Interested in Amazon Affiliate?
Looking for a complete step by step guide to building an Amazon Affiliate site?
Welcome. You are in the right place.
Here you will find every step and process you will need to follow to create an Amazon affiliate site. You can confidently follow the process we have mentioned in this guide to build a site that will actually make you money.
You will find some external resources in this guide which will help you further to streamline your strategies. There some super successful Amazon affiliate marketers who share their strategies and success stories.
Reading them can really help the results you see.
What Is An Amazon Affiliate Website?
Basically, it’s a site full of Amazon products and product reviews, written and formatted to help the customer make a buying decision.
Take http://www.livelongerrunning.com/ for example.
You’ll notice they do reviews on treadmills and even rate the treadmills from best to worst.
They explain how they chose the winners, what a good treadmill can do for the buyer, what to look for in a treadmill, innovative features and so forth.
A prospect comes to the website looking for help in making a buying decision and finds blog posts and ratings to help him out.
And of course, each product is actually an affiliate link so that when the prospect clicks a product link and goes to Amazon to make a purchase, the affiliate receives a commission.
There are two main types of review sites for affiliate marketing…
- Large cumbersome review sites that review a vast array of different products in a fairly broad niche, such as “technology.”
- Sleek product review sites that focus on one very specific product type, such as ‘best household vacuum cleaner’ and link to Amazon.
They’re two different business models. Both work.
But the large review site is time-consuming, requires more work and higher levels of content, needs to be updated regularly and needs to offer the latest news and review the latest products.
In other words, the large review sites are great if you’re willing to fully commit to it and work it full time along with a team.
On the other hand, the sleek product review site is more of a ‘set it and forget it’ type of model.
It only requires a handful of pages, it doesn’t need to be updated as often, and it’s far easier to manage and maintain.
It’s also easier to get it ranked high in the search engines because it is very specific to one tightly targeted niche term.
And when you rank high, you get free, super-targeted traffic that is looking to BUY the product you are selling.
Last, of all, a sleek review site can be expanded later into a broader category.
For example, you might start with straight razors and expand into other shaving products.
Why an Amazon Affiliate Site?
So why specifically would you want an Amazon Affiliate Site, as opposed to some other kind of online business?
Little known fact: Many new marketers actually START with an Amazon review site, because it’s one of the easiest ways to start earning money online on a regular basis.
Think about this:
- Amazon products are easy to sell
- Universal cookies mean it’s easy to make commissions
- Review posts are easy to write, easy to get traffic and easy to get ranked
- There are plenty of buying keywords to choose from
- You can ‘fake’ being an authority from Day 1
- Tons of info already exists on the products you’re reviewing, which means you don’t have to buy them to review them
- You can scale up simply by adding more products or creating more sites
- The websites aren’t super difficult to set up, and you can always hire a professional to build it for you. (Ahem… see the end of this report for a very special offer J)
- You don’t have to be passionate about the products. You don’t even have to like the products, you just have to be able to review them
- Amazon reviews sites are very likely the easiest the way to get started online
- You can make a very nice side income, to begin with, and scale it up to a large 5 or 6 figure income over time
Nobody is born being a successful blogger, niche marketer, website builder, coach, product seller or whatever.
No one produces fantastic content right off the bat, either.
There is a learning curve to marketing online.
That’s why Amazon review sites are a great place for the beginner to start.
And they’re excellent for the experienced marketer who wants to add additional streams of income.
You just have to learn how to do it.
And as you learn more and more, your confidence grows right along with your bank account.
Pretty soon you’re setting up a second website or another business and you’re gaining, even more, experience and confidence on your way to becoming a successful online marketer.
But it all starts with an Amazon affiliate site.
Can an Amazon Site Make You Rich?
Yes and no.
A lot of Amazon sites earn a few hundred dollars a month.
Others earn a great deal more.
The trick is to not get lazy and never be totally satisfied.
Let’s say you build a site on a certain piece of gardening equipment.
It’s earning you $500 a month, nearly passively.
That’s not bad.
Now you add a second piece of gardening equipment to your site, and then a third and fourth.
Now it’s earning close to $2,000 a month, nearly passively.
