Well it’s been a whole year since we first revealed how much we made on Amazon in November 2009 and such a lot has happened since then.
We’ve said many times before that we don’t want to put all our eggs in the one basket so we have been working on a variety of different passive income streams in order to diversify our income. We have been trying out a few things over the year which seem to be working and we are pretty satisfied with the outcome.
Its now time for us get back into promoting Amazon products, after all we know how well they convert. Even though we didn’t spend a lot of time this year working on our Amazon product sites, the work that we did do resulted in an increase in our income which is pretty nice considering the downturn in the US economy.
Now, before I go any further, I want to reiterate that if you are new to making money online or if you’ve been around for a while and aren’t making much money then you really shouldn’t be looking for other methods to diversify at this point. The only time you need to start diversifying is when you are making or getting close to making a full-time income from one single source. Prior to that you need to focus on one income source until you start making money. There is no point diversifying if you aren’t making money from at least one form of passive income.
This is the number one mistake made by people trying to make money online. They jump on to the next thing that comes along instead of focusing on getting their first income producing stream working. We know what it’s like – we did exactly the same thing.
So our main goal for our Amazon sites for this past year was to get a number of different pages from a variety of different sites making money.This has worked nicely as we are seeing income come in from a variety of sites now and not just a few.
What we did do was create a few brand new product reviews but mostly we went into our stats and selected pages on our sites that were getting traffic already but were not converting very well. We then set about reworking the reviews into the new longer format. Even to this day we still have a lot of poorly written reviews on our sites. Reviews that are not particularly helpful to the reader and are just a rehash of product information; this is how we used to write reviews until we realized some time back that they don’t convert very well at all.
In the past year, we only ever worked on 3 to 5 pages at a time. There might have been 2 from one site and another 2 from another site and another from a third site. We didn’t work on those sites as a whole – just on those individual product review pages from those sites.
So How Much Did We Make on Amazon in November 2010?
As you can see from the screen shot we made a total of $19,023.09 last month. So that’s about $4500 more than this time last year. Interestingly enough, our conversion rate has improved from last year. There could be a number of reasons for that but I’d like to think it is because we are writing better quality reviews and slowly reworking the poorly written ones on our site.
Another interesting thing to note is that the number of clicks is down a little from last year. Again there could be a number of reasons for this – perhaps the downturn in the economy in the US?? Hard to say since it is not a huge difference.
I wish I had taken a screen print on the 30 November because it would also have shown the commission rate we received which was 8.25%. I don’t think we have ever hit the 8.5% rate but it may be on the cards for December since we are already at the 7.5% commission rate and have earned $2384 for just the first two days of this month.
As you can well imagine, we are extremely happy with this. It’s been a long road for us to reach this point – we’ve worked hard and it has taken us a lot of years to finally get things working for us. So to see these sorts of figures really puts smiles on our faces.
You can see now why we have decided to get back and spend more time on our Amazon sites. That will be our major focus in 2011.
We hope you can use this as a bit of motivation to get you going for next year. You can do it – we know you can, because if we can do it you can too.
Tagged with: Amazon • Blogging • income • make money online
Filed under: Amazon • Blogging • Work from Home
Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!
We are
Wanda & Paula - 2 friends who successfully operate a number of online internet businesses. In fact we have over 20 blogs and websites making money. We have learnt a lot over the years particularly in the area of natural search, SEO
and traffic generation. If you want to make a living online then we are here to
help. 
Oh my goodness – that is a ridiculous amount of money to be earning for a month. Thank you so much for posting your results. This is definitely a great motivational booster. I see that I have a really long way to go but I am glad that I am achieving my own personal goals of making cash with Amazon.
Have a great December.
Tiptopcat’s last post…Earnings For November 2010
If you are already making cash with Amazon then you can make more. There is no limit to what you can earn. There are plenty of people making much more than we do.
Dang! That definitely is motivation! I know yall have about 20 sites but do you know how many product review pages are actually performing for you?
Cathy’s last post…November 2010 Earnings
We can’t provide absolute specifics only because we don’t have tracking IDs set up for every single page. So some of those tracking ids cover an entire site and some cover single pages. But of the 52 tracking Ids we have, 32 of those had sales for November.
One day we will get in there and create a tracking ID for each single page. We always thought that you could only ever have a maximum of 100 tracking Ids but we have since learned that you only need to email Amazon and they will allocate more if you need them.
That’s good to know. I thought it was just 100 IDs too.
Cathy’s last post…November 2010 Earnings
Thanks for this tidbit of information! I had been holding back on tracking through Amazon because of the 100 ID thing…now I know I don’t have to.
Your results certainly are motivating!
This is the first Christmas that I’ve been “big” enough to see the Christmas sales spree that I’ve heard others talk about on Amazon. But this year – for the first time – I’m seeing toys and games and things that have nothing to do with any of my sites selling well.
So many top affiliates are so scathing of Amazon that your blog is a breath of fresh air. Sure, it would be nice if the cookie lasted longer. But for me, they still convert so much better than other places.
I love Amazon!
Dawn’s last post…Nov 19- Difference Between Align And Culturelle Probiotic
Exactly! Amazon converts way better than any other merchant we have tried. We used to use merchants from Commission Junction, Linkshare etc but never did anywhere near as good as Amazon even though those merchants have extended cookies.
Amazing! Thanks for the inspiration, I’m chugging along at $930 for November…$19,000 is mind blowing. Your blog is one of my favorites with tons of good info and advice that I’m sure will help me get closer to your numbers someday. Thanks!
Excellent Gabe, you are doing well. Like I said to one of the posters above, if you are already making money on Amazon then you can make more. There is no set point at which your Amazon earnings have to stop. The skies the limit.
You stats are really good—I mean great. I am curious to see how Decembers pans out for the both of you!
I am currently working on just 1 site-5 pages. I would love to have 5 sites ranking and converting really well by next Christmas season, but these sites have tough competition. I have started doing some blog commenting, which it seems every comment is bringing in 10+ good back links and they are going up everyday. I think I have only had 4 or 5 comments accepted and I am at 73 back links so that works pretty well. I am also thinking about using sick submitter starting next year, and maybe article ranks. This would give me blog comments, profile, and article + links.
