One of the things we struggled with early on in this business were conversion rates. Although we had reached the point where we were getting a decent amount of traffic, we just weren’t making much money from all our hard work. Our earnings at the time were around $1000 a month and that’s not chicken feed by any means but by the time we paid taxes, paid expenses and split the remainder between the two of us, it didn’t amount to much and it certainly wasn’t enough to allow us to give up our regular day jobs.

However, since we were in what I call ‘money making mode’ we weren’t really analyzing what we were doing so we stayed this way for quite some time. Our tunnel vision got in the way. If we had stopped and really looked at why we weren’t converting earlier on I am sure things would have been much different.

As it is, we eventually got there, but all up it was about 5 years of hard work with very little to show for it. Not that we regret any of it because without all of that we wouldn’t be where we are today, but it would have been nice if it happened a lot sooner.

So if you are getting a decent amount of traffic to your site but aren’t converting then you need to find out why and then do something about it. Now a ‘decent amount of traffic’ is a relative thing but I like to see at least 500 clicks through to a merchant for a page on one of our sites before I start getting concerned about conversion rates. So you need a bit of traffic coming into your site in order to achieve that sort of click through rate (CTR). Often we will receive emails from people who have had 10 clicks through to Amazon and they are concerned because they haven’t made a sale yet. You need bigger samples than that before you start worrying. Even 100 clicks is not enough.

Once you’ve had at least 500 clicks through to Amazon (or whatever other merchant you are using) you can start to take a look at whether you are converting well or not. Just remember however that there are so many factors to consider that knowing whether you are converting well or not isn’t always easy. Some products convert better than others so you can only use a ball park figure when determining all of this.

We were told some years ago that the industry average for affiliate sales is around 1 in 100. In other words, you can expect 1 sale for every 100 clicks through to the merchant. We’ve found that Amazon does a lot better than this but the 1 in 100 average is a good base to use when determining whether you are converting well or not.

So if you have reached 500 clicks through to the merchant and have had around 5 sales then you are achieving average sales. So you are doing okay but there is definitely room for improvement particularly if you are promoting Amazon products.

If you have received less than 5 sales or no sales then you need to start looking at what the  problem might be.

Okay, so what could be wrong?

1. Poor Product Selection

The number one reason why you may not be converting as well as you should is the product you have chosen to promote. Too many people just randomly grab products to review without even thinking about the quality of those products. Only choose products that you yourself would be happy to buy. Look at the reviews of those products – are the buyers happy with it?…if the answer is ‘no’ then why are you promoting it?

Product selection is critical if you want to establish good conversion rates. People are more likely to buy something if it is actually worth buying.

2. Poorly Written Review

We always thought that as long as we could get the reader to click through to Amazon it didn’t matter what our review was like. It took us a long time and hundreds of reviews later to realize that this method wasn’t working. Amazon are pretty good at converting to sales which is why many people think their own review isn’t important, but I can tell you from experience that the better your review is, the better you will convert. We realized this first hand when we reworked one of our poorly written reviews to a long, detailed, informative review and immediately noticed a major increase in sales. There was no turning back for us from that point on.

We’ve said this many times before but in order to write a good review, you have to put yourself in your readers shoes. Just about all of us at one time or another have looked for a quality review online before buying a product. You know yourself that you don’t want to see a short poorly written review with a few dot points. You want to see a review with substance that answers all of the questions you have about the product.

So take your time with your reviews and make them as detailed and helpful as possible.

3. Non-Relevant Keyword Searches

Sometimes website owners get a lot of traffic to a page that isn’t exactly related to the content on the page. For instance, you might have a product review for a Singer XYZ Sewing Machine but people coming to that review came to it after searching for a Janomi ABC Sewing Machine. So although it is somewhat related, your product is not what your readers were were really looking for as they were interested in the Janomi ABC model not the Singer XYZ. So they may read your review and click through to Amazon but they are less likely to buy as  they really want the Janomi model.

So take a look at the keywords that your readers are using to get to your page. Are they specific to the product on the page?

4. Trust Issues

People want to be able to trust you and they will often base their trust on what your website looks like.

