Amazon Policy Changes: 5 Easy Steps Internet Merchants Can Do to Adapt
For those of us who have been in the online business for a while, Amazon.com is no small name. And yet, even the greats can change sometimes.
As of May 1, 2009, Amazon will no longer pay its partners any referral fees for paid search traffic. This spells trouble especially for internet sellers who based their entire internet model on linking directly to Amazon (I know several of them). This would mean that the family of these unfortunate vendors had better find an alternative quickly or they will live on the streets.
Is there any way to avoid this?
Regarding linking directly to Amazon, No.
When it comes to making money through the Amazon Associates Program, DEFINITELY!
And how are we going to do that? Doing what Amazon wants us to do, creating a website that promotes their products. Yes, it will take some time, but it can definitely be done.
So here are the 10 steps to get through Amazon’s Change in its Associates Policy.
Step 0: Setup Stage -Current Amazon Associate, go to Step 1-
(This is for first time sellers who want to take advantage of Millions of buyers and products offered by Amazon and affiliates who don’t have a website)
Setup 1) Get an Amazon Associate account. Go to Amazon.com and scroll to the bottom. You will see “Join Associates” just above your Privacy Notice. Click on it and follow its simple but comprehensive instructions to become one of Amazon’s associates.
Setup 2) You decide to use paid hosting / free hosting / a blog as your business model
There are advantages and disadvantages with the 3 options above. Do a little research on each of them to see which one suits you best.
In general, paid hosting will give you the most flexibility, however, it also requires you to have a bit of knowledge with servers and domain setup. Not recommended for beginners.
There are many paid hosts out there. Here are some:
Paid Hosting Sites
hostgator.com
bluehost.com
dreamhost.com
door.com
Free hosting and creating a blog are very similar. Today it would seem like a smarter idea to start a blog as people are hungry for new things and blogs only feed these people.
free hosting sites
geocities.com
bravonet.com
RapidFireHost.com
blog websites
blogger.com
dailylive.com
wordpress.com
By the way, if you’re serious about this as a business. Pay close attention to the domain name of the website or blog you are hosting. It will play a major role in shaping what your business looks like in the future. For example, you can’t expect to make a lot of money through Amazon if your domain is giveyoufreestuff.com.
This domain is training your audience not to buy from you.
There are two types of domain, general and specific.
For example, a general domain would look like yahoo.com, where the domain name would not reveal any information about the subject matter of the site. A specific domain would look like dictionary.com, where you get an idea of what the website is about just by looking at the domain name.
Once you’ve set up your website and it’s approved by the Amazon Associates Program, setup is complete and it’s time to officially proceed.
Step 1 – Choose your niche
Although it is possible to have a generic website to promote Amazon products, it may be a good choice to choose a category like Digital SLR Camera for a very specific target audience. The more relevant your website is to them, the greater the potential of the website to generate money for you.
There are several ways to find a niche, I will teach you the most direct in relation to Amazon.com. Actually, it is quite simple. Go to amazon.com and look for their best sellers list. Why the bestseller list? Because you know that there are buyers who are paying real money to get these items.
CALM DOWN!
Not all products on the bestseller list are niches that we want to focus on. Yes, they may have a lot of sales now, but what about 1 year from now? 5 years? How about 10 years in the future where you might just want to retire? If you want the Amazon Associate Program to be a business for you, you need to learn how to capture evergreen niches (or at least one that can last a couple of years)
“So how do I do it?”
Very simple, go through the best sellers list and look at the products. Their goal is to find products that last a long time, which is rare…very rare. One of which could be the Harry Potter series. There may be a spell on people as people keep buying books from the series even though 400 million copies have already been sold worldwide.
So if we can’t find a product that can last a lifetime, what’s the next best thing? We would expand our niche. Using Harry Potter as an example, instead of just doing the Harry Potter series, we can broaden our niche and target the “Best Science Fiction Books” niche.
Think about it, sci-fi will always exist (evergreen), so even if there comes a day when people forget about Harry Potter, I can still dig up the sci-fi “gold mine” on Amazon.
So after filtering a niche, it’s time to go to step 2
Step 2 – Decide on your website/blog address
Once you’ve created your website/blog (see step 0 if you haven’t already), you need to decide how you want your website to evolve. (From now on I will refer to your website and blog simply as “website”.)
