An Amazon Affiliate Website Making $3,000 a Month [An Actionable Case Study]

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A little over one year ago, I launched a brand new Amazon affiliate website on a brand new domain name. It's not a blog, but more of a commercially geared reviews site like other review sites I've created in the past.
Last month that site made over $3,000.
Today, I'm going to walk you through exactly what I did to become a successful Amazon affiliate. Then I'll show you how to start an Amazon Affiliate site of your own.ย
To be honest, I did nothing more or less than what has already been covered in depth in the Niche Site Project 3 series of posts.
However, I think that sharing a summarized review of the strategy and tactical steps I've taken to grow the site, all in one detailed article, will hopefully help you build a successful Amazon affiliate site yourself. Even if you are not willing to read all of the posts in the last project.
Oh, and as an added surprise for you…this site is sending traffic to my Amazon FBA listings.ย
So, the amount of revenue generated by this website is actually much more than $3,000.ย I'll explain more below.
So, let's jump right into it and then go through the steps of how to start your own successful Amazon affiliate websites.ย ย
Contents
An Amazon Affiliate Website Making $3000 Per Month In Less Than A Year
Building an Amazon affiliate website can be a great way to create some serious long-term passive income. And the Amazon Associates program is popular among affiliate site builders because Amazon is one of the most trusted brand names in the world.ย
Joining the Amazon associate program is easy and the conversion rates are among the best for beginners. When in doubt, adding another Amazon affiliate website to your portfolio is rarely a bad idea.
But can a website based around the Amazon associate program still work?
First, My Amazon Affiliate Website Results
I know that people like to see the “money shot,” so rather than make you wait in suspense, I'll share the earnings screenshots first. Then I'll dive into exactly how I achieved these results below, and how you can do the same with your Amazon affiliate site.
In July, the website made just over $3,000. In August, the earnings have continued to grow.ย Here's the August 2016 earnings as shown in my Amazon Associates account.
So, $2,411.86 from the main tracking id on this site. However, I have a couple of tracking ids set up in my Amazon associates account.
The earnings from the second tracking id was $371.15.
We have also been using a really cool service called Genius Links. Genius localizes my Amazon affiliate links to the country of the person visiting my website. So, if someone from Canada clicks on an affiliate link, they go to Amazon.ca product listings, if someone from the UK clicks on one of my Amazon affiliate links, they go to Amazon.co.uk, and so on.
As a result, my Amazon affiliate website earns more commissions from a few different Amazon locations.
Amazon Associates UK
(Approximately, $29.49 in USD)
Amazon Associates Canada
(Approximately, $60.01 in USD)
So, Total Amazon Associates in August = $2,872.51
My Amazon affiliate website also made a decent amount of money via Google AdSense.ย Here's how much the Amazon niche site made from Google AdSense in August:
The site also made some money via some other affiliate programs managed by Commission Junction.
The site made $43.20 via Commission Junction affiliate sales in August.
In total the site made:
- $2,872.51 from Amazon Associates
- $515.13 from Google AdSense
- $43.20 from Commission Junction
- $3,430.84 in Total Earnings for August
How These Results Were Achieved – A Timeline of my Amazon Affiliate Website
Here's a quick timeline of how I started and grew my Amazon affiliate website to where it is today.
After the timeline, I'll share some more in-depth points about some of the things that I did.
I'm also including a Google Analytics screenshot that shows the traffic by month since May 2015.
My Amazon Affiliate Website Timeline
- February 2015 – Purchased domain name, but did nothing with it for a couple months.
- May 2015 – Published the first article on May 8th, 2015. I decide to find 10 or so keywords to target and publish articles to start the Amazon affiliate site. 2 articles go live in May.
- August 1st, 2015 – By August 1st I have a total of 12 articles published on the site.ย This site starts getting around 5 or 6 visitors a day from Google and other search engines.
- August 2015 – 25 articles published. I decide that I see potential in this niche based on sales from my own FBA product, and I find 100 keywords that I want to target and publish articles on right away. ย I figure that more content targeting low competition keywords = more traffic. A year later, I am proven correct.
- Sept 2015 – 11 articles published. We primarily focus on getting content written and up on the site.ย By the end of September we have a total of 48 articles on the site.
- Oct. 2015 – 16 articles published.
- Nov. 2015 – 37 articles published.
- Dec. 2015 – 19 articles published.
- Sept to Dec 2015 – Around early September, we decide that we should get a few links to the site.ย So, during Sept to Dec we focus on a few strategies.ย We get a few links from quality directories. Then write a few guest post links. ย We use the Tailwind App to get some Pinterest traffic and links going. We also did a contest which resulted in a few links (may would have done better with a tool like Shortstack or an alternative).ย And finally, we used Tomoson to give away some of our FBA products and some bloggers mentioned and linked to our site.
- Jan and Feb 2016 – 0 articles published.
- March 2016 – 3 articles published.
- April 2016 – 1 article published.
- May – July 2016: 0 articles published. To be honest, I hadn't really been paying attention to how much this site was making.ย I knew it was doing well, but I was shocked in July to see exactly how well it was doing on its way to a $3k month.ย So, in July I decided its time to refocus on the site (only 4 articles had been published in all of 2016 and yet the site continued to grow really well).ย We decide to find another 100 low competition keywords and start publishing more content.ย My hypothesis is that more low competition content = more traffic!ย I was right before, and I suspect I'll be right again.ย The plan is to have these additional 100 articles published between August and December 2016.
- August 2016 – 10 articles published.ย Site earns over $3,000 in affiliate income.
As of the end of August 2016, my Amazon affiliate website has a total of 134 articles published.
My Keyword Research Strategies
I've laid out my affiliate site keyword research strategy a number of times on this blog including here and here.
I did not really do anything differently than I normally do. I'm going to lay out 5 keyword research principles that I follow when building my sites.
Principle 1
In general, I am more concerned with low competition than traffic volume. ย In fact, I set no minimum limit for monthly search volume for the keywords that I found. So, if the keyword only had a KC score of 25 and was searched for 1,000 times a month…great!ย
Or if a keyword had a KC of 20 and was only searched for 50 times a month…that's great too!
In other words, I targeted some keywords in a product category that had over 1,000 monthly searches and other keywords that had less than 100.ย However, ALL keywords had a KC of 30 or less.
I always use Long Tail Pro to do my keyword research and of course get the keyword competitiveness score.
The less competition you have to cut through, the sooner you can create a profitable Amazon affiliate website that starts paying off your efforts.