Is it simply full of Adsense and flashing ads and pop-ups? It seems to be quite common for those new to this business to plaster their sites with banners and Adsense ads and widgets with the thinking that the more affiliate links they add the more likely they will be to make a sale. I can tell you that the opposite is true in our experience. Our sites have very few banner ads as we have found that they don’t really work. And we only really use Adsense on sites that we are no longer giving much attention to. The best affiliate links are simple text links.

I know that when I am ready to buy a product and go looking for a product review I avoid those that include any obvious links to a merchant.  Usually these will be reviews where at the very top of the page is a little Amazon icon link or the words saying “buy now from Amazon”. I avoid those completely because I know that the author is simply trying to make a sale…ironic isn’t it since that is what I do for a living. But because I think like this I know that my readers will probably think like this as well so any reviews we write won’t include any obvious links to Amazon. Our links are simply text links using a keyword that links through to the product on Amazon. You wouldn’t know it was linking to Amazon until you actually clicked on it. It’s only at the very end of the product review where we give advice on where to buy the product that we add ‘obvious’ links to Amazon. At this point, the reader has hopefully gained our trust and is ready to buy so coming right out and stating that they can buy it from Amazon is okay at this point as we are just being helpful.

One final thought…

Quality, quality, quality…we can’t stress this enough. If you really want to get great conversion rates then provide quality product reviews. Go back and look at your reviews and be honest with yourself and see if they are really worth reading. Are they helpful? Do they really provide enough information to help your reader make up their mind?

UPDATE: As per the comments below here is the code provided by Joy to allow the date to be updated on your product reviews. Joy tells us that this has increased her click through rate to Amazon.

<blockquote>
Click here to today's low price for cordless drills on Amazon:
<script type="text/javascript">// <![CDATA[
// < ![CDATA[
// < ![CDATA[
// < ![CDATA[ var d=new Date() var weekday=new Array("Sunday","Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday", "Friday","Saturday") var monthname=new Array("Jan","Feb","Mar","Apr","May","Jun","Jul","Aug", "Sep","Oct","Nov","Dec") document.write(weekday[d.getDay()] + " ") document.write(monthname[d.getMonth()] + " ") document.write(d.getDate() + ". ") document.write(d.getFullYear())
// ]]></script>
Discounts change every day, so check out today's price now!
</blockquote>

Help – Amazon Removed the Product!

This is a guest post written by Dawn Rotarangi.

As you build more pages with links to Amazon products, inevitably, as either Amazon or the retailer withdraw or move products, some of the url addresses will either change or disappear.

The link will then go to an Amazon 404 – Document Not Found.

These links are leaking money from your web site!

On a small site with a few carefully tended pages this may never be a problem.  You’ll see what has happened and correct it immediately.

But on a large website with many unmonitored links this can become a nightmare if you do not know how to find these links that have been broken as a product is shifted or withdrawn.

Image links reveal when they are broken – text links do not.  They look just fine and you don’t realize that they are no longer bringing in money.

How to find if a link is going to an Amazon 404

I’ll use this site on Charm Bracelets as an example.  You can see it is a static website that sells charm jewellery.  It has hundreds, maybe thousands, of Amazon links.  Clearly it is not built according to the Amazonian Profit Plan, but is a trouble free little web site so long as the product links are kept updated.

Here is how to do that.

Each morning log in to your Amazon account.

Where it says Month to date click on Yesterday.

Underneath where it says Orders Summary click on View full report. Make sure you’re clicking on the View full report for the Orders Summary not the Earnings Summary.

This will show you a page something like this.

We all love to focus on the sales we have made – but below them there is a section called Items with no orders. Now don’t turn away from that in disappointment. That list is your friend.  You can learn a lot by seeing what people have clicked on but not bought.

However, for our purposes you can also see any links that are broken because an item has been shifted or removed from Amazon.

So click on that little downward pointing arrow beside the words Show all items.

This will show you a page something like this.

Now see those 3 items at the top of the list that are shown by their ASIN rather than the product name.

(Title not available) B003ZZXL7Q

(Title not available) B000GG0GUM

(Title not available) B0045EVGAA

Those are broken links.  Someone has clicked upon them and got the dreaded 404 – Document Not Found.  So up until that point you had a potential sale going down – suddenly you have nothing.