So you branch out and build a second site in another niche, and grow that site.
See what could happen after a few months?
Your income can continue to grow and grow as you gain more and more experience and continue to expand.
But it all starts with that first Amazon review site.
So How Do You Build An Amazon Review Site?
We’ll give you a rundown of the steps involved.
This might seem intimidating, but with time and patience, you can do this.
Or you can simply hire us to do it for you. More on this in a bit.
First, for the do-it-yourselfers, here’s how to build your first Amazon review site.
First let me tell you the 8 steps of making an affiliate website. They are:
- Niche selection
- Keyword Research
- Product Research
- Domain , Hosting and Site Creation
- Content Creation
- SEO and Link Building
- Social Traffic Generation
- Growing
Each step is important.
In order to create a successful Amazon affiliate website it’s essential that you complete each step.
Your level of success depends on what you do in each step.
For Amazon affiliate sites the niche selection and product selection are relatively easier. You just need to follow the right criteria to select the niche and products.
Amazon excels at presenting the right products to its customers. Amazon is also an extremely trusted website by consumers.
Put this together and provided you choose popular Amazon products you can be confident that they will convert into buying customers.
The effort that you put in will be the biggest determinant of the success you enjoy with your Amazon affiliate sites. To get you motivated before we begin let’s look at the kind of success you can potentially achieve with your site.
The potential for Amazon affiliate sites is bigger than most people realize. Take for example an authority affiliate site like the Wirecutter. This website was purchased by the New York Times in 2016 for $30 million in cash!
Or on a smaller – but still very impressive – scale how about shaving website “A Penny Shaved” which was earning $500 after only four months of being saved.
No matter how you look at it building Amazon affiliate websites is one of the most proven and profitable business models available today.
1. Niche Selection
One of the areas that Amazon affiliates struggle with the most is choosing the right niche and the keywords to target. Choosing the right niche is going to have a big impact on your future success, so it’s important to get it right.
It should be something you know or something you’re willing to research and write about.
And it should be something people are searching for when they’re ready to make a purchase.
But don’t pick a saturated niche, such as televisions. And don’t pick a niche that doesn’t get many sales, either, or you’ll be struggling.
Also, read Nichehack’s article on finding niche ideas on Amazon. I also recommend you watch the video on LongTailPro to find out Dozens of Amazon Niche ideas in 3 minutes.
We do it differently. We list a couple of categories of products at Amazon. We then check the number of converting products. If we find a good number of products exist with lots of reviews then we pick the categories for keyword research.
If we find a good number of keywords matching our criteria, then we finalize the category. Otherwise, we repeat the process.
2. Researching Keywords
You need to choose keywords that will rank and are used by the buyers. There is no shortage of buying keywords. But most of them are highly competitive. Many established and authority sites are competing for those terms. What you need are the buying keywords that you can rank from your niche site.
Finding those keywords can be time-consuming.
How do we choose keywords?
We have a process of finding seed keywords to generate the keywords. We then filter the keywords using the search volume and keyword difficulty. But this is not all we do to select the keywords. We manually check the search result for any keyword.
We make sure that:
- The multiple weak sites (DA 25-30, less than a year old) are ranking in top 10
- Not all the results are using the exact keyword in the title.
- At least 2 of the top 10 results have less than 10 links to the resulting page (0 links preferred)
- Niche sites are ranking on the first page
- Target results where ranking pages are NOT root domains.
- Longer Phrases (3+ words)
- Keyword difficulty score is below 10. We use Ahrefs.com’s keyword difficulty score.
This ensures that the keywords we choose are long tail with the easy competition. We also get an idea how many links we will need to rank the keywords.
Related Reading:
Decide the type of site you will build
After selecting the keywords, the next step is to decide the type of sites you will build. There are many ways you can do Amazon affiliate marketing. Marketers create various types of sites as their strategies and goals are different. It is very important for to define your goals and plan your strategies so that you know what you are doing. Many marketers fail as they do not know what to do after building their site. So this is a very critical step.
As I have said, there are many types of sites that promote Amazon products. But we will discuss a couple of models so that you can get a good grasp to decide your model.