I know age is important so I think I will start working on a couple of pages per site from now on-3 sites. I am curious though how do you really know when to stop. I cannot tell which page is actually making the sale
I figured maybe just to wait until I get into the top 5 or the site actually starts earning for me!
Kelly’s last post…October Earnings plus Site Updates
If you are having trouble seeing where sales are coming from then you need to start using tracking Ids. Read this post on how to do that:
http://www.affiliateblogonline.com/2010/07/20/how-to-add-a-tracking-id-to-your-amazon-product-review/
I did think about doing tracking ID’s for all of them, but I believe Amazon cuts you off once you get to 100. I think I might just check through Google, but another ID would be to delete the ID once you know that it is working.
I want to build multiple pages for each site. I only have about 11 sites, but I am just working on one of them!
Kelly’s last post…November Earnings Plus Updates
Wow $19,000 in just one month? I’ve got to check out your Amazon books some time soon and see if it can help me start earning.
Dean Saliba’s last post…Adding Your Own Logo To The WordPress Login Page
There is also plenty of content on this site as well for anyone getting started.
Oh yeah – the book helps! The reviews convert really well, and the book covers your bases.
Which is why I’m a proud affiliate.
Love it, love it, love it!
Thanks for the motivating post (as usual). Hope your MaxBlogpress sales are coming in. You two are always a fun read!
JamestheJust on Elance’s last post…MaxBlogPress Discount Christmas 2010 Sale
This is awesome news Paula and Wanda – congratulations to the both of you!
I received a notification recently that I had finally made enough to get my first cheque from Amazon, so I’m pretty excited about that.
December has seen a huge increase in sales too, it feels really good to be making some consistent money for a change.
Take care and have a good Christmas.
Ben’s last post…I May Have Been Going About This The Wrong Way
Nice work Ben. I think it took us something like 3 years before we got our first Amazon check. It was because we didn’t think they were worth adding to our sites because we thought the commission rate was so low. So we only had a few links here and there. It’s only when we decided that it would be helpful to our readers to link to Amazon and we added them to a number of different pages that we noticed an amazing difference in the sales.
Excellent excellent work of course. But one thing you said really resonated with me in my niche; Direct Sales.
You said, “Reviews that are not particularly helpful to the reader and are just a rehash of product information…”
This shines from one niche to the other very nicely; not reviews persay, but Product Descriptions. A very important detail if you wish to make sales.
This is something I’ve talked myself blue about many times with site owners. If you’re working from a catalog, DO NOT simply copy the lines and be done.
Of course, you should copy the description itself, but do not stop there.
If you own the product, use personal experiences. If you do not own the product, use your imagination but do not create falsehoods…Example: think of what you would do if you did own it.
Dennis Edell @ Direct Sales Marketing’s last post…Contest Prize Sponsors Wanted for Upcoming Comment Contests!
Exactly Dennis – I always say that people want to be told what to buy and just providing dot points of the features isn’t going to do it.
I was recently told by someone that when you generate large numbers of sales and or revenue on Amazon, you get paid quicker. 14 days vs the usual 60 days.
What other perks await big sellers, beside the obvious. Do you have a special contact at Amazon or get special privileges?
Congrats on your fantastic November sales number. I’m sure some won’t believe this figure, but it’s very doable. Last Christmas season I had a good end of year with Amazon, not as good as your November by any means. But I can see it, I can see amassing high sales and revenue with the right site and right niche, etc.
I made the colossal mistake of selling a few sites of mine that were good traffic and revenue generating sites, mostly through Amazon and am now cooked. But I have new one’s in the works and hope to get them where my other sites were.
I have learned a lot, at least I think I have. It’s time to put it into practice and aspire again.
Cheers!!!
Missy’s last post…Super Cool Blackboard Case for the iPhone 4
I have never heard of Amazon paying in 14 days and I’m not sure they would do that. The reason is that there is always the potential for refunds and Amazon would want to take that into account before paying their affiliates. But then again maybe we aren’t earning enough yet to get into that bracket.
We don’t have anyone from Amazon contacting us nor do we get any special privileges. But again it could be because we don’t earn enough. There are plenty of people out there making much more than we do on Amazon.
And yes you can do it again Missy. If you managed to make good sales with Amazon in the past then you can repeat it. Just imagine what the next year will bring.
I forgot it wasn’t the Amazon affiliate program my friend was referring to, it was selling on Amazon.
But I have another question. If one builds an affiliate niche site with 5 nice long reviews on it, does one still update this site? Or does one just build backlinks or how do you guys do it.
You still need to update your site. What we normally do is write 5 reviews and then work on getting backlinks to those 5 pages. At the same time, we write short informational type articles (how-to’s etc) that we add to the site. Those articles link to our product reviews.
Wow! Well done, the hard work pays off! Nice to read this as I have spent a few hours today reworking some posts on one of my sites. It is going to take a while but I know it needs to be done. It’s a call to action I need to drastically improve as well. 6000 clicks a month and sometime 0-1 sales. So, if I am getting the clicks there is something I haven’t done right to convert. That’s going to be my focus.
Thanks for the share!
Excellent Ruth – not about the 6000 clicks and no sales but the fact that you are looking at what are doing and realizing it isn’t working. If you are getting that many clicks you should be getting better sales so yes something is definitely wrong.
Paula,
Simply outstanding results. You guys are Amazon rock stars. Very much enjoying the blog.
Thanks Dan and glad you are enjoying the blog.
Congrats ladies on the great month as well as on your Amazonian Profit Plan course which might just save my internet business.
I was doing exactly what you guys were doing, building auto-blogs that were getting a good amount of traffic and a good number of clicks to Amazon but making VERY little money. My sites offered virtually no value to the reader and when you don’t create any value, you don’t make any money.
I bought your course 2 weeks ago, have written 5 reviews and am now beginning the process of driving traffic. I feel that my pages now offer value to the reader and the money will follow. Thanks for the awakening.
Wishing you every success Dennis. Adding value and backlinking to those review pages should certainly bring the results.
Thanks for posting your numbers for November so quickly. It’s very helpful to know what others are really doing – so many people in this field overly inflate their success, or don’t share any numbers at all. I know from following your work that this is not the case, that these are your true sales numbers. Thanks again for sharing them.