Principle 2
I also tend to do better with longer phrases (4 or more words) than I do with shorter phrases.ย Yes, I do target some 3 word phrases, but I rarely target 2 word phrases.
Principle 3
I like to look for keywords that include certain words in them that I know most Amazon affiliate sites can rank well for. I usually call these “modifiers.”
For example, here's a short list of modifiers I've used in the past which can hopefully help you create blog posts:
- best
- review/s
- vs.
- under $100 (or other price points)
- in [current year]
- and of course many others
So, if your root keyword is “folding chairs.” You might consider phrases like, “best folding chairs,” “folding chair reviews,” “best folding chair under $50.”ย
These are a just a few ideas in the product category, and many other modifiers exist that you can add to your root keywords to come up with lots of low competition keywords.
Principle 4
I like to see other weak sites ranking with lower Trust Flow and Citation flow (or domain authority and page authority).ย So, first I just look at the overall KC score and try to find keywords under the 30 mark.ย
Then I double check to see if there are some weak affiliate sites, forum posts, article directories, or other weak sites that have poor metrics.
If I see a couple of weak sites ranking in the top 10 results in Google, then it's a green light for me to go after that keyword.
Principle 5
In addition, to using Long Tail Pro, I sometimes use Semrush and Ubersuggest to come up with additional keyword ideas. Semrush is great if you find a new or weak affiliate site ranking for lots of keywords, then you can cherry pick some of their best keywords to try and outrank them.
Ubersuggest is great to come up with lots of variations of keywords the product category. This essentially adds modifiers to the root keyword for you, then you can take the ones you want. I then run them through Long Tail Pro to check the search volume and competition level.
Click here to check out our post on the best keyword research tools today (both free and paid)
Overall, that's 5 quick principles that I follow when I do my keyword research. Yes, I could go into more depth, but these strategies should give you a good insight into how I did my keyword research for the Amazon affiliate site.
My Amazon Affiliate Website Link Building Strategies
As listed in the timeline above, we went through a link building “phase” on this site from about Sept to Dec of 2015. Since that time, we have not done ANY link building on the site. The site still attracts a few new links here and there without our involvement when we publish new content.
For good or bad, this is always how I've approached my review sites. I put a little bit of effort into building links after the site is a few months old, and then I just focus on the content for the site. Now, it's possible that I may go back and do another link building push at some point.ย
However, the site continues to grow in terms of Google rankings and traffic as well as other search engines, so I see no reason to go out do more active link building.
So, unless the site stops growing, I likely won't do any more manual link building. Writing more content will be a better use of my time for increasing the Amazon affiliate program earnings. And I think think this is a good strategy for many affiliate sites (unless you're in a crazy, competitive niche).
Here's a quick look at the number of links that this site has achieved over time:
As you can see the site has just over 100 linking domains pointing to it.ย Or put a different way, about 100 sites are linking to my niche site.
In case you didn't know, 100 linking domains is really not that much. I would guess that almost half of those links came naturally to the site without my involvement. The other half were acquired using the strategies below.
Quality Directoriesย
We submitted the Amazon affiliate website to a few directories, including places like JoeAnt.com and others.ย I don't know the exact number of directories we tried to get links from, but it was probably less than 5 total.ย
The idea here is to focus on quality (high authority) versus quantity of directories.
Only bother with a few good ones. A bunch of links from spammy directories won't move your website up the rankings of a good search engine like Google. So to build your successful Amazon affiliate site you're better off writing more product reviews!
Guest Posts
Yes, this is old school. However, we were able to reach out to a few people we knew to write guest posts on their blogs. Again, this was a small number, probably only around 5 guest posts or so. But this is still a great way to build some links for your Amazon affiliate websites.
Tailwind App
Tailwind is simply a way to make it easier to post and schedule posts on Pinterest (and Instagram). We only used Tailwind for its Pinterest capabilities. The main idea here (and it does take some work) is to start a group, join some groups, and post relevant images.ย
With a little bit of effort, people will start re-pinning your images and this leads to links from Pinterest.com, but can lead to secondary links if people repost of their own sites.
We now have tons of links from Pinterest (counts as 1 linking domain). It's hard to tell how many links came from people using our images from Pinterest on their own sites (with a link to ours). This is sort of the hidden SEO benefit from major Pinterest attention.
See my full Tailwind review.
Contests
As mentioned, we sell a physical product on Amazon that is related to this affiliate website. We held a contest using Contest Domination, in an attempt to get email subscribers.ย We didn't run the contest in an attempt to get links. However, it did indeed lead to few links.ย
One of the contestants posted the contest on a couple of sweepstakes type sites, and this gave us a few links to our site.ย
This didn't lead to a lot of links, however, as it was shared on social media and other places, it did indeed generate a few links.
Tomoson
In order to get some Amazon reviews, we used Tomoson.ย In the process, we found out that lots of the reviewers have blogs and are willing to write a blog post review of your products.ย So, we gave it a shot and asked for maybe 10 people or so to write a blog post reviewing our Amazon product.ย
Because our Amazon affiliate website is one place where we sell our product, we got a link back to our Amazon affiliate website with each of those product reviews.
Overall, we did some things for link building that seem to have worked.ย Again, we only have 100 linking root domains, so its not some huge amount.ย Like I said, if I were to venture a guess, about half of these came through our own effort with the strategies listed above.
The other half just came naturally without our involvement.
Optimization
Early in 2016, I could see that this site had good potential and so we wanted to optimize the average earnings per visitor. We did this in 2 ways:
- Optimized Google AdSense placement and
- Created more shopping comparison charts for Amazon products
The earnings per click for Google AdSense was pretty solid, so we made some of the paid ads more prominent near the top of articles and added units in other locations.
We also saw a big increase in Amazon Associates earnings when we went back to some of our older articles are started adding more shopping comparison charts with Amazon affiliate links. ย
The theme we used has comparison chart functionality built in. ย
If you don't know what I'm talking about, I wrote a pretty comprehensive guide on how to create a Amazon shopping comparison chart here.
Adding these charts led to more clicks through our affiliate links to Amazon and more sales. These types of charts provide a ton of value to users because it makes it easy for them to compare product side by side.
If you make it easier for people to buy products, they buy more products.
So, these couple of steps that we took starting in March of this year really started to increase our earnings per visitor by quite a bit.
The Added Bonus…Amazon FBA
As I've mentioned a couple of times, this Amazon Affiliate website does more than just include Amazon affiliate links. The site also links to and sells my own physical products through Amazon FBA. So, the $3,430.84 income that I listed above is ALL from affiliate revenue in my Amazon Associates account… and does NOT include income from my Amazon FBA products.