General review site
Sites like Consumerresearch.com, bestreviews.com fall in this category. The write reviews on almost any product. They don’t just promote products from Amazon but from other affiliate networks as well.
Broad niche site
Thesweethome.com, and thewirecutter.com are the great example of this kind of sites. Thesweethome.com writes about home and kitchen appliance-related products and thewirecutter.com writes about general appliances. They have chosen a category under which they can write on a wide range of products.
The following sites also have the similar strategies. The sites are on a broader niche or market under which exist some more niches.
- protoolreviews.com
Specific niche sites
They are created in a very specific category like coffee makers, electric shaver, blender, juicer etc. Here are some examples of these types of websites:
- Shaverguru.com
- coffeemakerpicks.com
- blenderrepublic.com
The strategies for building links to these type of websites also vary. The number of pages, keyword targeting, content types, link building vary depending on your budget and the amount of time you have to commit to link building.
The entrepreneurs of this kind of sites are people like you and me. They usually aren’t working with a large budget. They may be new to internet marketing and affiliate marketing. In some cases, they desperately need something to earn some extra money.
There are some other factors that also come into play. This type of sites earns when the keywords rank on the site. Social traffic or paid traffic are not going to be the best option in most cases.
In order to rank on Google, links are the most important element. Sites of this type are not going to attract links naturally. As the link building strategies get harder now, not all marketers will be able to manage this.
To sum up you have the following options:
- Create a site focusing on a single niche
- Create a site focusing on a broader topic
Personally, I think choosing a border site work best. The reason is that you can grow the site too far greater extent. You can create pages for the site based on the keywords you have purchased.
Once you get the success with this batch of keywords, you can then add more keywords either on the same niche or on a completely new sub-niche.
If you go to build a broad niche site, you will just need to choose a domain name that will cover the niches you will add later.
The strategies
Number of pages
The amount your website will earn will depend on the buying traffic it gets. The more pages a site ranks for in the first page and the more top 3 positions it holds the more the site earns. The more such pages you can add to your site the better. Investing in creating more such pages has a very good ROI.
If you are working with a limited budget, you can initially build a standard size website with 25 pages. Once the 25 pages are added, you can start building links to rank the keywords. If you build high-quality links from a website with good domain authority (DA), then your pages will start ranking. Within 6 months will begin to see the results.
If you have money to add more pages, you can do by this time or you can keep building links to rank all of them in the top 3 positions. If you can afford, I think a 50 pages site is an ideal place to start. But you can begin with more or less than this. Remember though the amount of money that you make from your website will be large part related to the amount of content that you have.
Content building
You can either write by yourself or outsource to writers. If you are not a native English writer, or not have time to finish the writing for all content fast, you better decide to outsource to writers. We have added guidelines below on outsourcing content writing.
There are many different job boards that you can use to hire writers for your website. Some of the most popular include:
● Upwork
● People per Hour
● Onlinejobs.ph
● Jobrack.eu
There are slight nuances to using each of these different job boards but essentially they generally work in the same way.
You post a job notice where you detail your requirements. Writers who interested in working on your project apply. In their job application, they will detail why they feel they are suitable for your project. You can look at their history and experience on the job board to see if they are a good match for your project.
In general, the quality of the writer will be reflected in their price. If you want a high-quality writer then you will need to pay more for their services. Lower quality writers and those who have English as a second language will be less expensive.
This means that you will be able to find a writer that meets your budget. Be careful about going for too a low-cost option when choosing a writer. The days of posting extremely low-quality content and having it rank well are well gone.
For keywords with a moderate to high level of competition on average most posts will need to be between 1500 – 2000 words in length and from a writer that is engaging and knowledgeable in the subject area.
When hiring writers you will usually want to pay on a per project basis. For example, you might hire a writer to deliver you 5 articles of 1000 words and you will pay $15 per 1,000 words.
In this scenario, you would pay a total of $75 for the five articles. The benefit of this approach is that you don’t have to worry about how long it takes for the writer to complete the article.
The only exception to paying on a per project basis is if you are hiring a “content manager”. This is someone who will organize your team of content writers for you. Because this role in managerial it is usually a little more difficult to value it on a per project basis.
