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How do YOU Amazon?

by Willing2Learn
21 replies
Hi WF'ers,

I promote a few Amazon products through my website (which is not a review site) and make a little money from it every month aside from my other monetization streams. I've decided I'd like to build a dedicated Amazon review site (3 eventually) but I'm not sure how to go about it.

If you're an Amazon warrior how do YOU amazon?

1. Do you recommend EMD's or a branded domain? Why?
2. Do you do strictly reviews or do you mix in "how to" and/or "general information" type articles?
3. What's the main way you market your review sites?
4. How big are you review sites in general in terms of the number of reviews?
5. Do you stick to high ticket products/low ticket products, or a mixture of both?
6. What's your favorite approach to writing reviews?
7. Do you capture peoples email on your review site? Why or why not?

I'm really interested in getting feedback from the vets on this before moving forward. My goal is to eventually have 3 sites earning $1000 a month each.

If you had to start over from scratch and wanted to achieve this within 4-6 months what plan of attack would you use?

Sorry to ask so much I just really want to know.
#amazon
  • Profile picture of the author Willing2Learn
    Nobody wants to share their experience?
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  • Profile picture of the author steven Clayden
    I am currently using woothemes with the woocommerce plugin to build an affiliate store in the clothing niche. Built the site last friday using a brandable domain name and been adding products to it ever since. Now, its not exactly a review site, it has product images on the homepage with a read more button, if someone clicks on the button they get taken to the post where there is an iamge of the product, a buy now button and a short description.

    Below that is a longer description (50/100 words) telling them more about the product + an option for them to rate or review the product. I add around 3 - 4 products a night, takes about 30 mins at most, by the end of the month i should have around 100 items or so.

    Now here`s the kicker. Google appears to be indexing my posts alot quicker than my old standard review site which had 500 word reviews of about 60 products.

    Getting a trickle of traffic at the moment, which i expected as i have done very little promotion as yet. Once i get more products on the site, then traffic generation is next on the list.
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    • Profile picture of the author KriiV
      Originally Posted by steven Clayden View Post

      I am currently using woothemes with the woocommerce plugin to build an affiliate store in the clothing niche.
      Do you find that works well? I've always found that an eCommerce approach to Amazon sales isn't as good as a review site for a specific (more expensive) product.
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  • Profile picture of the author kaposzta
    I'm using Squidoo to sell things on Amazon.
    This way I don't need to buy a domain, hosting, etc.
    From SEO point of view Squidoo is great, because Squidoo lenses are indexed very fast by Google, and based ony my experience, they can get to first page much easier. (I'm at 1-5 position for half a dozen keyword when there's 30-50 MILLION matches.)
    I usually get about 150-200 bucks a month, and I have only 2 big and 1-2 small lenses.

    1. I think EMD is better than a branded domain. Google still likes it
    2. I wrote 1-2 short informational articles and 20-25 product reviews per page.
    3. It doesn't need to be marketed, because I get 6-700 visitors from Google, 1-200 from Squidoo itself.
    4. Not much, you can dominate Google with 20-25 great and short reviews.
    5. I think it's better if you concentrate on items in the 30$-150$ category. My best selling items cost 60$-80$.
    6. You need to write with passion. Highlight the features of the item, but not too much. Keep your review short, a 60-120 words review is perfect. In the end, the visitor will probably buy the product based on its picture.
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    • Profile picture of the author Hani D
      Great method my friend. I think you can create a wso about your method.
      thank you.

      Originally Posted by kaposzta View Post

      I'm using Squidoo to sell things on Amazon.
      This way I don't need to buy a domain, hosting, etc.
      From SEO point of view Squidoo is great, because Squidoo lenses are indexed very fast by Google, and based ony my experience, they can get to first page much easier. (I'm at 1-5 position for half a dozen keyword when there's 30-50 MILLION matches.)
      I usually get about 150-200 bucks a month, and I have only 2 big and 1-2 small lenses.

      1. I think EMD is better than a branded domain. Google still likes it
      2. I wrote 1-2 short informational articles and 20-25 product reviews per page.
      3. It doesn't need to be marketed, because I get 6-700 visitors from Google, 1-200 from Squidoo itself.
      4. Not much, you can dominate Google with 20-25 great and short reviews.
      5. I think it's better if you concentrate on items in the 30$-150$ category. My best selling items cost 60$-80$.
      6. You need to write with passion. Highlight the features of the item, but not too much. Keep your review short, a 60-120 words review is perfect. In the end, the visitor will probably buy the product based on its picture.
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  • Profile picture of the author getdong
    I don't Amazon because my idiot Governor Pat Quinn tried to strong arm amazon and got bitch slapped by them. Now Illinois residents can't be Amazon affiliates. Not only did he not get the sales tax he wanted but now he no longer gets the income tax from the affiliates either. Genius move there.
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    • Profile picture of the author Michael Franklin
      Originally Posted by getdong View Post

