Amazon Review Sites: how to stay on page 1?

Bro , as i read it seems that your work was complete and awesome especially writing your own high quality content , maybe the problem is in not updating the website regularly ? Or providing backlinks ? Or the competitors on the same niche as long as authority websites are developing ?

Thanks Hasanabd!

As far as updating the content enough: I keep hearing conflicting ideas from the "gurus". Some of them say the way to keep it on page 1: update often. Some say they have sites that they never need to update (I'm assuming that just means keep building backlinks).

To be honest I was hoping I wouldn't have to update the content anymore - maybe once every few months when I find a new product to review but I was hoping 8-10 reviews would be fine, plus maybe an article or two that is of high interest to whomever is browsing my site such as the buying guides a.k.a. "how to buy" and also in the future a "why you should buy".

For off-page SEO I am building backlinks regularly - I usually use fiverr though I am experimenting with other services. I don't have much strategy except to do it consistently every month and try something different every month because it seems the one consistent backlink strategy in these backlinking guides is to get a variety of backlinks over time. Each month I use as my "meat and potatoes" 3waylinks, Directorymaximizer, socialmaximizer. Then I get a fiverr gig (sometimes two) and vary between forum profile, article marketing, blogroll, contextual blog post, senukex campaign, etc..etc.

I'm assuming as long as I do this consistently it will be good? Or is there specific off-page-seo I should follow instead of my "meat and potatoes + random fiverr" ?

Anyway, I have a feeling it is either everyone else kicking my butt OR something wrong with my site since each site I have had reach page 1 has stayed there for some time and then fallen off. A few sites it stays there two or more months, sometimes only a few weeks. I think this happened for 7 of my 11 sites in campaign 1.

I have not started any off-page SEO for campaign 2 yet (just press release) and they are getting some sales already (two months in) and this is when I was planning to start the off-page SEO and tweaking of any content - so I do have more sites to experiment with now

If it helps, here are two of my sites that both did really well, had $100+ months, and now the traffic has disappeared

Best Desktop Speakers Bestsellers | Best Desktop Speakers (this is now maintaining position on page 2)
Bestselling Hiking Backpacks | Hiking Backpack Reviews (this is nowhere to be found now, but was on page 1 for a quite awhile also)

Both sites this month are going to be under $20 which will not cover the cost of maintaining the site

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

And if anyone has any questions for me I'd be happy to answer - I'm still learning a lot myself (obviously) but would be happy to help.

You can do one of two things if you want to stay on page one longer:

1. Target low competition products so Google has no choice but to leave you on page one longer
2. Maintain your site by updating the content regularly

For best results, do both.

1. Go after lower competition phrases.

2. Add content on a semi-frequent basis. (Every few weeks if you can. Even if it's just an article or two.)

3. Backlinks. Keep backlinking the site, your articles, etc. If you're going after low competition phrases it's not going to take much.

Thanks everyone , I really appreciate the tips!!

I'm glad to hear that once or twice a month seems sufficient since it seems that most of the books/wso/"guru" posts say it's either three or four times a week or never, (though that might just be a marketing ploy to sell something that will autopost three or four times a week or a system that lets you set it and forget it a.k.a. never work on it again). That definitely is much more palatable since I still enjoy writing all the content.

A lot of what you guys talk about for off-page SEO seems to be what I've read for backlinking strategies to get to Page #1. So are you saying it's the same whether you are trying to get Page #1 or maintain Page # 1?

To Owen: My niche research is using Microniche Finder and finding the "greens". Searches per month vary between 270 and 1000, most of them being around 300 to 500. but I was always of the mindset that by writing "naturally" I would end up getting some searches with related keywords and product keywords. I did make mental notes of related keywords searches which came up with both Microniche Finder and also searching those phrases in Google Keyword tool. When I went to Amazon and found the products I would be writing reviews for I also searched those in Google Keyword tool and wrote those down just to see what the most common searched phrases are and I used those as my categories.

I haven't done any specific targeting towards products yet, just the general targeting that I list above. (thanks to the tips in this thread about doing specific targeting towards product names.. appreciate that)

If you do find that post, please please do share!! Thanks!

To ZaraThushtra
To respond to those that didn't know how I did backlink building, I am following Matt Rhodes Pathetic Money Maker system (which is what I base my keyword research on) and his system just has putting the site up followed by press release. Then to build backlinks after it had gained some traction just from the additional content. So I pretty much do that where I build the site, I put up four reviews in the first week, then the press release, then additional reviews for the rest of the two months. After two to three months I started my backlink building.