Writing your job description
Writing a good job description will make a huge difference to the quality of writers that you will get. In order to make this is easy as possible, we have created prewritten job templates for you to use.
We recommend that we use these templates to simplify this step and ensure the best results. However, we also want to make sure that you are confident writing your own job descriptions if you prefer. Below we’ve included our best practices for creating an effective job description.
Start your description by including a question that applicants need to answer in order to apply for your job. Anyone who wants to work for you needs to answer this question. This is essential because it tests that they read and follow instructions carefully. Attention to detail like this will be very important when they are actually working for you.
Questions should be simple and easy to answer, like “What is your favorite TV show?” or “What is your favorite color?” The answer is not important, only the fact that they answered.
Be very clear in your job description of the type of work that you want them to perform. This can include adding in specific examples of other articles that are similar to what you want. This will give the writers an indication of what you expect of them and allow them to assess if they are a good fit for your job.
Choosing your writers
When someone applies for your job make sure to get back to them quickly as possible. Good quality applicants may be applying to multiple different jobs. You want to get these good writers locked in and working on your project before they are snatched up by someone else.
Before beginning on your project you want to give them a test run. So if you have a batch of 20 articles that you need to have written, you might start by giving them 1 or 2 articles to complete. It’s much better to cut your losses early on if a writer is a low quality.
Remember that there are plenty of writers available. So if a writer doesn’t seem like a good match you can always move onto someone else. However, if you do have a good writer, it pays to treat them well, even if this means offering slightly higher rates than you normally would.
Managing your writers
There is a huge array of different types of writing. Even the best writers may not deliver what you are looking for, if you aren’t clear with your instructions.
Before beginning create an operating document that you give to each of your new writers. This can include the structure of the articles (use the example in this guide). It should also include links to examples of other articles that are in the format that you want. You will also want to give your writers links to any resources they could use to research your articles.
The better detailed your instructions, the better your results are going to be, so invest some time in this area.
Once you have decided your strategy and you know what type of site you will build, the next step is registering domain.
Domain Name
A good domain name is very important for affiliate marketers. But finding the right one is not easy. I have found many new affiliate marketers struggle with registering domain names for their sites. Many new affiliate marketers choose the wrong domains. In this article, you will find some important information that will help you choose the domain name for your affiliate site or blogs easily.
The are a number of factors which will influence which domain name you choose.
Your goals– Your affiliate site project can be short term or long term. If you are building an affiliate site which you attend to hold and grow over the long-terms,, then you need to be serious and careful with choosing domain names. If your goal is just to earn a couple of bucks then it matters less to you. You can choose domains names like “productreview101.com” or something similar. But for a long term project, it should be brandable, short and with the attributes of a good domain name.
Types of Sites: Affiliate sites are different types. Some marketers create blog type site where they write about various topics related and link to affiliate links from within their writings. Some marketers create niche specific content site which can be based on a broad niche with a couple of sub-niches or on a single niche.
Premium Domain Name
You might know the value of premium domains. At first, you should search if any premium domains are available in your niche. Given below are some of the common words found in premium domains. Go to the domain name registrar of your choice and check if “keyword” the following words available.
- insight
- home
- advice
- advisor
- pick
- world
- center
- daily
- planet
- fresh – good for blog ( example socialfresh.com ).
- Journal
Some other extensions ideal for product review sites
If your site is a product review site, then you can use the following words to make up the domain names to register.
- pick (ex. pickmytoaster.com)
- reviews (ex. protoolreviews.com )
- reporter (sewingmachinereporter.com)
- choose ( ex. choosemattress.com)
- pickmy ( ex. pickmyelectrictoothbrush.com, pickmyshaver.com)
- patrol (ex. gearpatrol.com)
- judge (ex. dehydratorjudge.com)
- portal (ex. pressurecookerportal.com)
- guide (ex. vacuumsealersguide.com)
- hub (ex. slowcookerhub.com)
- ratings (ex. bestricecookerratings.com)
- center (ex. breadmachinecenter.net)
- pro (ex. bestshowerheadpro.com)
- perfect (ex. perfectshowerhead.com)
- expert (ex. exercisebikesexpert.com)
Of course in truth your domain could be anything. Use the above information just as a clue to brainstorm the domains for your Amazon product review site.