In fact, you have worse than nothing.  You have an annoyed shopper.  I know that when I follow links that don’t work or don’t take me to where they promised I feel annoyed and cheated and promptly leave.

So maybe your customer will take Amazon’s hint and go to the home page and continue looking.  But is your affiliate link still embedded?  I don’t know but I don’t want to take that chance.

And maybe they’ll return to your web site and continue shopping but again, I don’t want to take that chance.

What I want to do is fix that broken link just as quick as I can so that once again I have happy shoppers.  I’ve lost that potential sale but if I fix it now I won’t lose anymore.

If you’ve never looked in that Items with no orders list before, or if you’ve looked but did not understand the significance of these items listed under their ASIN numbers, it can be a bit of a shock.

If the link is “healthy” then Amazon list it under the title of the product.  If the link took your customer to the Amazon 404 then it is listed under its ASIN.

I’ve shared this secret with people who have discovered they had hundreds of non-functioning links!

Right – you’ve discovered these profit leaching links – now what to do about them

Simply change them for links to other products.  Do a keyword search and find a similar product that you can sell.  You will probably have to change some of the text on the page depending on if that page was written just for that one product.

On a shopping site, a page such as this one about Kabbalah Bracelets only needs to have a word or two changed, insert another link and it’s done.

On a page where you have carefully selected the product and written according to the Amazonian Plan you’ll need to make more extensive changes.

BUT if you change the words on the page to fit another model of the same product you get to keep all those back links that you’ve sweated blood, tears and midnight oil to get for this page.  Whichever model of Panasonic cordless drill (to use Paula and Wanda’s famous example) you write about, most of those back links will be great for any other model of Panasonic cordless drill.

In fact, many of those back links will be perfect for any model of drill.

And at the very worst – they’re still back links even if the anchor text isn’t exactly what you would choose.  How many of us have done the rounds of blog commenting where you end up with hundreds of backlinks anchored to your name?  So don’t discard the page even if you end up having to put a hedge trimmer on it. Change the Title of the page and keep the url with all those precious back links.

Not a perfect solution, I know, but this is real life in the affiliate world.  Retailers change links.  Retailers remove products.  There is nothing you can do about that.  Salvage what you can from the situation.

How to find that broken link on your own website

Now you may have spotted one flaw in what I’ve suggested.  The problem is that if you have a large site you have to actually find these links on your website.  If you have hundreds or thousands of pages spread over several websites this can be very time consuming.

Here is how to find them.  On the Amazon site request to see your orders by tracking ID.  See where it says Combined Reports?  Remove the tick and go through your various IDs until you find the ID where the product shows under its ASIN in the Items with no orders.  (I’m assuming you have a different tracking ID for each of your web sites.  If you haven’t, rectify that now.)

We’ve tracked it down to which website it is on – now we have to track it down to the page.

StatCounter is your friend, folks!

It can be added to any WordPress blog as a plugin and it will quickly and effortlessly lead you to the page you want. It can also be added to most other sites.

Over in your StatCounter interface you will see in the list of Statistics on the left of the page, one called Exit Links.

Click on that and you’ll see there are about a dozen pages of exit links there.  Go to the final page listed.  I say the final page because the links are listed according to how many clicks they have had so the problem link is amongst the ones that have only had one click on them (if you check them daily).  Work back, running your eye down the right hand side of the links until you find the one you want.

Click on that little downward pointing arrow and it will take you to the StatCounter drill down page.

On this page click on the magnifying glass to the left of the link and it will take you to the page that reveals all.

This page will tell you which of YOUR pages that link was on.

And although it might have taken you five minutes to read how to do this, one you’ve done it once or twice, you’ll find you can track these broken/changed urls very quickly.  Within a minute of discovering that a retailer has removed a product I know which page it was on and will be replacing it with another product.

One sale might have been lost but if you follow this tip you’ll never lose a second sale through a link that doesn’t go where you want.

Writing product reviews is an important part of our business. We know that the better our reviews are the better the sales will be. We learned this first hand when after writing hundreds of poor quality reviews we decided one day to change one page on one of our sites to a long detailed helpful review. This page was already getting traffic but conversions were poor. When we made the change the result was amazing. Sales increased – so much so, that we knew that we needed to change our style of writing reviews.