For backlink building, I don't know if I have the best strategy or even one that works. I just noticed that diversity and consistency is the main common thread.

My "meat and potatoes" I do each month is 3waylinks (recommended by Stephen Resell of "Super Simple Blogging"), DirectoryMaximizer and SocialMaximizer (recommended by Matt Rhodes in 4Hour Backlinks). Then I spend money on one or two fiverr gigs to do the diversity thing and I vary it each month amongst the various ways to backlink: forum, blog comment, blogroll, senukex, article marketing, wiki links, other bookmarks, etc.. etc. I figure that gives me diversity

For keywords I do my best to vary it a lot, including using "click here" and the actual URLs

I have no idea if this works or not, I'm definitely open to critique if I am doing it wrong (in fact if I am, please tell me!!) - I just based it off of common threads from all the backlink material I've read combined with what I would call my "common sense" (How I notice that I backlink and how I write on my personal blogs)

But I'm a beginning internet marketer right now, and anxious to be corrected and critiqued. especially in relation to "gurus". I started in earnest in November, not a lot of spare time for this but I do my best, big goals but not even yet at $1000 a month... which is why I started the thread - enjoyed the success of Matt Rhodes PMM system but was then dismayed when my sites fell off the first page - and I would like to study how to tweak those sites to get them back to first page.

Thank you everyone for all the feedback, I really appreciate it!

Try continually adding original content. Google loves evergreen sites, and Google loves original content. I'm not sure what "guru" said that setting-and-forgetting sites is okay, but he/she was wrong.

Also, keep going with your offsite SEO/backlinking.

If you do these two things, then you should be set. But, DO NOT set and forget your sites.

In addition, I noticed that you rely on a ton of tools/software. You really only need Google Keyword Tool, a Blog, a person to outsource too, and some motivation to write. But, hey, if what you are doing works, then keep doing it! Don't fix something that isn't broken!

I just went live on Friday with my first amazon review site. What do you suggest i do for my seo over the mext few weeks. Theres 0 links, It only just showed up in exact domain search yesterday morning. Do you have any suggestions for the first month seo wise? Is it too soon to pay for a linkwheel service? What services are best for newly launched sites, or am i asking for trouble?

Thanks for the advice. Whats the approximate conversion rate for these sites? Im having a hard time getting an estimate of that. Id just like it so i can estimate what the approx monthly sales i could attain on first page of google so i have an estimate of what i could later spend on seo(i was estimating 10% per month)

I learn more from here than from a WSO: p
Thx

Me too - I was afraid my question was going to result in a bit of blind leading around the blind or newbie leading around the newbie (which still can be a very good discussion!) - I was very happy to hear from some of the senior warrior members here to help guide me (and us) with some of their experience. I'm definitely learning a lot and it is helping me brainstorm more too!

Just a few things I noticed. On the speaker site front page, you have a price of $50. That is flat out against the Amazon TOS. Their prices change frequently, and they do not want other sites stating a price.

Don't forget about the Google dance. I don't know how old the domains are, but it is very common for sites to get to the first page when they are new and then drop off. Sometimes they climb right back up. It might be just more time that is needed.

Your expenses surprised me. For low traffic sites, I've always managed to have quite a few on a single host about $7 a month. Having cheap hosting frees you up a bit and lets you experiment without suffering financially.

I've struggled recently to consistently rank any "traditional style" Amazon review site. I have a hunch that Google has it in for a particular type of Amazon review site -- the type that became very popular a couple of years ago, and that a lot of people are continuing to build now (it's just a hunch tho). The blueprint is slightly outdated. You need to take the basic principles and re-apply them with a bit of creative flair.

There was a point when about 6 or 7 of the top ten Google positions for any sort of physical product were basically the same ugly looking wordpress sites with the same tatty templates and bland review style (not saying that's what you have). No doubt they converted well, and they still do if you can get the traffic, but it's not very good from a user experience point of view, and i think google have noticed it.

Try writing reviews/articles that help people solve their problems, and answer their questions. Add personality. Try and make them as unique as possible by adding your own images etc. Go for the magazine-style look. Tell them a story -- don't tell them what JazzyJay81 said on Amazon about his leaky Suzuki solar-powered-foot-spa. Empathize with their "dry feet issue", then tell them xxx brand will solve the issue. You target xxx brand as your keyword for that particular article.

