Is SEO killing the Amazon associate program?

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I'm interested to know how Amazon associates are being affected by all the recent Google changes.

There's no doubt that over the years, SEO has become more demanding. It's more riskier than before, meaning marketers need to resort to white hat techniques, which ultimately drains more time.

Since Amazon associates really depend on the quantity of sites to maximize low payout commissions, I can only imagine sites being harder and longer to rank, ultimately making the Amazon associate program unfeasible.

I suppose you could outsource everything, but with the constant push for quality SEO, it will mean that there are more steps being introduced to minimize getting sandboxed, hence mounting to most cost, ultimately again challenging the feasibility of the whole program.

I'd like to hear current Amazon associates and how they are coping with SEO changes.

Thoughts? Thanks
#search engine optimization #amazon #associate #killing #program #seo
  • How about PPC and SMM to supplement the SEO?
  • I'm coping just fine. Penguin has never bothered me because I don't build unnatural links.

    Panda very rarely gives me trouble because my content is stuff that people actually want to read. The fact that my sites get referenced by very large sites and see their fair share of repeat visitors validates this.

    The EMD update had zero effect because I don't use EMDs (because I want referral and repeat visitor traffic).

    I am one of those who looks forward to updates rather than cringing when they roll around.
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    • I don't do much amazon on my own, as I now concentrate on adsense.
      But my squidoo lenses, that's another thing. I am doing quite well.

      There's plenty of info out there on how to do it right. Squidoo just
      published a help-guide as well.

      SEO is no harder, in fact, it might be easier. Why? Because once
      we get rid of all the voodoo SEO, what's left? Half of what the
      whole(sic) industry did! So, quit the crap (and crap has always been
      crap) and start working on the OTHER half!

      Good, useful SEO has never changed. Only the ways people think
      to get around it.

      Paul
  • Quite a few people have learned to go directly to Amazon over the years. Considering the depth of the reviews on Amazon and the high-quality of their product information, a lot of people just search from there.
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    • People may go directly to Amazon to buy but when they get there and the product on Amazon shows one or two reviews only (or none at all), they go searching for more information. I'm more than happy to provide them with that information.

      I just assume that most of my traffic has already been to Amazon anyway. I mean, they saw the product "somewhere". Chances are good that they saw it on Amazon and are now looking for info that Amazon didn't provide.
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  • Today I had only 33 clicks, which is pathetic. The worst in the last year I think.

    The problem is that authority sites have been favoured hugely in the Penguin update and the EMD update is just a double whammy. Type in a niche keyword + reviews in Google and you see Amazon, next tag, etc.. dominate the first few pages even though those pages aren't the best info for that search term.

    I think associates are still doing well with SEO, but they're varying their anchor texts a lot when backlinking and using branded domains.

    Maybe, but I don't think that is the problem because lots of people search in Google when looking for a product.

    What is SMM?

    I've tried PPC with Amazon using Adcenter. I broke even just about. The problem is that it took about 3 weeks to get $200 worth of sales so it's really slow. I was bidding about $1 per click also. So gaining a reasonable daily profit seems like a tough task.
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    • SMM is social media marketing. You can always add YouTube video, Pinterest Pins and status updates to your mix.

      I think the $1 per click price range is a bit too high because you're dealing with a relatively low commission. Maybe you can try some of the second tier traffic providers. Send them to a landing page on your domain and then move them into Amazon. I don't know if the really low end clickers are buyers, but I guess just about everyone has an Amazon account by now.
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  • Well, I do have to qualify the "link-building" comment. I don't do any manual link building. The only "link-building" I do (and I don't really consider it link-building) is the automated social-bookmarking of each new review that I publish. Outside of that, there is no back-linking done.

    As for niche-based domains versus a more general, larger site, it's really just a preference since I try to stick with niches and topics that I'm knowledgeable in. For example, if I'm only knowledgeable in power tools, sewing, and iPads, it's hard to group them into a single domain without it looking odd to the visitor.

    For that reason, I keep them separate.
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    • How about using subdomains? Is there any disadvantage using them as it won't look odd to the visitor because they're seperate sites despite being on the same domain.
  • I suppose sub-domains might work. Never tried it though.
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    • Great topic OP. Was curious about this myself. This morning I have been trying to look for examples of affiliate sites selling Amazon/CJ products that are still doing well after these latest updates to try and emulate them.

      The most common sites I see are sites with many niches covered. Sites like top10reviews, bestcovery, etc. I have rarely seen any focused sites specific to the niche being covered. To me it feels like these larger sites are the ones that Google wants to promote now for products that have been in the market for some time.

      The other option I think would be to implement a model like Tom's where you target specific low competition keywords.
  • I just ran 25 searches for items that were over $100 with less than 4 reviews and man Amazon itself is dominating the first 4 slots on every term I looked for.
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    • I don't target exact product names. I rely on traffic from the dozens of related terms for each product. I also don't worry about ranking ahead of Amazon because as I mentioned earlier, I know my visitors have probably already been there anyway. They are searching Google because Amazon didn't give them what they wanted to begin with.

      As long as I rank on page one, I'm happy. The primary reason for this is due to the mindset of the visitor I am targeting. People looking for product reviews are likely to click more than one or two listings in the search results. I already know they aren't going to click the Amazon listings because they were already there so I can throw those out.

      Sure, I have to produce more content than some other webmasters but content is what I enjoy doing (not spamming backlinks all over the internet). The strategy works well. I've built sites for many, many clients so I have a broad range of niches that I can keep track of even though I'm not an expert in any of them. Most of them continue to do well with this strategy.
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  • It's not killing Amazon associates, it's just that bigger sites with more related content seem to be the way. We have a few of those sites and they continue to do well regardless of the updates.

    It just seems that going after a big keyword on the home page and having 3-4 product reviews in total is not working anymore. More content (read more product reviews) means getting traffic from lots of long-tail and very targeted keywords.

    Less competition, no relying on a single keyword to bring all the traffic and better conversion.

    No, sir, Amazon associates are very much alive, those who have adapted at least.
  • I go the "broader" route. Our sites generally cover a bigger niche (say like "Home and Garden") with smaller niches used as sub-categories (like "Power tools", "Small appliances", etc.).

    But this is just a personal preference and ambition (we want to create gigantic sites). The downside is that you need to carefully design and structure sub-categories and navigation to avoid creating a total mess.
  • Thanks for the answers gents. BerkinB you have just earned yourself $4.60. Don't spend it all in one place.

    I like the idea of doing this one a big site. I get the worry about surfers getting confused by surfing around, but I assume a lot of them are going to be one page and gone type visitors anyway. It seems that if you keep on adding content to the same domain your job gets a bit easier over time.
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    • Thanks for the beer mate

      Yes, it's absolutely my point. The more content (but good content), the more authority and love G seems to give.

  • For Amazon Associates, yes SEO kind of killed it.

    However, Google is pretty good with Google Shopping. If you're a dropshipper you can make a ton of money with Google Shopping if you know how to optimize your listings .

    I think standard SEO is going the way of the dinosaur for most affiliate marketers...
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    Is SEO killing the Amazon associate program?

    I'm interested to know how Amazon associates are being affected by all the recent Google changes. There's no doubt that over the years, SEO has become more demanding. It's more riskier than before, meaning marketers need to resort to white hat techniques, which ultimately drains more time.