In other words, if I send someone from my site to Amazon and they buy one of my products, I am not counting that revenue in the screenshots above.ย
So, in addition to the $3,400 that this site made in affiliate revenue from Amazon affiliate links, it also generated roughly an additional $4,000 in revenue from my own Amazon products being sold.
This additional revenue is tough to calculate and track. My best estimate is that my Amazon affiliate website sent about $4,000 worth of business to Amazon FBA business in August.
However, starting your own private label brand and launching a product on Amazon is an entirely different animal to tackle. Luckily, I've written a little bit about how I started my Amazon FBA business right here if you are interested in that.
If you are willing to learn the ropes, this can be an incredible way to increase the revenue of your review sites. Especially in a very profitable niche.
How To Build An Amazon Affiliate Website
Now let's get into how you can make your own Amazon affiliate websites through Amazon's affiliate program. The first step is to decide what niche you want your site to be in. This isn't a decision to be made lightly.
In fact your chances of success or failure is heavily tied to this step!
We're going to have to do some keyword research.ย (Read this guide on MotionInvest.com if you are more interested in buying and selling websites.)
Finding Your Amazon Affiliate Niche
Finding the right niche and product category for your website prior to getting started is crucial. You want something you're passionate enough to work on, but using a good keyword tool to make sure there are plenty of longtails to rank for in the search engine.
If you're starting out with Amazon associates then you also want to make sure there are good products that pay out a solid affiliate commission.
Pennies a sale are going to take a very long time to add up, after all.
Don't worry – here's my step by step process to getting starting with Amazon affiliate marketing.
Brainstorming Niche Ideas
I've already done some work with Long Tail Pro above, so let's try another keyword research tool. I'll be using KWFinder (and you can read our KWFinder review here).
The first thing you'll need to do is make a list of potential niche ideas. There's no problem at all if you want to draw these from your passions.
- Love rock climbing? That's a niche.
- Cliff jumping? Crazy, but also a niche.
- Always wanted to be a prepper? There's another niche.
- Crocheting? Grandma would be proud of that niche!
You can do this with anything you're passionate about: you love playing ping pong, or you love swimming, or you want to help people sleep better. Any of these niches work just fine.
You can also go to website brokerages, see what's selling, and pick a niche from there. I like this approach since you know 100% that this can be a successful niche.
Here are a few niches that are being sold from EmpireFlippers.com.ย (You can also consider checking available affiliate sites listed at MotionInvest.com).
There we go. That's what we're looking for. Let's brainstorm a few potential sub-niches we could dive in to.
Hobbies
- Sewing
- Paintball
- Fishing
- Hunting
- Dancing
- Reading
Parenting
- Dad gear
- Mom gear
- Babies
Survival
- Survival skills
- Primitive survival
- Prepping
- Homesteading
Now that we have some brainstormed ideas, it's worth taking a glance at Amazon. Each product category offers a different payout and this can have a huge impact on your affiliate earnings. Here is the current list of Amazon's rates:
Note: The affiliate percentages in the Amazon Associates program can change from year to year. Check here if you want to confirm that these numbers are up to date.
You'd have to sell 8x as many video game consoles as you would power tools just to make the same amount of money from your Amazon affiliate links. And while, I don't recommend choosing your niches only from Amazon's rates, it's definitely worth taking this into account.
I wouldn't go into any niche offering commissions less than 3%. Anything below that number means it's pretty hard for you and your Amazon affiliate website to make ends meet.
Researching Niches for Your Affiliate Site
If you start building your affiliate site without doing research, you're setting yourself up for failure. You might get lucky and stumble across a niche that works, but the odds are pretty good that you won't. Tons of niches are crowded and are tough for new affiliate sites.
I prefer to find low hanging fruit.
To scout out our niches, I want to find at least 10 keywords with the following characteristics:
- At least 2 sites ranking on page 1 of Google with Domain Authority/Domain Rating/Keyword Challenge under 30 (but under 20 is even better!)
- Less than 5 referring domains to the pages of the websites with the lowest domain authority
No worries, pictures are incoming ๐
One of the toughest parts here is finding an initial keyword. It's hard to know what keywords you should scout out. What I recommend is a simple search in Google: “best [niche] gear”.
I'm going to search “best dad gear”. I clicked on the first result in Google, and got tons of seed keywords!
Here's one of them.
Baby carrier is perfect. Now let's find some keywords using KWFinder (Long Tail Pro also works for this, but I want to be fair to other tools too!).
Type your seed keyword (in this case, “baby carrier”) in to KWFinder. You want to make sure that it's set to “Related Keywords” so that you get a pretty wide range of keywords to look at.
I searched through related keywords and found one that looked promising: “toddler carrier.” I clicked on it to get an overview of everyone who was ranking in Google. The results look great.
I see 2 pages with less than 30 DA on page 1 of Google. One of these has a DA less than 20! And neither domain has more than 5 referring domains. This keyword is ripe for the taking.
If you can find 10 keywords like this within your niche, you're ready to go. That's a great niche!
If you are looking in the dad or baby niche, I guess you only have to find 9 more ๐
Here's what a keyword looks like if it's not very good:
You can see here that those domain authorities areย huge! There are several results from Amazon and Target, and I don't like to mess with a niche when those authorities are around.ย
If you can find 10 keywords that have less than 2 sites on page 1 with DA under 30 and less than 5 referring domains, you've found a viable niche.
I recommend doing this test forย as many niches as possible.
Some niches might have 10 low competition keywords, other niches might have 50 or 100!
The difference that this low competition makes is super powerful.
It's the difference between 4 figures a month and 5 or 6 figures a month.
I recommend making a Google Sheet with all of your niches. When you can find a viable niche, mark it down in your spreadsheet. Make a list of your keywords in KWFinder and keep track of how many low competition keywords you have. You can put the number in a spreadsheet too if you'd like.
Here's what your spreadsheet will look like. I just made these results up, so don't follow them.ย
The spreadsheet is super simple, but feel free to use mine if you want. Remember to make a copy and start fresh with your own ideas.
Don't be afraid to takeย a lot of time at this step.
Selecting a niche will determine everything else you do. It will influence your content, your link building, your income, and how much time you spend on the site before it's successful. This is the most important step.
Once you have your niche selected, you'll need to set up your website. This might not be as glamorous a step as building the site, but a good affiliate marketer knows it's the most important step.