I’ve seen my sales numbers increase about 1020% over last year’s, which was year one with Amazon promotions. I bought your course the day you released it, and have incorporated some of your methods into my overall business plan, and can honestly say, your course is the best I’ve bought. And, I would highly recommend it to ANY new affiliate interested in promoting Amazon products.
Tammie Jordan’s last post…Hello world!
Thats an excellent increase in your sales Tammie. Good to see that you were able to incorporate our profit plan into your current system. So lets look forward to even bigger and better results next year.
As for what we did in November, I think I am a little overawed at the moment, I keep going back into the report just to look at the figures, and sit here just smiling (like an idiot). Its an awesome feeling.
Thank you for sharing your earning report. It is very inspiring to see. Just wanted to let you know that since starting to read your blog and reading your free report, I have made a few changes and actually made three sales in the last couple of weeks. Traffic is still a problem for me, but I’m getting there. Three sales in two weeks is pretty incredible, since I have been doing this for two years with only a few sales at Clickbank–none of which I will ever be paid for, since I haven’t met their restrictive sales limits, yet. Anyway, I have decided to leave Clickbank, at least for now, and concentrate on Amazon. Thanks again for all your help.
Linda’s last post…Check out my new Kitchenaid Artisan Stand Mixer lens!
That’s brilliant Linda!! We love seeing people succeeding with this.
And I know what you mean about Clickbank. It took us forever to get our first payment from them. I know they are trying to prevent fraud but I think they have gone a bit too far.
I love your eBook. Well worth twice what you charge although I highly doubt you make $20k a month profit; maybe revenue.
Glad you like eBook. And doubt you may Steve, but the figure shown above is absolute profit from Amazon for the month of November. The revenue sales we generated for Amazon for that month were $233,233.95.
We are by no means big players in Amazon, there are many people who earn way more than we do.
Wow that is so inspirational! Maybe you will have another sale on that book for the holiday season huh?
I took your last post to heart and am doing the steps so I can increase sales. Hopefully, I’ll be able to report back with some awesome news.
Thanks for the tips!
Lisa’s last post…Social Media Marketing PLR Short Report
We probably won’t be having another sale for a while yet because we have a few people promoting our book quite heavily at the moment and it wouldn’t be fair to them. But we might do something else a little special for Christmas so stay tuned.
Yeah, for all those wondering about the book – it’s worth it in spades. I wasn’t new to making money with niche sites – even my review style wasn’t personally much informed (but that’s because I write for a living and copywriting is a specialty)…but what I learned was everything I was doing wrong, even the idea of “why Amazon?”
The book was so great that my wife has now started using it and she’s making sales (which is huge – she hates sales, and working – she does this in her part time while balancing the million other things she does).
My wife is no IMer – nor even a blogger – but to see her light up and start making sales, you should have seen her face…priceless! I’m emailing her this because it’s incredibly inspiring. Love your blog and tips, you two are a shot in the arm of refreshing insight!
JamestheJust on Elance’s last post…MaxBlogPress Discount Christmas 2010 Sale
That’s great that she is making sales. If she can make just one sale it means she can make more. I always say, the skies the limit in this business.
That’s classic James. I am so happy that your wife is making sales. It’s such a great feeling when you see results. And to be doing it while only working at it part time, well that’s brilliant. Lovely success story, thank you for sharing.
The biggest problem with this site and your ebook are examples. You never show your actual sites. Not all of them, just one or two. I know this isn’t a good idea if you are using AdSense, but affiliate sites shouldn’t be a problem. I don’t me sample sites either, but the real deal.
…and the minute they did that there would be hundreds of copycat sites all over the web…
Anyway I think rather than following someone else’s system exactly you should really be concetrating on getting the basic concepts down and putting your own unique spin – your personality – into your sites!
No offense Steve, but you must be new to the business world. If you were making a monthly check of $19K plus… would you be publishing a list of all your sites on a public forum for the world to copy? Only a fool would do so.
We’ve had so many people copy our websites that we just can’t afford to reveal them to anyone. It’s just something that seems to happen whenever you tell someone you are making money online…they all want to see your websites to see how you do it.
And whilst most of those people are purely looking for informational purposes only, a good majority are out to copy them. We’ve had not just pages copied but entire sites.
So it’s just a rule we have now that we never reveal our sites to anyone.
That is OK, I found one of your sites.
As we have said before,our sites have been around for a long time and we have tried many different things. So don’t get caught up in looking at the site and thinking that is how you should structure your site,
Remember, the overall structure is not what you should focus on. Focus on the quality of your reviews and backlinking.
I know which site you will have found, its the one that everyone finds when they search for our sites and its probably the worst case scenario, and the reason we say that is because at the time we worked on this site we were in frantic mode, trying anything and everything to get it to make money. So this site is full of things that we advocate that people don’t do. We will get back to work on it some time in the future, but please do not use it as a model for your own site.
No problem, and thank you for a wonderful book. There simply is not enough space for me to list all the wonderful things about your ebook.
If it came out two years ago I would have more money in my pocket due to the junk I bought.
I have some questions.
Is it 50247 clicks comes from your few review pages?
How many average pages that you have on your site?
How many backlinks required to review pages to bring enough traffic?
I’m considering to buy 1500 blogpost service to my review pages.
The 50247 clicks would come from a variety of sites and from a variety of pages on those sites. So they may not all come from specific product review pages.
I’m not sure how many pages we have on all our sites….we’ve never counted them. The number of pages doesn’t really matter as we really only make the bulk of our money from pages that we have focused our attention on. In other words, pages that we have reworked into the longer review and those that we have spent time on getting backlinks to.
Determining how many backlinks you need is impossible to answer. You may only need 5 or you many need 500. It depends on the keyword you want to rank for, the amount of competition and the sites that your backlinks are placed on.
Just remember that it is all about quality when it comes to backlinking. You could place your links on 1500 blogspot blogs but if they are all of poor quality then they won’t really help too much. One good quality backlink can be better than hundreds of poor quality backlinks.
Just a word of thanks. I bought Amazonian Profit Plan in August. It is one of the best investments I have made in internet marketing. I have wasted lots of money on other programs that just didn’t deliver as promised.
I started with this IM stuff 2 years ago this month. Still I’m not where I want to be, but moving forward. I have tried things like Clickbank and others but Amazon is a solid company with good relations with affiliates.