Writing product reviews is simple really but we make it really complicated because we tend to focus on the money first and that clouds our actions. If you couldn’t make a sale from it all and your primary goal was simply to be helpful then how differently would you write your reviews? Oftentimes it is worthwhile keeping this in mind when you write your reviews. In other words, write them like you don’t care whether you will make a sale or not.

Of course we also need to be practical here because we still need to eat so we can’t afford to not make sales. The key then is finding a balance between providing real value to our readers and making those all important sales. The problem however is that a good majority of people focus more on making sales than providing value so the balance is tipped towards the wrong end of the scale.

In order to write good quality reviews, all you need to do is put yourself in the shoes of your readers. I think that just about all of us have at some time or another looked for a review for a product online. I do it all the time. I very rarely buy a high priced item without checking out a few reviews first.

The last time I spent time looking for reviews was when we were heading overseas and we were looking for a camera to replace the old Kodak camera we had been using for the business. I spent quite a few hours checking out the best cameras for our specific needs and eventually decided on the Canon S95 – brilliant camera by the way – I highly recommend it – it’s almost impossible to take a bad shot.

The reviews that helped me the most when deciding on whether to buy this camera or not provided a lot of detail. They didn’t just list the features of the camera, since I could find that myself on the manufacturers site, but they went further by telling me what those features could do for me. They were also personalized and what I mean by that is that they provided their opinion and you could tell that they knew what they were talking about. I knew there was a real person behind the review and that made me trust their opinion more.

So since I know what I want to see in a review, it helps me when I am writing my own product reviews. I can put myself in my readers shoes because I have experienced what they are going through first hand.

Since the Amazonian Profit Plan was released, we’ve looked at a lot of product reviews from our readers and we’ve seen a lot of really good ones in that time. In fact, some have been exceptional. However, we’ve also seen a lot of not so good ones and and just about all of them are because of one or more of the following reasons:

1. The product review sounds like an advertisement

The goal with your product reviews is to write them as if you were telling a friend about the product. Instead we see a lot of people write their product reviews like they are trying to sell something and it just ends up sounding like the manufacturer wrote the review.

People read reviews for a reason – they want the real story behind the product and it’s your job to give them that. They don’t just want a rehash of the content they can find on the manufacturers website.

It’s often worth going back and reading your reviews to see if this is the case. As we mentioned previously, put yourself in your readers shoes – would you like to see that review if you were deciding on whether to buy the product? Would you think it was just overly promotional and just trying to get a sale out of me?

Think about what you want to see in a review and apply that to your website.

2. The review isn’t personal enough

This is one of the most common mistakes we see with product reviews. Just because you don’t own the product, it doesn’t mean that you can’t get personal about it and give your opinion. This is why you need to use ‘I’ in your reviews. This is particularly important in the first paragraph. Your readers want to know that there is a real person behind the review and they will continue reading if they see that.

Here are just a few examples of what I mean by using “I” in your reviews. Just by adding these types of statements throughout your review it starts to sound more personal and you will get more people reading through to the end.

“I like the safety features of this stroller”

“I prefer this drill to the XYZ drill because…”

“In my opinion, this feature of this dog bed beats all other dog beds hands down.”

“I don’t think you will find any other chain saws with this safety feature.”

“I’ve also reviewed the XYZ drill and it just doesn’t compare to this cordless drill.”

3. The review contains too many ads

In the early days when we were desperate to make some money with all of this we would often include lots of ads on our product review pages. We assumed that the more ads we had, the more likely our readers would click through to a merchant and make a sale. We eventually realized that it didn’t work as well as we hoped. The more ads we had on the site, the more likely people would just click away. Plus these days most people are becoming blind to ads and simply don’t even notice them anymore.

We know that the best types of ads (if you want to call them that) are just plain and simple text links scattered throughout the product review. It took us a long time to realize this but we make most of our income from text links than any other type of banner ad, Adsense ad, widget, pop-up or fancy new form of advertising.

The more subtle you are with your ads the more likely people will trust you and read your review. So keep it simple and avoid using too many ads on your product review pages.

4. The reviews are too short

We’ve already mentioned above how we initially started out writing poor quality reviews. They were usually around 300 words and although the content was okay, it just wasn’t enough for our readers to make an informed decision about whether the product was right for them.