Making Your Amazon Affiliate Website
You have done your research using a reliable keyword tool. You've brainstormed affiliate product ideas, decided you making this affiliate marketing website work, and now is time for one of the most exciting parts: building your own website!
Picking A Domain Name
The first step in making your website is choosing a domain name. I like to keep domain names as short as possible and leave room for myself to grow. Here are the principles I follow when selecting a domain name:
- As short as possible
- Brandableย
- Never any hyphens
- Maximum of 3 words if possible
- Can include future products and expansions
- .com – this isn't super important now but I like it in all of my domains
Here are some examples of great domain names and explanations of why they're great:
- WebMD.com: This domain name makes it clear what the website is about. It also allows the website to talk aboutย anything medical related. It is short and just 2 words.
- GearPatrol.com: This domain name doesn't leave any doubts either. It's a website about gear. But it's broad enough that it can cover almost any gear. It's short, catchy, and easy to remember.
- PickABow.com: PickABow leaves enough room to talk about any bow (long bow, recurve bow, crossbow, etc.) while still being broad. It's easy to remember and gets the point across.
And here are examples of bad domain names (I'm making these up)
- saghajgnwi.com: No clear niche or brand, can't be remembered easily.
- BestLongBow.com: This domainย never has room to grow. They can review all of the long bows in the world, but they can't even expand to items like crossbows that their readers want.
- Great-Domain-Name.com: Hyphens just make a site look bad. I don't like them at all.
- IncomeOutsideTheBox.com:ย Too long and not memorable. When it's not typed in caps, it looks like a jumbled mess of vowels. incomeoutsidethebox.com. No one can read that, and I promise that your readers aren't capitalizing every word.
You can get a domain name from Namecheap, but I recommend doing it with your hosting company. It will cost $3-$5 more to get your domain with your hosting company, but it's much less hassle.
You can use the same support, you won't have to set up nameservers, and everything will be in one place.
For your hosting provider, I recommend using Bluehost for new websites. I've used them for almost all of my affiliate sites. Their service is great, they aren't expensive, and the customer support is out of this world.
WordPress site installation is super easy and I've always been very pleased with their service.
Amazon Associates
Amazon affiliate websites are among the most common out there because the Amazon Associates program is one of the most beginner-friendly programs out there to earn money online.
Add in the sheer number of very successful sites making four, five, or even occasionally six figures a month with Amazon affiliate earnings alone, and it's not hard to see why this is such a popular option. But you'll want to check out what other affiliate programs are available in your niche as well.ย
And before you build your own Amazon affiliate website, you need to make sure you get accepted into the Amazon affiliate program first!
Applying to Amazon Associates
The Amazon Affiliate program is called Amazon Associates. It's super easy and you can apply here.
There aren't any specific requirements for joining Amazon Associates. But there are plenty of special requirements toย stay in Amazon Associates. I'll cover these in a minute.
You don't even have to have traffic when you apply. Just answer some questions about your website, explain how you'll promote Amazon's products, and that's that. You will need to have 3 different sales within 180 days of joining Amazon associates.
This isn't a huge deal since even if you don't make your sales, you can just reapply.
But it's a bit of a hassle to change all of your links, so I suggest that you make a few sales, and if necessary even have friends or family go through and make purchases using your Amazon associates link.
Using Your Amazon Affiliate Links
When you join Amazon Associates, getting your links is a breeze. You can use a tool like AAWP or Amalinks Pro. But if I didn't have a budget, I would use Amazon's Sitestripe.
Any time you're on Amazon while logged in to your affiliate account, you have a Sitestripe bar across the top of your screen.
You can get your Amazon affiliate link by finding a product you want to promote and clicking “Text,” “Image,” or “Text+Image.” I recommend only using the text and images, as Text+Image doesn't look great and you want your product image looking as good as possible.
This is also the easiest way to quickly get an Amazon link for your product review.
If you're getting an image, you'll almost always want the large size. Even the large is pretty small. You can use the images or texts to insert into your affiliate content.
When people click on it, you get a commission and earn money on anything they buy for the next 24 hours.
That means you can earn an affiliate commission for items you didn't even advertise as long as they reached Amazon's site through your Amazon affiliate link.
Staying Amazon Compliant – Amazon Affiliate Operating Policies And Common Violations
Amazon has a reputation for being about as clear as mud in their terms of service. They are a huge company and sometimes even the customer support doesn't know the answers or will give contradicting statements.
But don't worry, most violations come down to just a few things. And when all is said and done, Amazonย wants you to promote their products. They want you to be a part of their affiliate team.ย
Here are some of the most common violations and things you should never do:
- Download Amazon images (instead, use Sitestripe and insert code)
- Use star ratings or star ratings that look similar to Amazon's
- Mention Amazon reviews
- Mention price
- Use Amazon affiliate links for your own purchases
- Use affiliate links in email (send emails with links to your review articles, but never to Amazon – because this is not allowed in the Amazon affiliate program).
- Shorten links outside of Amazon (using the short link in Sitestripe is fine)
- Avoid explicit content – nothing adult or profane is allowed in the Amazon affiliate program
- Avoid thin content – With Amazon associates, content must add value to readerย
Those are the most common violations, but there are quite a few. Read Amazon Associates operating policies to be sure.
However, if you avoid that bullet point list then chances are that your Amazon associates account will be fine.
Building Your Amazon Affiliate Website
Now that you have a domain name, hosting, and have access to Amazon Associates affiliate links, it's time to get your site up and running.
Your Site's Theme & Design
The theme is a sort of building block for how your site is going to look. It's important, but not the most important thing. Many affiliate sites are built on free themes. So don't get so caught up in the design of your site that you never build out the content.
As long as your site doesn't make anyone's eyes bleed, it's fine. No need to spend too much time here.
For my themes, I like GeneratePress and Astra. Both are free. These themes are lightweight, fast, and super flexible. I like to pair both with Elementor (also free) to get the site design that I'm looking for.
If you have a couple of bucks to spend, I like to buy Elementor Pro so I can edit and create my own theme (check out our Elementor review). It's super powerful, but not necessary if you're on a tight budget.
When designing your site or choosing a theme, I recommend finding a site that you love in another niche. Feel free to use this site's design to give you some ideas in how your site could look. If you're in the music niche, find a site in the dog or fitness niche that you know is doing well.
Use this site to draw some inspiration.
If you're having trouble finding a site, just search “best [niche] gear” into Google. This isn't breaking any copyrights and isn't illegal. But don't be an exact copy of that site. You always want your own flair to come out, so try to make your site unique to you.