My suggestion for all is if you have a copy of APP then follow it. If you don’t have a copy then get it! Worth every cent even without a discount. I believe you get what you pay for and that other $27 ebook is not going to get you where you want to be.
Congrats to Paula and Wanda for their success. It is always nice to see real money being made in areas outside of the make money online niche. There sites are producing ongoing residual income.
I don’t know about everybody else, but I don’t want just another job with IM. I hear of too many people that have created a full time job, that is not much better than working for another boss.
Ongoing residual and repeat sales are the answer. I like the attitude of Wanda and Paula – especially like their recent post of their cross country drive in nice cars. Isn’t that the sort of thing you want in life?
As for those who are asking about seeing real sites. I understand exactly why they are not shown. I have even had some of my posts from my blogs taken word for word a day or so after posting published as articles on article directories by someone else. Or a major part of my post added to another stolen post published on another blog by someone else. Some people are too lazy to do their own work. So I understand why Wanda and Paula don’t give out websites. It is a hard balancing act sometimes.
Rant over – Cheers
Brian
LOL. Rant away Brian. Seriously though, thank you for your comments about our ebook. We love Amazon and after many, many trials of other systems, this has proved to be the best method for us. Wishing you every success Brian.
Thank YOU. Your success is BIG motivation to my struggle to earn online. This post reminds me of the saying…”problems are like small stones. If you keep them near the eyes, they hide your vision. IF you keep them at distance, you can see how small they are.” – Anonymous
Thank you kind ladies.
Joel’s last post…Nook color Vs Kindle
Thank you Joel, and what a great saying, it’s so true.
Is that $19,000 take home profit – or is that just the revenue you generated, and get to take home 8% of the $19,000 (so around $1,500?)
never mind, saw a reply above.
Just a simple – Congratulations! You’ve shown that it can be done, you just need to put the effort into getting it done.
Robert’s last post…Why Buy Ninja Affiliate
Thank you Robert.
hi,guys,you did a good job!but i have some questions.when you build sites,it’s 1 product/1 site or many products(reviews) in 1 site?and if it’s 1product/1site,how many 1000-word articles are needed?writing several different 1000 word reviews for one same product seems to be very difficulty to me.
You could create one site for one product but we don’t really recommend it. Instead we create a site with multiple products.
On that site we would start with 5 product reviews for different products. They could be in the same niche or different niches.
thanks,paula
Doesn’t that kinda fly in the face of the adage, “too many choices just leads to confusion”, and ultimately backspace click?
Dennis Edell @ Direct Sales Marketing’s last post…“Best Laid Plans” – A Brief Personal Post You Must See
I agree totally Dennis. You never want too many choices but your site could be filled with hundreds of reviews for different products but all the visitor is going to see is one page only at any one time. And on that page you only ever talk about one product. If your review is good enough and the reader is truly interested in that product they aren’t going to go searching on your site for other products – they will click through to Amazon to buy it.
Ah OK my bad, for some reason I had multiple products per page in my head…..always a bad idea.
Dennis Edell @ Direct Sales Marketing’s last post…“Best Laid Plans” – A Brief Personal Post You Must See
Hi ladies and thanks for this post! I read your book through 3 times and am having content written right now for my first review site according to your instructions.
I really hope that all of the numbers you’ve shown are true! lol.
Not trying to throw stones here but I’ve never made a dime with Amazon products though I’ve done well with Adsense.
It’s just very difficult right now to trust myself but I’m determined to keep going and focus on a few reviews at a time and then move on once sales start coming in, as you recommend.
These numbers are very motivating!
Thanks!
Those numbers are definitely true Pat but just saying that isn’t going to convince a lot of people. Some people just can’t get it into their heads that they can make money from Amazon.
I know of people making much more than we do so what we make is only the tip of the iceberg.
Just keep doing what you are doing Pat – focus is the key to all of this. You can do it!
What an amazing story. It’s really so nice to see someone declare that sort of personal information which provides so much motivation and hope to the rest of us. In an industry that is notorious for scammers, and ‘get rich quick’ schemes, it great to see that there are actually people that have done what they say they have. Well done guys. Keep it up.
Thanks Pete. It is actually not an easy thing for us to do to reveal our income. We actually discussed it for quite a while before we decided to do reveal it last year. The reason we eventually did do it was because we knew that it would be a great way to motivate others. And the reason we knew that is that we had listened to a Coffee Talk interview that James Martell had with Bronwyn Bamber (one of his students) and she spoke about how she had made over $30,000 a month from her websites. That was hugely motivating for us at the time. I would listen to that interview over and over just to stay motivated.
This is one industry that really can get you down because oftentimes you don’t see results as quickly as you would like. The only thing that keeps you going is seeing that it can be achieved if you only keep at it.
I was happy to see the shout out to James here. His book was one of the very first I read when I started online over 6 years ago. I was lucky because I just followed what he said to do and eventually made about 170,000 on ONE Adsense site.
No I’m not kidding. Just sold it for 55,000 in April, and have been spinning my wheels ever since, trying this and trying that having no success with anything. lol.
I think I’ve become jaded after reading every single ebook out there on every angle under the sun on how to make money. lol
Now I just need to get back to a state of trust…that what you’ve written is real and true. And then just keep going. Like James says…no hocus pocus, just focus.
Thanks for the reminder!
Wow, that’s great Pat. I don’t think I could sell a website that was making money. I can’t even sell the ones that aren’t making money…LOL.
And yes, James’ book was the very first ebook we ever purchased on internet marketing way back in 2003 or 2004…can’t remember exactly. We wouldn’t be where we are today without the initial training we received from him.
Ladies, you’re doing an amazing job. Like many said already: your posts are very motivational, especially this one
. I have no doubt that you actually made this much money this month; I have implemented a few of your tips and have seen a jump in sales already. I will keep going.
Thank you so much!
Daisy’s last post…Cabbage Soup Diet
Thank you Daisy. That’s excellent news that your sales have increased, you are obviously doing the right thing.
Fantastic results, congrats. I was wondering if all your sales come the US Amazon site, or if you have sales from other countries, like CA, UK, Germany. I’ve heard there are ways to autmatically detect Geo-location by IP and then serve the proper associates code to get credit for the sale. Have you tried doing something like that?
All our sales come from the US, at least I think they do. We only ever promote to the US and I can’t tell from the Amazon stats where the sales actually come from.