Site Creation using WordPress
Installing WordPress is easy. Almost all webhosting now offers one-click WordPress installation. I am adding some links here which you can check if you are completely new to WordPress. After installing the WordPress, all you will need to choose a theme and customize it to have a unique look and feel. If you change the color scheme and add your logo, set up the navigation menu and sidebar of your WordPress site, your site will look completely unique.
Theme
You can use any decent looking theme for creating the site. If you want, you can invest more money on theme and design. As there so many options, you might get confused with which one to choose.
And for your convenience, here are some options.
- https://wordpress.org/themes/hueman/
- https://wordpress.org/themes/ajaira/
- https://StudioPress.com
- https://generatepress.com
Plugins
Given below are the plugins that almost every WordPress site needs:
- WordPress SEO by Yoast
- BackupBuddy
- W3 Total Cache
- WPForms
- OptinMonster
- Floating Social Bar
- Sucuri
- Disqus
- AdSanity
- Envira Gallery
- TablePress
- ThirstyAffiliates
- Google Analytics
Content Creation
On an Amazon niche site, you generally publish two types of content- affiliate content and information content. The format and affiliate content also differs in a couple of ways. They are
- Single product review content – a detail about a single product of content.
- Product round up content – where you write about a list of products. Keywords with the best, top and reviews words are ideal for round up posts.
Structure of a Single page Product Review Content
A couple of ways you can write a review post about a single product. You can follow the following structure suggested in contentchampion.com.
- Headline
- Introduction to the product
- Link to the product
- First key feature sub-headline
- First key feature paragraph about the product
- Second key feature sub-headline
- Second key feature paragraph about the product
- A list in bullet points of the main product features and specifications
- A second link to the product
- Customer reviews and scores sub-headline
- A paragraph stating how many customer reviews there are in Amazon for the product, and the average score they have given it.
- A paragraph listing one or two of the negative points mentioned by customers in their reviews, but then pointing out the other side of the coin, so to speak, and ending on a very positive note.
- A third link to the product
- A conclusion, briefly summarizing the main points of your review
Product roundup content
For keywords with best and review words like best blender, best coffee makers or electric shaver reviews, it is best to create a product round up post. You choose 5, 15, 21.. etc products to write about the a short description of each of the product , pros and cons. The structure that we follow to write product round up posts is:
- Introduction
• WHAT MAKES THE BEST HOME ESPRESSO MACHINE?
• Feature 1
• Feature 2
• Feature 3
• More subheading
• HOW TO CHOOSE THE BEST HOME ESPRESSO MACHINE
• Sub heading
• Sub heading
• Sub heading
• TYPES OF HOME ESPRESSO MACHINES
• 15 Best HOME ESPRESSO MACHINE REVIEWS
• Mr. Coffee BVMC-ECMP1000 Espresso Cappuccino Review
• A brief summary of key features
• 3-5 list of Pros
• 3-5 list of Cons
• De’Longhi EC155 Espresso Cappuccino Maker Review
• A brief summary of key features
• 3-5 list of Pros
• 3-5 list of Cons
• The other 13 products will be written the same way
• WHICH ONE IS THE BEST HOME ESPRESSO MACHINE?
• Conclusion
Information content
Information content does not help to get sales. The purpose of the information content is to add a mix of content. During the early stages of your site, when you are not sure whether you will make the site large one or not, you better not spend money on information content if you have budget problem. You can spend the money to build the links so that the money pages rank and you start earning money.
Later, on link building section we are going to discuss about Skyscraper link building method where we will discuss about some special type of information content creation.
The length of the content
It is found that long articles are now performing better on search result. The current trend is to have nearly 2000 words long article. If you can, try to match this length. Remember though that length isn’t the only determinant. Design of the article and the quality of the information is also equally important.
Things To Remember While Creating A Successful Amazon Affiliate Site
Think Assistance, Not Sales
A website chock full of BUY THIS and BUY THAT isn’t going to do well. Instead, concentrate on creating helpful articles on what to look for in the product you’re writing about.
