Help starting an Amazon site

1. Are you focusing on a single individual product? If so, that's a bad idea. Also, is the 22k broad, phrase, or exact and is it a "buying" keyword? Yes, you definitely want to target the lesser keywords as they are often easier to rank for. This assumes they are "buying" keywords. My personal preference is to avoid competitive terms altogether and target very specific "buying" terms.

2. Make sure your target term is in your title, URL, and content. This is a good starting point.

3. Yes, lots of them. Just stay away from the "zon" and "review" themes. Try to be a bit more unique than the masses.

YES, there is something you could use. I don't advertise here, but maybe you'll find out what I'm using...

Hey,

is that 22,000 for general keywords based on that type of product or is it for a specific product? I'm guessing general.

You most definitely should include those lesser keywords, are they general or product specific? It all adds up, plus it gives more authority to a site if it has a lot more content based around your niche. You'll be waiting quite a while to rank for a 22k term, so you should target all these little ones with quality articles.

In terms of SEO, do the following:

Focus on content, make sure that it really stands out. Make the content quite long, and by long I mean 1000+ words. Don't focus on trying to stuff your keyword in there. Just use it where it seems natural. If you write for the user you'll find yourself including the keyword many times anyway and start to worry if you've entered it too many times (happens to me haha!). What happens when you write long quality content is that Google is able to rank you for many more long tail combinations than if you were to have shorter content.

Having longer content also means those that stay to read are people who really want to buy, but need that last push of persuasion. Do the usual on-page SEO such as using your keywords in the header tags, naming your images after your keywords, things like that but don't go over the top. Include good CTA links. You'll have to test what your traffic best responds to. I wouldn't worry about that until you have traffic worth testing on.

For marketing your site, you should look to leave content where you can leverage the traffic of other sites. So leaving relevant quality articles on WEB 2.0 properties, guest blogging, leaving comments on sites that reviews either similar products or the same product. You should look to get traffic from that page over to yours if possible.

Social bookmark your pages. Not for backlinks, but if you want to be found quicker and for an initial boost in traffic I would bookmark on only the most popular sites (if you bookmark on lesser known bookmarking sites then your really only after the backlink which is useless anyway).

Leave comments on bigger review sites regarding the product, and leave a link to your own review. Make video versions of your content, but not in the way most people do it which is to simply paste the article into a video, but rather make it interactive with a voice over. Then upload it to video sites that get any worthwhile traffic.

There are other methods, but basically all the above methods and more look to siphon traffic from other websites without the usual motivation of getting a backlink. Just look to leave quality content and replies where others are likely to see it and want more, and before you know it you'll be ranking well on Google because Google still counted those as backlinks even though that wasn't your intention in the first place (which is a bonus). And because you focused on it all being relevant and quality, it'll have more oomph!

If you want a quality Niche theme I recommend the ProReviewTheme.com

I find that one pretty good for Niche review sites.

1. I think what's more important than the # of monthly searches is the amount of competition. So first check the #of competing sites for your keyword, in url & in title. If that is reasonably low, that a good sign - you can compete more easily in that niche for that keyword. Also check the 10 sites on the 1st page of the Google SERPs. Make sure there are not too many high PR sites (PR>1) or high authority aged domain sites. Keywords with 22,000+ searches can have high competition. I typically build my content are 5 main keywords, 2 articles per keyword. Low to moderate competition, 1000+ exact seaches per month. (My sweet spot is 2,500 to 5,000 searches per month.

2. You can find tons of great, free to moderately priced on- and off-page seo instruction both on the warrior forum & youtube.

3. There are TONS of great amazon themes on this forum. A few of my favorites are ZonFusion, GoBlog (a liitle more advanced), and Amazillionaire. Thats just a couple, there are tons more.

Good Luck...Well to Amazon!

Thanks for the really useful info guys!

Definitely target what you call the lesser keywords as well via individually optimised pages or posts; you'll be able to get results quicker than going after what seems to be a pretty big keyword.

As you gain authority and a steadier stream of visitors it'll be naturally easier to go after the bigger keywords.

Hope this helps.

So my application for the associate programme has been rejected, because my site has nothing on it, but I can't put any products on there until I get accepted??

How do you get around this?

I have another website, but it's nothing to do with the products I want to sell - should I use this site or will it get rejected also?

Add some content to your site that's related to the products you want to promote. Amazon wants to see a little bit of effort before approving the app.