It's almost always best to have a way for your visitors to connect to social media so they can share your content. I like the AddThis plugin. It's super easy to use and it's 100% free. It allows you to set social share buttons on any of your sites pages with ease.
There's a Reason Amazon Affiliates Love WordPress
Going with a WordPress site is often the best option because it's easy, widespread, and there's a WordPress plugin for about everything you could possibly want or need already made out there!
Now that you've got your site designed, let's get into the content.
Your Site's Content
Your website's content will be the most labor intensive part of your website. If you write it, go ahead and expect to spend a lot of time. If you outsource it, go ahead and expect to spend a lot of money.
But when you start out, your content will beย the only part of your site that generates you any decent income. Yes, you read that right. It will be the only. So you need to have great content with well researched posts.ย
Even if you aren't a writer, I suggest writing the first few pieces of content yourself. This helps you to get a feel for your niche. Even if you just write 10 or so articles of 2000 words each, you will have far more expertise than the majority of people on the planet.ย
Once you have your first few well researched posts written, feel free to outsource the rest. I've used Upwork in the past and found some gems. But I've been using Content Pit on my Niche Site Project 4. They are inexpensive but write some great content.
You can use my affiliate link to get an extra 30% words on any order, up to 10,000 words ๐
If you do outsource your content, it's important to provide very detailed briefs. Show your writers a step by step guide of what you're looking for. Examples are very helpful.
If you're training your own writer, expect that he or she will have some questions about the process. That's not a problem. But when he or she keeps getting the same things wrong after you explain how to do it right, that's a problem.
I recommend that you fire fast if your writer doesn't seem to be taking to the work very well.
Here are a few guidelines when you create blog posts:
- Don't write your review posts like a used car salesperson. Be fair and honest in your critiques. This builds user trust over time.
- Review products with lots of reviews (on Amazon, I try to go for products with at least 50 reviews). Make sure that the product is rated well.
- Include sections to answer common questions that a user might have.
- Explain what the user should know before buying. This could be best ways to use the product, who the product is best for, etc.
With those basic guidelines down, I thought it would be helpful to show you examples of successful Amazon affiliate sites. These examples are taken from my post about successful niche websites.
5 Successful Amazon Affiliate Websites
There is no better way to learn how to build a successful site than by looking at other Amazon affiliate websites and seeing how they managed to go from a one post basic site up to the wildly successful niche website they are today.
Learn from these models of success and in a few years your Amazon affiliate website may appear on lists like these!
THEWIRECUTTER.COM + THESWEETHOME.COM
Organic Monthly Traffic (Ahrefs Estimate): 11.3 + Million Hits
Number of Organic Keywords (Ahrefs Estimates): 6.2 Million + Ranked Keywords
Top Ranking Page Content Topic: Air Purifiers
Top Ranking Page Content Length: 23,362 Words (Does Not Include Comments)
How They Earn Revenue: Primarily Amazon Affiliates and paid ads
The Wirecutter.com and TheSweetHome.com were sold a couple years back to the New York Times. They were both very successful Amazon Affiliate websites, and that's where most of their revenue came from then, and still comes from today.ย
When the sites were purchased, TheSweetHome.com was redirected to TheWireCutter.com as both sites had very similar content structures.ย
The WireCutter dominates organic search results for a lot of buyer-intent keywords, and is also a โverified expert reviewerโ by Amazon.ย
The site gets huge amounts of organic traffic, and has gained massively in popularity and search positioning once it was purchase by the New York Times.ย ย
Because of the budget they have, unlike most Amazon affiliate sites, thewirecutter.com has the capacity to purchase products and pay independent reviewers to review each product and take pictures for their article.ย
Many of their articles are extensively researched, and it's not uncommon to see some of their articles with more than 7,000 words in their review posts.ย
And when they recommend a product in their review posts, they have earned the trust of the reader to get that click on the Amazon link, and the subsequent commission in their Amazon associates account.
This is one of the biggest examples of a successful Amazon affiliate website, and based on the estimated traffic, they are more than likely earning hundreds of thousands of dollars per month, if not millions โ a far cry from my recent FBA ventureย andย business sale.
RUNNERCLICK.COM
Organic Monthly Traffic (Ahrefs Estimate): 102,000 (Was 548,000 + Hits)
Number of Organic Keywords (Ahrefs Estimates): 186,000 (Was 394,000 + Keywords)
Top Ranking Page Content Topic: Toe Running Shoes
Top Page Content Length: 4,174 Words
How They Earn Revenue: Amazon Affiliates & Paid ads
RunnerClick.com is an interesting Amazon Affiliate website. It's interesting in the fact that it hasn't been around forever, but it's gained rapid momentum due to their consistent outreach efforts.
You can see that their link building efforts have been a success when you look at the historical data on Ahrefs, that shows the trend in referring domains. ย
They rank extremely well for many buyer-oriented keywords in the running space, and have a ton of product reviews.
The thing I like the most about the site is the way it feels.ย
All of the Amazon affiliate links are extremely well integrated, and they've done some custom design work to make some of their images feel interactive.ย Another trend here is that the owners of this site, own similar sites in several other niches.ย
You can tell which sites are owned by the owners of this site when you look at the bottom of the site and notice that they link internally to their other web properties.ย This is becoming a popular trend, with the folks over at DigitalMarketer.com doing the same thing with some of their projects, like SurvivalLife.com and DIYReady.com.ย
It's hard to estimate the total revenue for this site, but because the call-to-actions on the site are so good, it would not surprise me if this site was doing over 70K per month in Amazon Affiliate income every month.
BESTREVIEWS.COM
Organic Monthly Traffic (Ahrefs Estimate): 96,200 + (Was 522,000 + Hits)
Number of Organic Keywords (Ahrefs Estimates): 584,000 + Keywords
Top Ranking Page Content Topic: Best Tanning Bed Lotion (Was Air Fryers)
Top Page Content Length: 2,350 Words
How They Earn Revenue: Amazon Affiliates
Best Reviews is an Amazon affiliate website that does exactly what the domain name claims. They offer extremely detailed and in-depth reviews of certain products, and make sure to showcase that their reviewers have their brand showcased to ensure the reader builds an established trust factor with the website.ย
This is a very smart move for any type of reviews based website.ย If you can take your own pictures, and show your readers you have actual experience with the products, there's a good chance your reader will identify with your content and be more likely to convert to a buyer.
