that you were having trouble getting your stores ranked. Having looked at your sites I think if you were to use the IPK method on the front end as an entry to your store you might find that works to obtain the traffic.

              Respectfully,
              Tim
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              • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
                In the past, I've used primarily plain html (XSite Pro) supplemented with a couple of cgi scripts for a couple of reasons.

                > I didn't like the idea of a separate install of WP for every site, complete with overhead (database, etc.) and separate ongoing maintenance.

                > I didn't want to climb the learning curve for WPMU.

                With the release of WP 3.0, and the multi-site option becoming part of the main release, I'm going to try something new.

                I'll put WP on a home domain, then build the little niche sites on subdomains, all using the new Twenty Ten theme modified to look like plain html.

                I can do the basic SEO tweaking and set up once, maintain and update once, and still create relatively unique sites by changing out the backgrounds and header images. Using a couple of the built-in widgets, I'll be able to do some intelligent cross-linking between the subdomains.

                It should be interesting to see how the two methods stack up against each other...
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      • Profile picture of the author Sonomacats
        Originally Posted by zronald.barker View Post

        From a seo prespective, you make the category name of your site product name? niche name ? category name? as it helps on driving traffic for the website.
        Short answer: Yes

        Category Name - yes, especially if it's the top category of products (i.e., headphones)

        Then under that category you put the individual headphones. Or, you could do a subcategory of headphone brands and then under that do a listing of each headphone with all the goodies in the post name.

        When I'm doing keyword research, I like to start at freekeywords.Wordtracker.com because when I put the root word into the search box, I get the various top level categories. Those then become the categories on my site.

        When I click on those categories, it gives me the sub-categories, etc.

        I take ALL of the words and phrases I get, organized by category and subcategory and those then become not only the post names, but the keywords in the articles I write, so my sites are SEO'd up the wazoo without being stuffed. And it gives me tons of article ideas.

        That way, if you couldn't get the exact keyword phrase in your domain name, you have all those categories and pages making up for it.
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        Writing as Kieran McKendrick
        You can find the first prequel to my Purgatory series (How Blended are Dust and Fire) on Amazon and Smashwords.

        Whether you think you can or think you cannot, you are right. -- Henry Ford

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  • Profile picture of the author abbie kye
    Using wordpress, All in one SEO plugin, free themes.
    Quite easy to get around them as a newbie not a techy person.
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  • Profile picture of the author ~kev~
    Amazon banners, and the A-Store work very well with a wordpress blog.

    When your setting up your a-store at amazon, you can customize it so the colors match your blog theme. Then embed it into a page.

    The wide range of widgets amazon offers, product banners,,,,, its almost unlimited as to what you can do.

    Lets just say this - your only limited by what you can imagine.
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  • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
    Banned
    I prefer the Info Product Killer (IPK) method ... small 1 product minisite that gets ranked pretty easily.
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    • Profile picture of the author bionictortoise
      I use Wordpress and a combination of the advice from 'Info Product Killer' and 'Profitzon'. Either course will get good results, but you can optimize further by using both together.
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    • Profile picture of the author TimG
      Originally Posted by sbucciarel View Post

      I prefer the Info Product Killer (IPK) method ... small 1 product minisite that gets ranked pretty easily.
      Without having seen that product and the information it reveals I believe I am doing somethingn similar where I build smaller sites and then link them back to a much bigger site.

      For example I might have a large site on how to prevent pests and then I build a smaller site on how to prevent fleas which links back to a page on the larger site.

      I could probably take it one step further and build a much smaller flea product site and link it back to the prevent flea site which further links back to the large prevent pests website but I'm still getting the schematics down correctly.

      Also, I am building my sites using standard HTML instead of on a blog like many other marketrs do.

      Respectfully,
      Tim
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      • Profile picture of the author Daniel Brock
        You could check out this program called StoreStackerz.

        I personally have never used it before, but it sounds like it might do what you want it to do.

        Maybe not 100%, but the closest you will get.