There are mainly three types of websites that we will be using: content website, comparison/review website, and a hybrid of the two.
Content websites are content rich sites. They would provide a lot of information about a particular product. A typical content site should have at least 20 pages, if not more. This would give the site more weight and credibility. Content sites usually have very detailed information that would educate visitors about the products. Some even go so far as to talk about the history and future of each product.
If done right, the content website could be its own authority in its niche, with people coming back to the site again and again to get the information they’re looking for.
Comparison/review websites are sites that compare several similar products so that the audience can decide for themselves which offer they want to accept. These sites are usually only a few pages long and very straightforward. They do very little in terms of educating site visitors and mostly compare the benefits and weaknesses of different given offers.
Comparison/review sites work especially well for niches that have a lot of competition, as this would mean the shopper would be confused about what’s going on or have to do a lot of research to find the best deals.
Hybrid websites are sites that provide reasonable information and also an evaluation of what is good. It can be very attractive, but this also means more work to be done.
At the end of the day, the direction you want your website to lean in really depends on your resources and ability. If your resources can hold out, you might want to consider trying all 3 types. Who knows, you might get one that suits your lifestyle and needs.
Step 3 – Get Relevant and Engaging Content for Your Site
For a site to be attractive, the site must provide value to visitors. Providing informative content and review services are some of the things visitors would look for when searching for a product. So where can we get these contents?
If you have any experience regarding the niche, you have an advantage as you can create content or even share your own personal experience about the product and the niche.
Note: Regardless of how old a product or niche is, having product testimonials and reviews is always welcome, as different people will have different experiences with the product and therefore have different feedback on it. If I’m someone researching the product to buy, I’d love to see as many testimonials and user experiences as possible to make a solid judgement.
“What can I do if I’m totally new to this niche?”
If you are getting into a niche where you have no experience, fear not, the solutions I am about to share would be more than enough to build the site.
So this is what you do if you have no background in the niche:
1) Google it
Google’s algorithm is very specific, so any search term you enter in Google search will lead you to information that is highly relevant to your niche. All relevant information must be within the first 4 pages of the search, anything more than that would be unrelevant or simply irrelevant.
The niche that is too board would have information that spans dozens of pages. (So you can use Google to gauge how your niche is doing.
More than 4 pages: too wide / tough competition
Equal to 4 pages or less – good luck and chance
Less than 5 relevant search results (not pages) – either “gold mine” / no competition / niche too narrow / keyword not precise / too precise
2)Wikipedia
Wikipedia is evolving to become a “Bible for knowledge”. Due to its editable nature, the information on Wikipedia is not credible in studies and educational institutions. But are we seniors who have to submit our reports to professors? All I know is that people want information from Wikipedia and are interested in it. You can get a lot of keywords and information that you can use for your site when you wiki it.
3) Forum
People in the online community come together and create their identity through special interest groups and forums. Take the time to join some of the forums in your niche and you can open doors that can lead you to information you never knew existed. One of the main advantages of using the forum is that the people on the forums will most likely be your customers at some point if you are building a content-driven site for your niche.
4) Read about it
No one ever says you can’t go to the library or you can’t buy any books in your niche, right? Think about it, if Plato and Albert Einstein can learn their knowledge from books, why can’t we do the same? So make your trip to a decent library or bookstore and learn about your niche.
Step 4: Integrate your site with the Amazon Associates Program
If you go into the Amazon Associates Area, you will find that there are tons and tons of tools that Amazon has provided for their Associates and you will need to review them to see what would work best for you. Keep the visitor experience in mind and sparingly insert your affiliate links in the appropriate places.
Use of search boxes, text links, banners, a store, Widget, etc. are just some of the ways you can integrate your site with Amazon.
Step 5: Drive your direct link traffic to your website
Now comes the easy part. Shift all of your previously linked direct links/paid traffic to Amazon to the specific pages associated with the products on your new website.
By now you would have accomplished 2 things:
1) Overcome Amazon’s policy change of not linking directly to Amazon pages
2) Create a potentially passive money-making website that is in a perennial industry
Closing Notes:
For those of you who have found this article helpful, check out the resource box below and contact me to find out how to get: Step: 6 – 10 – Skyrocket Your Amazon Wealth.