Best Reviews is interesting for different reasons though. They are interesting because they pay for a ton of their traffic with paid ads (based on findings through SEMRush.com).ย
They average about 300k visits every month because of their Google Adwords advertising spend. This means they are bidding on keywords and paying for traffic on top of the organic traffic they already get. It's possible that buying this additional traffic has helped them gain additional links because their content is very good.ย
The purchased traffic is just helping them get in front of an audience that's actually looking for their product, just like SEO. If conversion rates are lower, you will end up making less money than you spend to buy traffic, but because of the authenticity of the reviews, it's likely that BestReviews.com converts researchers to buyers at a higher rate than other affiliate sites.ย
While it's tough to know exactly, I would guess that this site makes 6 figures per month or more in Amazon Affiliate revenue due to their traffic numbers.
GEARPATROL.COM
Organic Monthly Traffic (Ahrefs Estimate): 3.2 + Million Hits
Number of Organic Keywords (Ahrefs Estimates): 2.5 + Million Keywords
Top Ranking Page Content Topic: Reset Macbook Air to Factory Settings (Was Office Chairs)
Top Page Content Length: 2,403 Words
How They Earn Revenue: Amazon Affiliates, Display Ads
GearPatrol.com is an online resource that reviews just about anything you can think of. They run in the same vein as TheWireCutter.com and other successful Amazon affiliate websites but take an angle that's heavily focused towards men.
The bourbon and whiskey review pages get tons of traffic, as well as many other products that might be considered more masculine.ย
They highlight a lot of men's gear in their reviews, and probably make a really good chunk of their revenue from being an Amazon Affiliate.ย They do run AdSense, and it also looks like they have a fair amount of content that could be considered a โsponsored post.โ
A sponsored post is just an article that a larger company puts together for you to promote their product, while paying the website owner for the exposure.
This Amazon affiliate website is an example of what many sites are doing these days.ย They are โniched downโ into brackets of certain products, and creating an online multimedia experience in the form of an online magazine style site.ย
There's lots of large pictures, some videos, and it looks like a true media property.ย
Chances are that you'd need to hire a designer to get a similar look and feel for your own website if you were to attempt it.ย From a revenue perspective, this site is more than likely doing more than six figures in total revenue if I had to take a guess. Just based on their organic traffic numbers.
Your Amazon Affiliate Website
Overall, I'm very happy with the income this Amazon affiliate site has generated over the past year.ย I've cracked the $3,000 in affiliate income in each of the past 2 months, I hope to cross the $4,000 a month mark very soon (you may also be interested in our guide for how to make 5k per month). Not bad for a relatively new website.ย
Hopefully, you've enjoyed reading the timeline, my keyword research strategies, and the link building strategies that I've followed as I've built this Amazon affiliate site. And I genuinely hope it helps you with your review sites and on internet marketing journey.ย
If you're wanting to know how to set up an Amazon affiliate site, use the guide above to give you an outline of all the things you have to do. For a more detailed guide, check out my post on how to build a niche website.
Honestly, there is really no other “secrets” that I am keeping when it comes to what was done to make this site a success.ย
As you can see from the Google Analytics screenshot above, the site took several months to really gain any traction, but then has just slow grown over the past year.
So, it's important to stick with it, and not give up on your new Amazon affiliate website after the first couple of months. The real growth happens after the site has been around for a while. And also don't be shy to add other affiliate programs as well.ย
As a website owner, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the subject.ย Do you have any additional questions for me?ย Let me know what you think in the comments below.
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182 Comments
Conversation
Awesome! It’s very encouraging to see this type of results. As someone who is currently grinding out content (trying to get to 50 by the beginning of October), this is great motivation to keep going.
We appreciate the “behind the curtain look”!
Thanks! Good luck with your site goals, Jeremy.
I agree with you….it’s really encouraging. But I have a question
Can I use google Adsense and Amazon in one site or it harmful for site penalty.
How many words did you use on your articles?
Great one indeed! That’s a lot of content you published on this site. The Google Adsense income was definitely an add on. I didn’t know about Genius Links before. Used EasyAzon though but didn’t really had any significant success from other countries. Will have to try Genius Links next ๐
Keep Going
Thanks Khalid. Yep, I’m a big believer in content.
Why do you prefer Genius Links over EasyAzon?
I was wondering about that also.
I also want to know that.
Hey Spencer,
Awesome job! By the way, in order someone to let’s say make $10.000 a month from amazon affiliate website, do we need to target buyer intent keywords that have like 20-40k monthly searches or such? I’m thinking is it better to make 5 smaller sites each to generate $2000, or 1 site that can make $10k, but in order to make that much from a single site do you think we need products in range from $100-300 and main keywords to have at least 10-40k global monthly searches?
Yes, you would need to target some buyer keywords, but not all. Its good to have non-affiliate content as well. You can go either way – 1 site or a few sites. I don’t worry about a “main” keyword. I just target lots of low competition keywords, as explained above.
Spencer, nice post. And it is a good recap from all the stuff you’ve learned us in the past.
Two questions:
1. So your website isn’t about a ‘main’ keyword. So your site isn’t super niche. It is not about 1 product, or 1 type of product article (such as survival knives)? Is it a broader site about, let’s say kitchen electronics?
2. How are the niche sites going from the coaching students. I’m not quite sure if the coaching series is over now? Or can we expect a sort of reunion post were we can see the earnings and stuff?
All the best, Pim.
Great Post!! learned lots of new things from this post and your ubersuggest link is not woking i think…… ๐
Here is https://ubersuggest.io/ exact link. thanks
Fixed link.
Great post.. I have a doubt in competitor analysis. As the metrics in long tail pro has changed. Can you write an article that how you do serp analysis or competition analysis now.
Thanks.
The KC is back to 30 or less, so my analysis is the same. See the post here from Long Tail Pro: http://www.longtailpro.com/keyword-competitiveness-recalibration-complete/
Congrats ! Very enlightening.Thanks for sharing and this is definitely motivating. Helpful post also..Thanks for being such a great teacher for so many us!
Awesome to see the progress over a year! Like the idea of tieing it in with an FBA product too….nice strategic move.
On the niche site, is the content all affiliate artciles or a mix of affiliate/info etc.?
Its a mix, but mostly affiliate stuff for sure.
How many words do you recommend articles being for a website like this?
I like articles over 1500 words
it is so awesome, Spencer!
Do you think that featuring your own FBA products on this website somehow helped with affiliate clicks (comparing with other sites without your own products)?
LTP – since rolling out the latest version I noticed all my old KW competitiveness scores that I have in my database lately jumped 10-15 points up.
All 30 and less KWs are now 40+.