        Regards,
        Dan Brock
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  • Profile picture of the author minitg
    Using wordpress for the landing page to link to my amazon products and also using a-store for amazon products as an affiliate.
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  • Profile picture of the author deeljea
    Like Tim, I don't use Wordpress to build my amazon sites. I use html ala XSitePro.
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  • Profile picture of the author bitriot
    Thanks all for replying to this thread. I currently have a "store page" on one of my blogs with an aStore which has resulted in just 1 sale to date (started blog in may).

    @blase - I have been googling but that's just it - there is lots of information out there, I was curious what fellow warriors in the trenches are actually doing, especially if it is working :]

    I will check out some of the hosted solutions others are mentioning.

    Thanks for all the perspectives!
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  • Profile picture of the author ryanlucht
    I use both Wordpress and Squidoo to make properties to promote Amazon products. Like I did in the other Amazon thread, I'll reiterate that Tiffany Dow has a free WSO on here which is a 52-week Squidoo Challenge, and that's my amazon stuff for now.
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    • Profile picture of the author sickbaomei
      May I take the opportunity to ask what you guys think is the best theme to make amazon product review sites ? if you can show an example or two, I would most appreciate it.. I am comtemplating creating some and try it out.. also, what kind of plugins are recommended between wpzonbuilder and amaniche ?

      Thanks
      Chris
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  • Profile picture of the author Sonomacats
    The best thing you can do for theme is get something clean and that looks like it will fit with whatever product you're touting. Don't get the same theme as everyone else - it won't serve you in the end.

    If you want to see what other people have done, Google a product+review and you'll see a ton. But you can get a nice theme from either Wordpress.org or any one of a multitude of Wordpress themes out there that will be perfect. Wordpress.org has a ton that work well.

    As to plugins, I use phpZon (by the maker of phpBay). It's easy to use and has a great forum and the owner/creator of the plugin is very active in helping if you have a question or a problem. I've been very happy with it.
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    Writing as Kieran McKendrick
    You can find the first prequel to my Purgatory series (How Blended are Dust and Fire) on Amazon and Smashwords.

    Whether you think you can or think you cannot, you are right. -- Henry Ford

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  • Profile picture of the author con.mic
    I use wordpress with thematic, you have no idea how fast you will get indexed
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  • Profile picture of the author Ronald_65
    I use Wordpress with the Reviewazon plugin to make my Amazon sites.
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  • Profile picture of the author Quentin
    I build 50 to 60 thousand page sites then slowly get all the URLs registered and blog to drive traffic.

    I also add them to the backend of some of my offers.

    Instruments and products for musicians:

    Quentin
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    • Profile picture of the author SuccessMe98
      Originally Posted by Quentin View Post

      I build 50 to 60 thousand page sites then slowly get all the URLs registered and blog to drive traffic.

      I also add them to the backend of some of my offers.

      Quentin
      Wow, 50 to 60 thousand page sites? How long did it take you to build them? Did you use a program/system to build them fast? I'm a newbie and that's why I ask questions.
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      • Profile picture of the author leschwaar
        Originally Posted by SuccessMe98 View Post

        Wow, 50 to 60 thousand page sites? How long did it take you to build them? Did you use a program/system to build them fast? I'm a newbie and that's why I ask questions.
        I'm curious too -- how in the world do you do that? And are those 60,000 pages always coherent and not robot-sounding?
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  • Profile picture of the author Bence Ur
    Wow looks like the website of Associate-o-Matic got a massive facelift. Worth checking out.
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  • Profile picture of the author mikemac1
    Just want to mention to try doing some videos for products as well as building sites.

    I mentioned this in another thread the other day about a client who is doing really well as an Amazon affiliate posting reviews for diet and weight loss products. All she does is post a video and in the description puts her Amazon affiliate link, so she doesn't even have a site.

    To test this out I did a quick (and admittedly bad) video for OxyElite Pro, it's a popular weight loss pill and within 2-3 days it's been bouncing from page 1 and page 2 in the Google search results, so it should settle in page 1 for search within the next couple of days and according to Adwords it gets 60,500+ searches a month - I haven't checked to see if any sales yet but I think if I made a better video I would almost guarantee some.

    Hope this helps.
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