We haven’t tried setting up for different locations. One of our readers was going to develop a plugin to do it but not sure what came of that.
The plug-in Amazon Affiliate Link Localizer will already do this, but if you are using any kind of link-cloaker to hide the affiliate IDs then you will need some other soloution.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/amazon-affiliate-link-localizer/
Just a thought, do you ever see the Amazon market being saturated as more affiliates promote their products? I know there are plenty of products, but do you think there are plenty of niches available that one can build sites on that can get ranked and also get a decent amount of traffic?
Would just be interesting to hear your thoughts? If you think the bubble will ever burst?
Pete @ Best Food Processor’s last post…KitchenAid 700-Watt 12-Cup Food Processor
I don’t think the bubble will ever burst with Amazon products. There are just too many of them to ever have that problem. Amazon sells just about every product you can think of.
Plus for each product there are so many different keywords that you can rank for.
And you don’t need to focus on particular niches – we have a site that focuses on a variety of different products…totally unrelated and it still makes money.
Or instead of focusing on a small product niche like cordless drills for instance, you could focus on a bigger niche like home improvement that encompasses a range of similar products.
Also, even though a lot of people are promoting Amazon, not everyone of them is doing it properly.
Thanks, encouraging to know
Pete @ Best Food Processor’s last post…KitchenAid 700-Watt 12-Cup Food Processor
That’s crazy! and truly inspiring!
I have 0 income from amazon so far, but then, i only have a few posts that related to amazon.
I probably need to post more about amazon products to try my luck.
Thanks for this inspirational post!
Kimi’s last post…Create ad blocks wordpress sidebar 125×125 widget
Thanks Kimi. We love Amazon. It converts so well. We really noticed a big difference in our conversion rates once we changed how we write our reviews.
Wanda!
I recently made more post promoting amazon products, and i made my 5 sales, i am so happy already LOL, yes, long review help.
Thanks for the awesome tip, guys!
Kimi’s last post…Thesis category nav menu video tutorial
Excellent Kimi, that’s so good to hear!!
Wow Paula and Wanda,
It’s amazing to see quite a few of us that can point to James Martell first affiliate marketing ebook back in 2003-2004 as our entry into this wild and often crazy IM business.
Boy aren’t we are definitely old in IM years:)
What’s old is definietly new again in terms of creating and building solid content.
I absolutely enjoyed your book and find it will be really freeing for those bound by creating a gaziillion blogs and domain hording.
I earned my very first $100 amazon commission last month, November from 3 Christmas sites I created last November. These holiday sites are 1 or 2 pagers only but I had fun writing them and I guess that energy just traveled right on over to Amazon when my visitors left my site.
This month those sames few pages have already earned slightly over $200 and counting.
Have a wonderful holiday Paula and Wanda:)
Yes we are definitely old when it comes to internet marketing but there is always something new to learn in this business. That’s why I like it – it is constantly evolving.
And congrats on making the sales with Amazon. You’ve really hit on something when you say you had fun writing those reviews – you’ve got to enjoy this business if you want to succeed with it. However, a good majority of people don’t really enjoy it – they are just in it for the money. That never works.
And that doesn’t mean you have to love every bit of it – some people don’t like writing reviews and that’s okay…just outsource it, but if there is nothing you really enjoy doing with this business and it just seems all like hard work then you really need to move on to something else because this isn’t how it should be.
We have used Amazon affiliate links promoting products for over 2 years. Our results have been less then stellar to say the least. We decided to give your method a try by doing a real solid review on just one product… About 1000 words. Results… Unbelievable! From just that one page we have generated more sales then all of the rest of the previous 2 years…Way more. Not only did they buy the product reviewed, but hundreds and hundreds of other products. That was November. December is already way bigger.
One advantage we have is that our blog has a large following, so we did not have to go out and generate traffic.
Just wanted to say thanks for all of the advice!! Everyone needs to get your Amazonian Profit Plan and follow it to the letter. Money well invested!
Wow Jim, that is fantastic to hear. We’ve always said it only takes one page to make money online and you have proven that. Just imagine what will happen when you do the same thing on a few more pages.
You’ve also seen the power of Amazon at work. People will often buy totally unrelated products that have nothing to do with your review. Most people love buying from Amazon and Amazon know how to get people to buy.
Brilliant Jim, you have made my day!
It is interesting to see on one of the sites you use for Amazon Associates. Do you use affiliate links on this blog or other sites?
Aleksey’s last post…Laptop Computer Battery
Yes we use affiliate links on this blog and all our other blogs. That’s how we make money from Amazon.
I see that this your blog does not have a special topic.. so what kind of products do you sell here?
Aleksey’s last post…Laptop Computer Battery
We review products on the site that are related to Internet marketing. We also link to books on Amazon that we have read and recommend.
You are my heroes! I drop everything when I get a facebook post or email from the two of you to read what’s new. You are inspiring a lot of people, myself included!
Hey thanks Todd…that’s really nice to hear. We really do want everyone to be doing as well as us so we are happy to help.
inspiring- thank you- I was curious, how many visitors do you have to the site to result in 50,000 clicks to amazon and these 2471 sales?
I know you were working on your pre-sell pages, but i’d love to know what ratios you have- 1% CTR to Amazon form blog? 10%? 25%?
I’m tryign to get a sense of how much traffic is needed to get the revenue you are seeing-
thx!
You know what Than…we actually don’t look at stats too much so I really don’t have any idea what our CTR is. But I took a look at a couple of our high traffic sites and one received 77,000 visitors in November and another 12,200.
But don’t get too caught up in traffic numbers. What’s more important is the quality of what you are providing. We might get a lot of traffic but we still have a lot of poor quality reviews on those sites that just aren’t converting. So all the traffic in the world isn’t going to help too much.
Have a read of Jim’s comment a few comments up and you’ll see what we mean.
Truly Inspiring, .
Thank you for your generosity in sharing knowledge with us all, that may help us to also succeed.
Merry Christmas,
Neil
We always like reading about others peoples successes. It always motivated us in the past so hopefully this will get a few people taking action.
Congrats on a superb month!
I love your course and have started using many of your techniques on my sites, with very positive results.