      I don't Amazon because my idiot Governor Pat Quinn tried to strong arm amazon and got bitch slapped by them. Now Illinois residents can't be Amazon affiliates. Not only did he not get the sales tax he wanted but now he no longer gets the income tax from the affiliates either. Genius move there.
      You can still promote Amazon via Squidoo if you are in Illinois....Granted, you have to split your commissions with Squidoo, but it's better than nothing if you are eager to promote Amazon!
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  • Profile picture of the author s121
    Instead of using amazon and adding products manually and reviewing them. Have you thought of cpa offers, clicksure or clickbank. These work and there is no start up cost all you need to do is promote the product through youtube or traffic exchanges. First set up a squeeze page. Drive traffic to the squeeze page. Sales = Profits Also you make more with this than Amazon.
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  • Profile picture of the author Michael Ten
    I Amazon unsuccessfully. Amazon is now a verb. To Amazon!
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  • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
    1. Branded all the way. I value my repeat and referral traffic. UnderwaterDigitalCamerasforSaleCheap.org doesn't help me.
    2. I'm mostly reviews.
    3. Organic SEO. I target low competition products and rank well. Traffic follows.
    4. Typically 50-100 reviews (1 per product)
    5. Usually higher-ticket items. Someone buying a $16 USB stick isn't looking for a review.
    6. I use my own plugin
    7. No. I target people who are very late in the buying cycle. These people have their credit cards out. The last thing I want to do is interrupt their purchase.
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    • Profile picture of the author JonPL
      If you are planning on building 3 sites I would recommend starting all 3 at the same time. You can post a few informational articles on each so that the sites get indexed, then start adding some product reviews. If you post one review a day you would have 10 on each site within a month and when you see visitors and sales you will start to get an idea of which pages are ranking and which products are selling.
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      • Profile picture of the author Willing2Learn
        Thanks for the input everybody. It goes to show that (for those who can use Amazon) anything can work as long as you work it.

        I think I'm going to go with this....

        1. Branded domains
        2. A mixture of straight reviews and information articles.
        3. SEO and a bit of article syndication aimed at informational articles.
        4. Aim for 100-120 reviews/pages per site.
        5. Review higher priced items and mention lower prices accessories where applicable.
        6. Write longer comprehensive reviews.
        7. No capturing of emails. Just work on driving traffic and optimizing to get the click through/sale.
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      • Profile picture of the author Willing2Learn
        Originally Posted by JonPL View Post

        If you are planning on building 3 sites I would recommend starting all 3 at the same time. You can post a few informational articles on each so that the sites get indexed, then start adding some product reviews. If you post one review a day you would have 10 on each site within a month and when you see visitors and sales you will start to get an idea of which pages are ranking and which products are selling.

        Good idea. I've bought 2 domains already. Will look into acquiring the last one and work on all 3 simultaneously. Thanks for the suggestion!
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  • Profile picture of the author Randall Magwood
    I used to be an Amazon warrior... $100/day within 30 days... then they banned me for making money too fast.
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    • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
      Originally Posted by Randall Magwood View Post

      they banned me for making money too fast.
      No they didn't....
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  • Profile picture of the author derfootmarcus
    What I have been trying to do on my Amazon site, is get search engine traffic through content articles because I find it easier to rank for terms that do not have a product in them, and then I try to get the visitors to my sales pages. On articles that have a very logical product to solve issues that I mention in the content page, I direct them to my Amazon product description page while if it is not traffic especially targeted to one product, I try to get them to subscribe to my email list so I can advertise my new posts to them as well as product reviews.

    I try to target smaller products when I am directing them at the end of a post, and larger items through my email list.
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    • Profile picture of the author theverysmartguy
      I would honestly recommend following Wolfmmiii advice. Even pick up his guide on doing it properly.

      The advice he just gave in his post was killer; and he knows what he is talking about from experience.

      -- Jeff
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      "Doing nothing is worse than doing it wrong."

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  • Profile picture of the author Willing2Learn
    Randall why do you think they banned you for "making money too fast". I'm trying to understand how that works....

    Thanks for the tip verysmartguy.
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  • Profile picture of the author fivestarexec
    Be sure you do some video reviews if you can. Adding video reviews really helped to pick up a few of my Amazon sites that were on the decline. Now the traffic and sales have increased.

    I agree with wolfmmiii high ticket items are the way to go.
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    • Profile picture of the author Hamida Harland
      1. Do you recommend EMD's or a branded domain? Why?
      I'm still a fan of EMD's. I don't use brand names in my domains because I don't want to get into trouble!

      2. Do you do strictly reviews or do you mix in "how to" and/or "general information" type articles?
      A mix of both. If you have "how to" and general information articles on your site people will stay on your site longer and you'll come across as more of an authority (than someone who is just writing reviews to sell stuff).

      3. What's the main way you market your review sites?
      Mainly SEO so I get backlinks to try and get my sites ranked well in the search engines. I've had some good success recently with press releases as they seem to be ranking quite well since the Google updates this year.

      4. How big are you review sites in general in terms of the number of reviews?
      Varies depending on the niche. I have a few single product review sites, and a few that are reviewing multiple products (5-7 max).

      5. Do you stick to high ticket products/low ticket products, or a mixture of both?
      Mainly high ticket. I know alot of people advocate low ticket products as a way to sell in volume and push up your commission percentage but I still prefer to make at least $5 per commission.

      6. What's your favorite approach to writing reviews?
      Long and detailed with a personal touch.

      7. Do you capture peoples email on your review site? Why or why not?
      Not for my Amazon review sites. I probably should though!
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  • Profile picture of the author Freddie Crossberg
    Wolfmmi has the right advice.

    I will add to that that when I was promoting an Amazon site, I targeted VS keywords as there where lots of searches and very LOW competition in the SEs.

    I build one site around the keyword "Kindle vs Nook review" and eventually sold that site for $8,000 as it was bringing in some nice money every month all from Google traffic

    Find those VS keywords and make bank

    Freddie
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