So, 40s are the old 30s now or i’m missing something…
No, I don’t think listing my own products impacted the number of clicks very much.
I just couldn’t wait to read this article when it dropped in my email. Great to see results which encourages us not to lose hope. Cheers Spencer
Thanks Kwadwo!
Thank you for sharing your true experience. It would really a great motivation for my niche projects. Keep it up bro.
So inspiring! Congratulations on the site and thank you for being so helpful to others. I’ve started several niche sites and seem to get distracted by the shiny-object syndrome. I need to focus on one site and maximize on your strategies!
Good luck, Ree!
Two questions for you Spencer:
1. Do you collect email addresses on this niche site?
2. Do you have comments turned on? If yes, how do you handle questions on a subject for which you aren’t knowledgeable?
Thanks again for your help!
Ree
Hi Spencer,
Great post again. I have a similar site which is 7 months old now but very promising.
I wonder how much is the word count for each of your posts?
one more thing, when did you start making that amount of money? how many clicks you need to make 3k?
thanks
I shoot for 1500 word posts. July was the first month the site earned over $3k. It generated 7,000 clicks to Amazon (through my affiliate links).
Awesome man, congrats. According to the stats you give, the average price of the products you promote should be around $120.
do you ever promote cheaper stuff too? or only over 100 products?
thanks
Can I get commission only with clicks in affiliates?or If anyone clicks on my affiliate link and he purchased other product ,in this case can I get commission?
Yep, no matter what someone buys on Amazon. If they buy it within 24 hours of clicking on your amazon associates link, you get paid.
Another awesome article Spencer…really love your posts.
I have a blog site I started a while back but made the big newbie mistake of not doing the proper research for keywords.
Now I have over 30 published articles and am not sure if I have wasted my time.
Anyone willing to look at my site and give it some thought?
Here’s the link: goo.gl/hbbw9e
You can definitely find low competition keywords in that niche. No need to change your site or niche, just focus on targeting lower competition keywords in the future.
Great site btw Scott. It has a great design and the articles are well written and professional!
Love seeing posts like this! Good work as always man. Keep on keeping on.
Thanks!
Hey Spencer, thanks for the useful info in this post. It’s these kinds of posts I find the most helpful. My site has about 35 posts after 3 months (and I work full time and own another business!), so I can’t wait to see where I am at in a years time!
I had a question though about getting affiliate commissions along with Amazon FBA income. How do the Amazon rules work in that scenario? Aren’t they in essence paying you twice? Once for affiliate income on your products and once for the actual product?
Also, what would you say would be the top 5 directories to get links from? I’ve gotten some comment links, social media profiles, etc. But, I feel like my link profile is pretty darn weak thus far.
Thanks Spencer!
Yes to the amazon question. This is also within their guidelines.
Do a google search for “best directories” or something similar. JoeAnt.com, Botw.com, and others.
Thanks Spencer, exciting things ahead indeed. Have a good one-
Bryan – before we set it up this way I chatted with Amazon support and told them exactly what we were planning to do, just to make sure we weren’t violating any of their (sometimes vague) guidelines.
Good to know, I’ve heard and read that their TOS rules are pretty murky sometimes. That’s a good reminder for me as I get more involved in the process. Keep knocking it out of the park!
Hi Bryan,
Thought I’d weigh in on this because I have a private label line on Amazon and use my brand website simply to point back to my Amazon listings and some related products on Amazon that aren’t mine. I don’t generate a lot of sales through that website, but when I do get an order it’s super fun because I get the sale AND the affiliate commission. I, too, checked with Amazon before using this strategy and they were fine with it.
Good luck!
Thanks Ree, much appreciated!
Great Post. Quick question: Still ignoring those keywords who are E-commerce related? Suppose if I choose a keyword “Keyword123” and 5 out of 10 sites on first page are e-commerce websites. Should I go with that keyword?
Learning a lot from you. This post gives me confidence.
I still typically avoid those keywords that are dominated by sites that actually sell the products (ecommerce).
I have experience were my niche pages are ranking for keywords were only ecommerce sites are ranking for. Just be sure that your content matches the query.
This article make me more inspire ! Can you please tell me more about Pinterest traffic ?
How much traffic you generate from Pinterest and how about you Pinterest account ?
I knew ladies item better convert by Pinterest.
The site doesn’t get much traffic from pinterest; only about 2 visitors a day on average.
Thanks for sharing. One of my niche sites has also started ranking by using Ltp and some link building strategies.
Thanks for another great post Spencer!
One question, did you pay for the directory links?
Cheers!
That’s an excellent case study. Hope I’d be able to share my success story like that, someday.
Hi, i have website for products from clickbank, how i can get traffic & buyers?
Great stuff man! You have been an inspiration.
You may have already answered this, but I couldnโt find it.
What anchor text did you use on your links?
Cheers!
I don’t worry much about anchor text. Its just a wide variation, or whatever people want to use when they link to me.
This post was just what I needed to stay motivated. Thanks for always being so willing to share what’s working for you. It gives me hope!
I was wondering if you create silos of content with keywords that are closely related or if you just focus on finding low competition keywords on any subject that is related to your niche. You mentioned in a comment that you don’t worry about a main keyword, so how many keywords and supporting keywords do you target per article?
Thanks again!
Just focus on low competition keywords related to my niche. I don’t think much about silos. 1 main keyword per article, then I just use subheadings as makes sense for each article (secondary keywords would go in the sub-heading), but honestly I don’t set a number of secondary keywords per article.
Hi, I think this might be a fairly newbie question, but I am just getting started creating my niche site (using your emails and reading through all the posts in your niche site creation case studies – so helpful).
My question is when I do an initial google search of my niche, using the most obvious keyword, I get 2 huge sites set up by very reputable companies (that are paid results) on this topic. Think like Pepsi setting up a site on cocktails to make with pepsi, I hope that illustrates what I am trying to say… then the rest of the page 1 results are all articles about this topic from larger sites that cover a very broad range of topics, such as a food website having an in depth article on BBQ’ing.
Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Ha. If I go to the third page of the google results I see what looks like the first actual niche site competitor that’s not paid, and not just a long article within a larger site.
Totally understand if this question is too long for a blog post comment! Just thought I would try ๐
That is a bad thing. I would only target keywords where you see other niche sites ranking on the first page of Google. So, your niche might be fine, but you need to look for lower competition keywords in that niche.
Really intrigued by your success with Adsense – I never seem to have much luck with it. What do you recommend for Google AdSense ad placements, and at what traffic # is it worth it?