If your reviews are short then it is most likely that you aren’t providing enough value. We’ve said before that you only need a handful of reviews to make a decent income online so you can take your time with your reviews and make them the best they can be.

It will depend on the product of course, but you should be aiming for a review length of around 1000 words. You can make it longer if you wish. I am in the process of writing a review for an internet marketing related product and it is currently at 3700 words….too much?…maybe but if someone is interested in that product they will have everything they need to know about it before making their decision…they shouldn’t have to go anywhere else….and that should be your goal with your reviews.

5. The review focuses too heavily on the negatives

If you want to write valuable reviews then you can’t simply focus on the positives only. On the other hand, if you focus too heavily on the negatives it can kill your sales.

Just about every product is going to have a negative consumer review only because there are some people out there that are just never happy with anything. They can’t help but write about what they don’t like about the product. When you see those sort of consumer reviews on Amazon then you simply ignore them. These are not the sorts of negatives that you should be adding to your product review. It is only when you see the majority of the consumer reviews talk about the same specific problem with the product that you need to include it in your review.

Mind you, if the majority of the consumer reviews on Amazon are complaining about the product then it is probably not a good product to be reviewing in the first place. This is why we always suggest selecting good quality products – products that you yourself would buy.

If you have to add a negative to your review then if possible try and turn it into a positive. For example, if your product review is about a particular vacuum cleaner and a number of reviewers have complained about the noise of that particular vacuum cleaner then you might say something like this: “A number of reviewers have complained about the amount of noise this vacuum cleaner generates but I see this as a sign of a really powerful vacuum cleaner.”

Some final tips…

  • Always add images to your reviews – we always add an image to the very top of the review and link it to Amazon – (see How to Add an Amazon Image Link).
  • Try and get the word ‘review’ into the title of your post – most people looking for reviews will use the word ‘review’ when searching in Google.
  • Leave plenty of white space – we’ve seen a few reviews where the paragraphs are all bunched up together. White space just makes things a lot easier to read.
  • Create sub-headings throughout your review. It also helps to make the review easier to read.
This is a guest post written by Ellen Braun.

The youngest of our three children was just three years old back in 2005 when I discovered Internet Marketing on the heels of a two-year long stint at one of those sell-soap-and-vitamins-to-all-your-friends businesses.  The concept of unlimited income potential, the flexibility of the web, and the idea of working from home without having any meetings or appointments were all too attractive for me to overlook — and I jumped right in with both feet!  Hours turned into weeks which turned into months, and all the while I was filling my brain with knowledge from various marketing forums, blogs, and ebooks.

It took some time for Robert Kiyosaki’s quote to truly make its way into my head:  “Your future is created by what you do today, not tomorrow“.  That was when I realized that it was time to drastically cut down on learning about Internet Marketing and start implementing my knowledge.  Quick as a flash, I disappeared from the forums, unsubscribed from the marketing newsletters and got to work.

As a mother of three, I decided to choose the broad niche of raising children, thinking that I would never tire of the subject.  Little did I know what the future would hold.  I dove into my website, typing out articles until the tips of my fingers were numb.  Then I researched keywords and acquired backlinks pointing to my site.  My next step was to create audio and video downloadable parenting products, as well as several ebooks.  Each product took several weeks and several hundred dollars to create.  The products sold well, and I had several 4-figure-profit days, however I found myself getting stuck.

Each time I created a new product, I found myself with a new set of overwhelming challenges:  Some customers had trouble downloading the video.   Other clients lost their password with which to access my audio.  Many people purchased my ebook (despite the clear verbiage explaining that it was an EBOOK) and demanded to know why they had not received the book in their mailbox!  As fast as I attempted to create new products, new obstacles and roadblocks occurred.

After years of chasing my tale around in circles in an attempt to build up my online business to a new level, I decided to invest in a team of outsourcing professionals.  I chose my virtual assistants and writers with care, and was excited about the exponential growth that outsourcing would bring my way.  However, my virtual assistant needed a lot of guidance, and she was often out sick leaving my clients’ emails neglected for weeks on end.  My writers wanted feedback on every paragraph, and my link builders had even more questions for me.  From morning to night, I found myself managing my staff, rather than growing my business.