I have found that when I build sites like that, they tend to rank themselves with a gentle shove in the right direction. I stopped outsourcing my SEO when I made that change. None of them made a blind bit of difference anymore. I used the money instead to hire good quality writers for content. You can also then keep a regular content top-up by doing a little "curation" within you niche; It helps keep you on the Google radar.

Good info FreeMeal. I do something very similar with my own sites. What many people forget (or do not realize) is that much of their site's traffic has already been to Amazon and read the reviews there. They don't need (or want) you re-hashing what they've already read.

Adding regular original content is even more important these days and Google actually posted on their blog that they now look at how often a site is updated and relevant content added, so it is very important now that you add more content to your site on a regular basis meaning BI WEEKLY or at least once a month.

I have several products in development and one of them will directly relate to the new changes and make life a little easier for Amazon Affiliates post Panda.

Kickin it on Amazon

Gaz Cooper
Amz Training Academy

You can try to do Massive Link Building: article marketing, social bookmarking, forum profile, blog comments..

I think your sites were hit after the Penguin update. What kind of backlinks had you built to the sites in the first place to get them ranked on first page?

Just keep on building links, you are never done in SEO

Thanks all! I've opted just to do the adding of "news" content twice a month I'm also going to cut down on some of the fiverr SEO gigs I've been doing.

What convinced me was that first the guy who wrote the system I'm using got back to me too and suggested all the extracurricular SEO was not necessary.

Second, my highest earning site for the last few months actually had just the basic meat and potatoes type SEO on it

Will send an update if anything interesting happens

What I have found since April and a handful of other successful associates I hang with all came to the conclusion that if you have both Amazon and Adsense on your site you will get penalised.

Consider this

If I understand you correctly, you start backlinking at about 3 months. So by then you are on first page and doing fairly well.

Then you start backlinking. If you do very many backlinks at once, directly to your site post Panda, Google has a "reaction", a google dance if you will.

Google then has to decide where your site or page fits in compared to others, so it drops off the first page and may end up on page 16. It can then take weeks for it to work its way up to the first page again, often times at a higher position.

My experience has been, If you are going to get backlinks, do only small amounts at a time directly to your posts/pages. Then you don't have such a big dip. Extreme example: I have had 3 blog comments take my post off the first page. So certainly 25 backlinks from other sources are going to be better than getting 125 backlinks all at once.

Jeannie

Interesting about the adsense and amazon, hadn't heard that one before. For the linking strategy, I am definitely going to overall be more conservative on the backlinking in general and a bit more aggressive on content.

Still trying to figure this one out, I really appreciate all the feedback!

Ben,

Also as you have created and nurtured such a great thread, I'd like to contribute some of my experiences that may relate to your endeavour.

About 6 months ago, I created an (EMD) Amazon review site. It is well designed and has around 45 posts (4-5 of the posts are literally just related videos I've found on youtube). I did no backlinking whatsoever.

It had a high SERP initially for its targeted keyword, but then disappeared a few weeks after. I suspect that would be the Google dance.

It is now back on page 1, ranked at position 3-4 just under the main manufacturers site.

Take what you want from that, and I guess the important thing is to not worry and just continue whatever you are doing right now. Your method methods seem solid enough and does not rely on any dodgy short cuts.

So just an update - I mentioned if anything interesting happened I'd write.

The few sites I was tracking in particular that disappeared have come back onto page 1 for the keywords I've been checking on. They are not in the top 3 positions as they used to be, but they are back in the middle of the first page. Correspondingly I am seeing the adsense impressions going back up a bit too. There is still one site I am tracking that has disappeared to page 5 or so. Curious to see if that will come back.

Not sure if it happened on its own or what ... but in case you all are curious this is what I have been doing:

I stopped my SEO efforts on fiverr. Continued the social bookmarking and directory submissions as well. Continued the 3 way links as well.

Two big changes:

First: bought 1 to 3 links each month from some blogs (PRs 2 to 5). I am a bit wary about this though because I don't know what is considered a "spammy" blog or not.

Second: Per the advice from this thread I have been updating the content two to four times a month. I created a category called "News" - I have found various news items related to the niche of the site and post links to them with my own one to five paragraph opinion on that news item which has actually been pretty fun Sometimes I link only to the news item. Sometimes in addition I will internally link to a product or other page on my site. Whether or not this helped, I do like that it adds some original quality content every so often to the site.