I have a question: Do your review sites have an average number of pages? I’m wondering if you have built very large sites with dozens or hundreds of pages containing reviews, or if you generally focus on a smaller number of products on each site?
Thanks for the superb blog!
Larry
We have big sites and we have small sites so there is no set amount of reviews that we focus on. We’ve found that the size of the site makes no real difference to how well you do with all of this.
If we were to start a new site today, we would begin with 5 product reviews and then progressively add nice helpful information type articles to it in order to build it up but we wouldn’t go crazy trying to build a big authority site. We’ve done that in the past and it really wasn’t necessary and only creates a lot of work.
Think I’m finding you too late for this shopping season to make any money. New to this IM thing and only made a few dollars to far on Amazon.
Looking forward to more news from you in the future.
Diana’s last post…Brain Teasers Riddles Jokes
If you are new to IM and you’ve already made a few dollars than you are streets ahead of a good majority of people out there. If you can make a few dollars then you can make hundreds of dollars and if you can make hundreds of dollars then you can make thousands.
Congratulations on your earnings.I find this very, very inspiring. Last month was the first time my commission structure hit the 6.5% rate and I was thrilled. It felt like such a huge accomplishment.
Thank you for reminding us about what is possible in the world of IM and affiliate commissions.
Happy and abundant holidays to all.
Sara @ Eco Yoga’s last post…The Eco Yoga Mat- A Great Alternative to the Traditional PVC Mat
Brilliant Sara. These are the things that keep you motivated – 6.5% is definitely a big accomplishment. Just think of it as the next step to getting you towards your goal. Next time it will be 7% and before you know it you will be at 8%.
That’s really impressive and motivational. I am a complete newbie and still at the learning stage, I bought the Deadbeat Super Affiliate recently and I have just disovered Paula and Wanda and this blog. I am interested in this amazonian book since so many here mentioned that it helped them – I was just wondering if it’s different to the Deadbeat Super Affilaite and if it’s suitable for a complete biginner. Any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks.
We’ve never heard of the Deadbeat Super Affiliate so can’t really say. Maybe someone who reads this comment and who has purchased it might be able to help.
As a complete beginner, our ebook probably wouldn’t be suitable for you. You need to know how to build a website or blog because we don’t provide instructions on how to do that.
I have the Deadbeat Super Affiliate and the Amazonian Profit Plan and they are both great programs.
The difference is The Deadbeat one has a little more logistics on how to build your site, how to format your pages, etc where as the Amazonian goes more into how to actually write your review.
The Amazonian was better for me as I was already pretty experienced in building websites though I did enjoy his step by step plan. It’s good for a beginner.
Cathy’s last post…November 2010 Earnings
Perhaps a free companion ebook is in order…
Dennis Edell @ Direct Sales Marketing’s last post…Contest Prize Sponsors Wanted for Upcoming Comment Contests!
Your continued success is truly inspiring. Like so many others, I was struggling until I found you on a Maxblog article, and have been following you since. I bought Amazonian Profit Plan when it first came out, and use it to guide all of my reviews. Well, with little effort all of my reviews are either #1 or first page on Google, and have grown my sales by no less than 50% per month. In two cases I sold the product within 48 hrs of my review posting on Google. One was a $250 product…not too bad.
Another blog I write guest articles for commented on how well received my articles are by the high number of comments.
I just wanted to say thanks, in that part of my success I owe to you two down under.
Happy Holidays and much success in 2011
Regards, Ken
Your comments are inspiring to us too Ken. When we hear that people are making our system work we want to get in there and do even more to help others. So thank you for letting us know how well you are going with it all.
Paula/Wanda,
Thanks for sharing your experiences. I have a couple of questions here. First, how do you determine whether a review page is underperforming and needs to be rewritten? A couple of metric come to my mind, #clicks to Amazon/#page views (A) & #sales/#click to Amazon (B). First I wonder if you guys have access to either A or B measures per each review page or if you are using another metric to measure the effectiveness of the review page. Whatever, metric you are using, would you mind sharing it and also the threshold value that indicates whether the review is ineffective and needs to be rewritten?
Second question is whether you see any differences in the performance of sites that are mainly static (with infrequent additions like an occasional how to articles other than the review pages) vs an active blog sites that have frequent posting and also includes the product review pages.
I have your Amazonian Profit ebook, and its really has been an immense help for a beginner like me.
Thanks,
Edward
We don’t really have any specific criteria for determing when a page is not working. We actually don’t get too caught up in stats these days. In fact, when we stopped getting caught up in stats and analytics and metrics and getting the right amount of keywords on the page and focusing on metatags and SEO and so on, and started instead to focus on just writing a really helpful review things started to change for us.
But generally it’s a matter of seeing how many sales we have had in relation to the amount of click throughs we get. For example, if we had 1,000 people click through to Amazon over a period of time and only had 1 sale for those 1000 clicks then we would start to think that there was something wrong here. If we had 10 sales then we would think that we were doing okay although there could be room for improvement.
Your advice is sound – and I’ll be following it into 2011. I started focusing my efforts on Amazon reviews this summer and I’ve already seen it pay off in my commissions. I’m nowhere near your dizzy heights but this December I’ll earn more than I did in the whole of 2009 so that’s a good enough start for me.
I need to go back and revisit the old reviews I wrote before the “penny dropped” – they get traffic so with a little TLC they might also start to earn some $$ too
Clare’s last post…The 7 Must Have Items to Sell Information Products Online
Nice work on your earnings Clare. And yes, just by revisiting some of your old reviews you can easily increase your income.
Your post is truly inspiring! I know that it can be challenging to disclose so much personal information online, however, rest assured that you are doing a great service to new affiliate marketers!
Do you offer any kind of email consultation packages? I have several in-depth questions for you!
What we find works best is if our readers leave their questions on this blog so that everyone else can benefit from the answers rather than us answering private emails.
However, if you do have something that you’d rather not share with the rest of the world then by all means you can email us and we’ll do our best to help.
Thanks, Paula.
I really appreciate this blog and your very helpful attitude!
I’ve been working on getting this page ranked well for nearly 2 months: (LINK REMOVED) for the keywords (KEYWORD REMOVED) and (KEYWORD REMOVED). I’ve written loads of articles and gotten hundreds of backlinks in a variety of ways, but I am still way behind the manufacturer and amazon. The manufacturer has the first four listings! Do you think I ought to continue building quality backlinks, or have you seen some situations where you just can’t move higher than position #6 or 7 on Google?