It was then that I stumbled upon the Amazonian Profit Plan in the summer of 2010.  Although my Internet Marketing income was covering the mortgage and private school tuition; exotic vacations and major household renovations were still out of our budget, and I was continuously looking for that next magic bullet that would grow my business.  The Amazonian Profit Plan struck a chord in my heart, and I understood Wanda and Paula’s description of passive income to be the missing key to my business.

That was when I changed my focus from searching for various marketing methods to searching for hours in my week that I could dedicate to implementing Paula and Wanda’s ideas.  It was challenging, as my staff and customers from my prior business still needed a lot of my attention, and it was not sensible to ignore a viable business that I had built- albeit a business that took an enormous amount of time and energy to maintain.

I chose a few highly targeted keywords such as:  Product ABC, Product ABC reviews, Product XYZ, Product XYZ reviews, Product ABC vs. Product XYZ.  I did utilize many methods of backlinking:  blog comments, forum profiles, blog networks, article directories, social bookmarking, and guest posting.

I found that my time was best spent doing quality guest posting and improving my reviews while I outsourced the lower quality backlinks to people on sites such as backlinksforum.com.  As you can see, I targeted two products:  the ABC model and the XYZ model.  Incidentally, I found that a lot of people search for “product ABC vs. product XYZ” and “what is the difference between product ABC and XYZ” so I was able to rank well for those keyword phrases.

I am still struggling with my rankings for “Product ABC” and “Product ABC reviews” as the manufacturer of the product has the first FOUR listings in Google, so I am #5-8 most of the time!  I’m still working on outranking the manufacturer; however, I still get traffic for those phrases and related keyword phrases.  It’s an ongoing process like watching a baby grow:  You can’t see much growth day-to-day or even week-to-week, but if you look at the infant’s growth month-to-month you’ll see tremendous growth!  I started focusing on this in September 2010, so it has taken me about 6 months of learning, stumbling, and learning to focus to earn $786 from Amazon in March 2011.  At this rate of continuous growth, it ought to take me another 10-18 months to hit my goal of five figures in monthly profit from Amazon.

I created several rules for myself to help me grow my passive income, and I hope they will inspire you to create your dream Internet Marketing lifestyle:

1.  I must write two articles every morning prior to lunch.  They can be articles for my own site or articles to be used as guest posts to obtain backlinks.  Oftentimes, I find myself near starvation at 2:00pm, and I hurriedly type up my required articles so that I can eat some pasta!  This little rule that I created ascertains that not a day goes by where I have not written two quality articles to benefit my passive income business.

2.  I met a friend on a forum who lives 5,000 miles away and shares my goals and methods.  Each evening we post the five important things we must do the next day, and the following day we check off the items we have completed.  Having a peer look over my shoulder from afar within a shared document is tremendously motivating.

3.  I set small goals every week.  For example, on a recent Monday I set the goal of having ten new posts about a specific topic on my website and pointing ten contextual backlinks towards each of those articles.  If I were to finish this goal by Thursday evenings, then I would be allowed to go to the mall on Friday.  (I did, and I bought a beautiful black dress!)

4.  I forgive myself when life happens.  When a family member was recently ill, I let go of my business for several days while I attended to his needs.  I let go of the stressful feelings of ‘needing’ to work on my business and allowed myself to relax knowing that I was making the right decision in these challenging circumstances.  Being happy and content with my choices about how to spend my time eliminates anxiety and gives me additional energy to focus on the task at hand without worrying about other things that I might also want to do simultaneously!

5.  Facebook, email, and news websites may only be checked at the top of the hour.  Some of you may feel that this is a lenient approach; however, it has worked wonders for me.  I used to check these sites every seven seconds, so minimizing my distractions to just a few minutes at the top of each hour has made me a far more productive Internet Marketer.

Ellen Braun is a stay at home mother of three who is extremely focused on one particular Amazon niche.  However, she is so fascinated by the marriage of Prince William and Princess Kate that she has recently launched a website about Royal Wedding souvenirs and Princess Kate wedding dolls as a side project!  When she isn’t busy with her side project, main niche, or family, she can most likely be found catching up on lost sleep in Baltimore, MD.

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