Thanks again everyone for the help!

Per the last recent posts about too many links too fast:

I was doing my best to be aware of my backlinking and amounts of backlinks. I had read very similar experiences about too many backlinks too fast = bad. That is why I started with the "meat and potatoes" back links (as I call them: 3 way links, directory submission, and social bookmark submission) at around month 2 or 3 (no backlinks in month 1 or 2). Then to increase the number of backlinks in month 3 and 4 I started using the fiverr gigs

I was being cautious with the fiverr gigs and chose those that only linked less than 30 direct links to my site (some of them would do multi-level linking and do less than 30 direct, with many more hundreds or thousands on second level).

I figured that was pretty safe. But who knows, maybe it wasn't. I was taking what I thought was a "cautious" approach to backlinking as far as increase in backlinks and types of backlinks, but maybe it still hurt my site's rankings.

So perhaps it was the google dance, perhaps not.

Jeannie, Darren and Tu: I definitely appreciate your relating your experiences! Extremely helpful and reinforces the idea (for Amazon sites at least) how valuable content is and to perhaps be on the more cautious side of backlinking (or maybe not even doing backlinking)

For J: I have been tracking four sites specifically and three of them are back on page 1 for the targeted keyword. 1 is still list somewhere (per my previous post)

Such a good point Thanks!

I was wrestling with wanting to increase conversions on my site too - I am getting a healthy amount of amazon clicks and wanted to spend time on seeing if I could convert more with the existing traffic.

Over the weekend I did end up deciding on just going forward with more sites. Glad to hear the suggestion come up to since I had been thinking about that for a bit longer than I wanted to.
Cheers!
Ben

It's good to have several Amazon sites. Keep the ones that are doing well and dispose off the rest by selling them on sites like Flippa.

Several sites means more visitors to Amazon and your chances of getting sales increases.

Google has not hurt Amazon sites, provided they are providing quality content. My sites (and those of many other members) are doing even better now than they were 2 weeks ago.

It was the thin, EMD-based sites that were mostly affected.

Provide good content that people actually want to read and you should be good for the most part.

How to stay on page one? Wolf told me his secret, scrapebox blasts all the way :p

I use OnlyWire for indexing only and I only use 5-10 of the sites.

I believe OnlyWire supports quite a few different social platforms. Do you guys mind sharing which 5-10 you use?

i get alot of referral traffic from stumbledupon when I post to onlywire, but the problem with them it really is just people surfing. The way I figure though, its still a unique visitor and if they like your niche/website, they will bookmark and be back

Hi, interesting to see this thread was a bit active after I had stopped checking in. My sites did get crushed pretty well with the Google update, but I have a feeling it was more my backlinking practices than anything else. I still get some traffic and sales even though I have stopped all activity on the sites (including updating them with regular blog posts).

I actually stopped IM for the most part in October because long story short, I was mostly managing a lot of outsourcing of content being written to prepare for all my new sites and then took a stop because my wife and I had a new addition to our family in November

December was off for holidays

January was launching a new business

Finally starting in February I started re-designing my Amazon review sites to be new and more google friendly, taking all of the info in this thread into account (thanks guys!!). And all this time my other amazon sites, while not performing nearly as well as they had been, are still getting trickles of traffic and orders - at some point I will go back to updating the sites at some regular basis (once a month?) just to see if it gets more traffic . And maybe start doing some minimal backlinking of some sort (once a month).

But right now my focus is designing a much higher quality amazon review site. I'll make sure to update everyone to let you know how it's going.

But thanks to everyone who contributed (and still contirbuting) to this thread! I have found this to be very very helpful!!

Onward and upward!

BTW, you guys creating all these Amazon review sites are pushing your luck with future Google algos. After Google gets tired of all the masses targeting the keyword review with doorway pages, they'll end up shutting you all down.

It's not complicated to target two things for a Google algo. update:

1. The keyword review in the page title
2. An Amazon affliate link on the page

There's legit ways to monetize Amazon & I seriously doubt that's happening here. A fake review is crap & Google usually deals with crap sooner or later.

Good luck.

Diversifying anchors is definitely the wisest move.

In addition to what have already addressed about content, you might want to get more relevant and quality backlinks to your niches. (By quality I mean authority) Random fiverr gig is not going to make it for the up keep.