Thanks:)
I managed to find your comment in the spam folder – it was because you put a URL in the field. I have actually removed your url and your keywords for your protection. Unfortunately a lot of people feel the need to copy other people’s product reviews and you don’t want that.
In terms of your rankings, you are doing extremely well. Getting to the top 3 spots is always the hardest part but you are just about there. You will be able to beat Amazon but you might find it a bit harder to beat the manufacturer but don’t sweat it if you find that it takes you a while. The reason I say that is that most people who are ready to buy a product don’t want to read the manufacturers website – they want to read a review about it. So if they scan through those first few search results in Google and they are after a review they will go right past the manufacturers website and click on yours.
Thanks, Paula, for this informative reply! (and thank you for deleting my URL’s – I am so trusting that people are honest and won’t copy my pages!)
Here is my question: I am now in position #6-9 for the 3 pages I’m working on for the past few weeks. According to your reply, if I’m in position #5 (the manufacturer has the top 4 positions!) I should be doing well.
However, here’s my concern: Currently, in positions 6-9, I am getting a total of 10-12 visitors to my site through related keywords. (Each of my keywords has about 8,000 exact monthly searches, according to Google.) Do I just need to move UP in the rankings to do better??
I’m getting an average of 2 clicks to amazon from those 10-14 daily visits, and virtually no sales. (Obviously, my numbers are still too low for any serious analyzing.)
Anyway, do you think I just need to work on getting higher rankings, or that I have a different problem?
Thanks:)
Positions 6 to 9 generally don’t see as much traffic as you would expect. But it is so hard to gauge because for some keywords you might get more traffic in those positions than others.
Also when you say it has 8000 exact searches is that Global or Local Monthly Searches? Remember that Amazon is limited to the countries that they will send products to so you want to make sure you are selecting Local Monthly Searches and using the USA.
Also remember that Google had an update of it’s Google Keyword Tool and the search numbers dropped dramatically so just double check those figures. You might also want to read our post about it here:
http://www.affiliateblogonline.com/2010/10/13/recent-google-keyword-tool-changes-are-they-accurate/
My advice is to keep working on those backlinks. It can be fairly easy to get to the first page of Google but getting into the top 3 positions is often the hardest. But it is worth it when you do.
Thanks so much. If you ever decide to offer consulting or coaching services; I’ll be your first client!
Maybe one day we might do it but for now we love the freedom that this business gives us. We could make lots of money by providing coaching but that would take up a lot of time and to us that would be like having a full-time job again.
O.M.G! You just have a new admirer! Oh! I wanna be like you. SUBSCRIBED!! This
your efforts have given you results. Congratulations.
Daniel’s last post…Toe Socks
Thanks Daniel. It’s been a great year. Now on to the next one.
Wow you have an amazing conversion rate! In a completely unrelated subject…well not really. I just purchased an Amazon plugin to help with my reviews…..do you ladies happen to know of a premium Buy.com plugin? I’ve Google searched and couldn’t find anything.
Thanks!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Jennifer
Jennifer’s last post…Defender SN500 4CH Security System
I had a quick look as well Jennifer but couldn’t see any plugins specifically for Buy.com. There must be one out there surely.
This is amazing blog. Truly you are doing everything that you can do . I wish I could spend so much more time on your blog. Question though do you think someone can make enough money on there Blogger to open there own website. Cant afford to purchase a website yet but want to soon.
Rory Mullen’s last post…Update on Info Barrel 1st week of the year
You can make money using a Blogger account. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t. However, the only problem with Blogger is that you really have no control over it. So if Blogger doesn’t like something you are doing they can easily shut you down. It’s always best to have your own domain name and hosting.
But many people have made lots of money using free blogs so stick with it and when you start making some money from it then you can get your own blog.
Thanks for the post and congratulation for your earnings.
Do you feel like sharing a link to one of your sites where you’re promoting Amazon products? I’d love to see one.
Thanks
tommy’s last post…Chang Chicken with Black Bean Sauce
You might want to read this blog post Tommy. It will explain why we don’t reveal our websites.
http://www.affiliateblogonline.com/2010/08/07/can-i-see-an-example-of-your-website/
Its me again Canadian Reader.. Just dropping by to say GREAT JOB GUYS! I am so jealous, I wish I could make even half of that.
Buying your ebook really soon. Just busy right now with other stuff.
Good to see you are focusing. There’s no point buying an ebook if you don’t have time to devote to it.
Congrats on the earnings! That’s fantastic. I’ve been selling physical products on Amazon for a while, but wanted to branch out and diversify a bit with some affiliate income.
I bought your eBook last year, and loved it, and applied the principles in it to a review site I created. After reading your eBook, I did a lot better (a whole lot better) with my product review site than in the past, so thanks for all the helpful tips!
I didn’t make a ton off the affiliate sales, but the results are encouraging and the trend is good! I’ll stick to selling physical products on Amazon for my bread and butter, but the affiliate sales have been fun too.
Thanks for all your helpful articles!
-Thomas
Thomas’s last post…How to Sell on Amazon – The Best Kept Secret
Thanks for your comment Thomas and glad our ebook helped.
I’ve just been reading your post showing your sales on Amazon for physical products. That’s great to see.
I suggest to anyone who is interested in selling physical products on Amazon to read his post here:
http://7pillarsofsellingonline.com/how-to-sell-on-amazon-the-best-kept-secret/
That link is much appreciated here. Amazon is sure to be one of my secondary outlets once my own e-commerce site goes live.
Does Amazon allow you to link out, I know e-bay doesn’t.
Dennis Edell @ Direct Sales Marketing’s last post…Three Blog Types- Personal-Business-Corporate – Clearing the Confusion
Paula, you have 50,000 clicks, but how many visitors you have on your sites?
I couldn’t tell you that off the top of my head. On one of our high traffic sites we get about 3000 visits a day. On one of our low traffic sites we get about 50 to 100 visits a day.
But the thing is, you can’t really gauge the CTR from the traffic of an entire site. We have pages on some of those sites that have poor quality reviews on them (from the days when we didn’t know any better). So those poor quality review pages might get a lot of traffic but not convert well at all. And yet we can have other pages that don’t get much traffic but they convert really well because we have done everything we can to create a quality review that is helpful to the reader.