When you’re writing actual reviews, do plenty of research or try the product yourself. Come across as unbiased and interested in helping the reader make the right decision.
Compare one product to another, and be the authority who helps your readers to make a buying decision.
Don’t Look Like A Store
Remember, Amazon is the store. YOU are the reviewer.
All you’re doing is recommending products, not selling them.
Brand Yourself
Choose a name that speaks to what you do. For example, Bob’s Shaving or Annie’s Hand Tools.
Your goal is to become the go-to source for product review information in your niche and to get your site’s name recognized as an authority.
Start With Great Content
Content is crucial – it gets you ranked in the search engines. It gets people to trust what you say. It refers your visitors to Amazon where they hopefully make a purchase.
Content is king when it comes to affiliate marketing. To begin, you need 10-20 pages of detailed content.
If you don’t want to write it, hire a good copywriter who knows what they’re doing.
And don’t be afraid to pay for great content – it will pay you back a hundredfold. Lousy content will only waste your time and money.
Don’t. Copy. Content.
Google will penalize you for copied content, so just don’t do it. Don’t even copy product descriptions from manufacturers, unless it’s a small section to make a specific point, and then give the manufacturer full credit.
Write your own content in your own words with your own spin. It’s the only way to go.
Create Content Layers
Google will penalize you if your site looks like nothing more than an affiliate site. Yes, we know it’s an affiliate site, but we don’t want it to LOOK like an affiliate site.
Pages you need:
Homepage – lots of detail and no affiliate links here. All links lead to subpages on your site.
Product review and referral pages – here you go into detail about the products you’re promoting.
Supplemental pages – these are like blog posts. For example, if you’re selling lighting fixtures, you might write a post about how to install one, what supplies you need, how to hire an electrician, etc. These pages should be free of affiliate links, but they can link back to your product and referral pages.
These layers of content will build trust, build your audience, and keep you on the nice side of Google.
Don’t Forget Those Other Pages
Every website needs a terms page, disclosure page, about us page and so forth.
Avoid anything that smacks of being black hat.
Buying links and traffic will only buy you a devalued or deindexed site. Don’t do it.
Invest in high-quality traffic. Earn your links the legitimate way. Use content to power your marketing, and you’ll be fine.
Build Your Mailing List
People will be more than happy to receive quality information on a topic they’re interested in. Include brief tips and link to your product reviews.
Build A Good Site
Build a quality site with WordPress and the necessary plugins. Don’t forget your SEO.
Focus solely on Amazon in the beginning.
Later, if you want to expand into other affiliate programs, you can.
WHEN Should You Build Your Amazon Affiliate Site?
There has NEVER been a better time to start your own Amazon affiliate site than right now.
If people try to tell you the market is saturated, remind them that more products are added to Amazon every day, more people are doing more shopping online every day, and all of these people need help in making the right product choices.
If you choose your niche wisely, build a good site and market that site, you can earn a nearly passive monthly income that rivals almost any part time job.
Build your site even bigger or build additional sites for even more income.
As we said earlier, niche affiliate sites are perhaps the easiest place to start online. You can begin making a profit in a short amount of time, and you can build your online marketing confidence as you progress.
“So What’s the Big Shortcut You Mentioned Earlier?”
You can follow the steps above to build your own Amazon affiliate site.
Or if you’re ready to roll…
…if you don’t want to spend your time on site research and preparation…
…if you would rather focus on reaping the rewards and growing your site from there…
…then simply let us build your Amazon review site for you.
That’s right – we are Niche Masterly, and we will build you an Amazon Review site that EARNS – without the high cost.
With our turnkey done-for-you custom built Amazon affiliate site building service, we’ll do the following for you…
-
- research the right niche to assure quality traffic
- select profitable and rankable keywords
- research and recommend Domain Names for your selection
- set up your WordPress, hosting & unique design theme
- do your monetization research
- design and build an attractive, effective WordPress website
- create and upload relevant content that converts
- prepare social media accounts to expand your exposure
- write your step-by-step Blueprint Guide filled with everything you need to grow and manage your site