It’s not so much the amount of traffic that you get to a page but what you do with that traffic once it gets there.
Hey ladies, thanks for the great content on the site, I’m here often and I appreciate your willingness to answer questions. I purchased your Amazonian Profit Plan and put it to use by writing 5 reviews at the beginning of December. I’m now in the backlinking phase. I am having a problem though with a couple of my sites. I can’t come up with much content to put on them. I have a site in the fitness niche and I can write all day about that but one site is in the kitchen appliance niche and after writing a few articles, I’m out of ideas. What would you suggest people do to find original content for sites like these? Thanks.
One of the best places to look for ideas is EzineArticles.com. Just type in your keywords into their search engine and see what others have written about. I don’t recommend using their content as you really want unique content on your own site but it will give you plenty of ideas.
Wow. You must be doing some really nice reviews to have such awesome earnings. Would you mind sharing a few “secret recipes”
Just read some of the older posts on this blog and you will pick up some ideas.
Wow, I just bumped into your blog and was blown away at what you earned last year. This is awesome – I will be keeping an eye out to learn how you do it.
Quite inspiring.
Helen Neely’s last post…The Entrepreneur Equation- Evaluating the Realities- Risks- and Rewards of Having Your Own Business
Welcome Helen. Hope you can get some value from this blog.
Hey Paula,
I have a few questions regarding the Amazonian Profit Plan. When we are choosing our first five products, do they have to be similar, eg, bed 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5? Can they be different, eg. mattress, alarm clock, toothbrush, bed and massage chair?
Also, when choosing a domain name, can I use a general name like xyz.com which covers all products or do you recommend abcjeans.com to cover a tight niche, like jeans and build a second site for another set of products?
I know we are supposed to have a set of keywords for a product. So, when we are guest blogging, we would be using a slew of keywords for our anchor texts. Wouldnt it be better to focus our anchor text on two to three keywords?
Thanks a lot for your guidance!!
The five products can be similar or they can be totally unrelated.
And you can choose whatever domain name you like. If you can find one that relates to your chosen products that’s great but it is not necessary.
And yes, focus on only a few keywords at a time until you rank for those keywords. Only then move on to another set of keywords.
Hi,
Recently, my Amazon blogs were slapped by Google as didn’t meet their content quality guidelines. I am looking for solution to rescue my blogs. Thus, I am interesting to “Amazonian Profit Plan”. However, there are some questions in my mind :-
1) Why 5 products? Can promote less or more products in a site?
2) My major concern is how to generate unique content of product reviews. As per my understanding, we have to follow product description and cannot change their customer reviews in Amazon, am I right?
3) Is generating product reviews require good English writing skills?
4) Is there any terms and conditions apply to your “30 days money guarantee”?
5) Do you help your customers by visit their site then provide your advises toward their site contents?
Thank you in advance.
1. Yes you can definitely promote less. The only reason we suggest five is that most people go crazy promoting product after product but never really give anything a chance to work. There is no point creating more product reviews if the first lot aren’t making any money. Also read this post:
http://www.affiliateblogonline.com/2010/11/05/you-only-need-one-page-to-make-money-online/
2. You might want to look at the following posts for ideas:
http://www.affiliateblogonline.com/2009/12/17/how-to-write-product-reviews-that-convert/
http://www.affiliateblogonline.com/2010/07/10/how-to-weave-a-story-into-your-product-reviews/
3.You English is good enough to write a product review. If you know someone who can check your product reviews for correct English then you can do that. Or if you have some extra funds, you can even hire someone in Elance to edit your content.
4. The 30 day guarantee is pretty standard – if you aren’t happy with the product within 30 days then you can get a refund.
5.Yes, we can check out your site and give you advice.
Wow, that is an amazing figure! you deserve all this success and more! I have just stumbled upon your blog and I love every bit of it!
Random question: Do you cloak amazon affiliate links?
No we don’t cloak them. We never really felt the need. People like buying from Amazon so most are happy to click an Amazon links.
Paula, I created one review site about a year ago and after about 6 weeks, it began to trickle in $30 a month. I am now returning to your method and this way of making money online after wasting too many months being too diverse with too many websites. Thank you for your help here! Kristie
Kristie Chiles’s last post…Polar FT60 Sale
No problem Kristie. Glad we could help. It does work when you start to focus on only a handful of pages.
Paula’s last post…How to Create a Static Home Page on Your Blog
Congrats on your success. It must be an amazing feeling earning that much in one month. Did you beat that figure in November 2011?
I have a few questions.
1. Apart from writing articles for guest blogging, what type of backlinks have you found to be the most effective for getting your review pages to rank high on the search engines?
2. Now that Yahoo Site Explorer has closed down, what tool is the most reliable for checking backlinks?
3. Do you use Buy Now buttons in your reviews? If so, have they had much of an effect on sales.
We don’t reveal our earnings anymore. We decided this early on this year. You can read why here – http://www.affiliateblogonline.com/2011/03/14/do-we-really-have-to-prove-how-much-money-we-make/
However, you can get a sneak peak of how we went in November 2011 on this blog post.
http://www.affiliateblogonline.com/2011/12/14/our-best-amazon-day-for-november-2011/
1. Guest blogging is really our number one choice but we do add other forms of backlinking just to mix it up a bit – like commenting on blogs, press releases (not too sure how effective they are these days so we haven’t done one for a while) and social networking/bookmarking.
2. We use SEO SpyGlass….just the free version.
3. Sometimes but we have found just basic text links are the best.
Paula’s last post…Christmas Giveaway Winners!
Congratulations for both of you Paula and Wanda, I also have a few questions.
1. Do you promote just one product at one site or you have niche website in which you’re promoting a lot of products?
2. Do you buy the product first which you promote on your website?
3. Which type of product you promote most? For example toys?, eletronics?, kitchen acessories?, sports accessories or any other?
Ehsan’s last post…How To Improve Google Page Rank – Five Simple Ways
As per your last comment, take a look at our FAQs first and if you have any questions after that please let us know with another comment.
http://www.affiliateblogonline.com/contact/
Paula’s last post…Yikes!! We’ve Been Hit By the Latest Google Penguin Update…and Other Boring News!