I’ve figured any less that 50k/month isn’t worth AdSense – would rather provide less ads and more of a focus on affiliate links.
Megan, a bit part of the good earnings from Google Adsense is just that this niche pays quite well per click. In general, adsense ads within content near the top is going to perform best.
Cool, thanks Spencer!
Also, just to clarify my earlier comment, I meant that I feel any traffic less than 50k visitors per month wouldn’t be worth AdSense. Obviously $50k/month would be…amazing.
Good to see AdSense working for some folks, maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss it. Any thoughts on what traffic numbers you need to make AdSense effective?
I think it has less to do with traffic numbers and more to do with the niche you go into. Adsense pays per click very well in certain areas, no matter the traffic.
Also, regarding comparison tables, would you still recommend TablePress or is there something better out there at this point?
Would love to know as well ๐
Hi Megan,
I can answer this as I help manage this site with Spencer – we currently use the table element inside of Thrive Content Builder (part of the Thrive Themes suite of products). To your Adsense question, we typically use a plug-in called “Ad Inserter” to quickly manage where the ads go on all posts. We have one near the top, below the first or second paragraph, and then one right at the end of the article to try to catch people’s eye as they finish reading and are thinking about where to go next…
Thanks so much Jake! I’ve seen you guys talk about Thrive a few times on here. Next niche site I start I may need to try them. Will def. make sure I use an affiliate link from here if/when I do try them.
Also, thanks for info on Ad Inserter. I installed it a few months ago but have been a bit lost about how to implement it. So far I just have an ad at the end of content.
Do you ever struggle between deciding to use Amazon Native Shoppings ads vs. AdSense ads? I’m never sure which route is better.
I don’t have anything to recommend outside of TablePress or using Thrive Content builder. Thrive isn’t ideal, but you can build tables in there and save them as templates so that future tables are a bit faster. Here’s my affiliate link: https://www.nichepursuits.com/thrive
Thanks Spencer – I know you guys have had good success with Thrive, so I might give them a try when I’m ready to launch my next site.
Hello Spencer. You are inspired me year ago ๐ and i started my one site that give me some money. I started new blog 2 moutch ago about marketing i want creating courses. I want teach people to creating better life work smarter happier etc. Cheers
Spencer, really great information. I originally stumbled in to this after comming across your article on buffalo nickels. Its been a really great resource.
Just wanted to ask when your site got out of the sandbox. Im in month 5 the keywords have not shown up in google search console yet. I can find my site on page 2 and 3 of certain keywords but I don’t think the site is out of the sandbox yet. By the way, do you see a big change in search traffic change after you get out of the sandbox?
Knowing when it got out of the “sandbox” is tough to know. But traffic from Google didn’t really start coming until after about 4 months.
How much impact did the link building have on your earnings?
I’ve been avoiding that for the longest.
Who knows. I feel like we didn’t do very much link building, so the keyword research and content is primarily responsible for the earnings.
Thanks Spencer for your inspiration and guidance. In fact this post is a blessing to have landed in my mail. I am also trying my hands on affiliate niche site but not from Amazon, will be implementing exact strategies outlined above and will share with you the outcome soon.
Good luck!
Its really inspiring! Thanks for sharing your case study.
Yet another great motivational post, Spencer. I am a retiree and have been dabbling with affiliate marketing for about four years.
One thing I’ve found is that for beginners, the Amazon Associates system is the way to go.
I have the basic version of Long Tail Pro, and enjoy using it. My one regret is that i didn’t get it sooner.
I now look at some of my older post titles and ask myself what was i thinking? Reckon I might be doing some rewriting before concentrating on adding new posts.
Thanks for the inspiration.
Thanks Leon! Yep, I would strongly recommend going back to old articles and “retro-fitting” a better title that targets better keywords. Then updating that article as necessary to make it a good fit.
Spencer,
Awesome case study as usual.
Quick question do you do any Social Media promotion on your niche sites or your primary focus is just organic search and SEO?
Thanks again
Norm
As mentioned, we did Pinterest stuff. But that’s the only social media tactic used.
Great post again Spenser! I saw the monthly user stats. How many daily users are going there?
What’s the frequency of the keywords in the articles? How are they spread out? I think you wrote an article about that at one point.
Thanks!
Roughly 1200 or so…depends on the day. I just mention the keyword in the title and then once or twice in the article.
Spencer,
I sincerely appreciate your transparency and step by step documentation.
You’re an inspiration and this information is so helpful.
I do have concerns about using Easy Azon or any other shortcode amazon link tool. What happens if they stop supporting the plugin and it breaks? All your links would be broken.
Are you concerned with that?
Nope, not concerned. If it breaks, you can just replace the links.
Your case study was very good and detailed, you had published so many articles did you write them all or outsourced them to others? If Outsourced could you provide on important things that should be taken care!
I didn’t write a single word of content – 100% outsourced.
I too have 40K+ Organic Traffic on My blog. Buy I didn’t enough money through adsense and Affiliates..Such A Big Problem..
Hi, Spencer. Great article.
What if 7-9 sites in SERP are SEO optimized niche sites? Should I pass that KW even if KCs are 16-22?
No, you DEFINITELY want to get in that niche if there are 7 to 9 niche sites in the top 10! That’s a golden niche where affiliate sites rank well…definitely go after those types of keywords if the KC is low like that. Thats the EXACT kind of keyword you want to see.
Hi Spencer,
Do you use a plugin to manage your Google Adsense code?
Quick Adsense or Ad Inserter plugin
Yes, content is the king. Again it is proved
impressive to say the least! I have been fighting with one of my sites for more than 2 years now and nowhere close to the results presented here. Good job!
I love the article. Great job!
Question: Did you build any links to your specific articles? My technique has been to build backlinks manually to each article as I write them. Its been difficult. What is your take on building links to each article vs the homepage? THANKS!
As mentioned, about half the links are just natural (out of my control). Many of these links point to inner articles. Then the links we did on Pinterest obviously point to innner pages/images where they are. So, its a good mix.
Great post. What is the ratio of informational content vs money articles that you use?
Thanks a lot for this great article, terrific case study!
Could you tell us the cost of the content articles, and the balance for the year? I think it would an interesting info. thanks Spencer!
What’s the website?
Please help: What is KC score?
Found it: Keyword Competitiveness
PBN’s were not mentioned in this article. So, you were not using them? If really not, why?
You must be a new reader of Niche pursuits, welcome! ๐ I stopped using PBNs a LONG time ago. Here’s why: https://www.nichepursuits.com/alright-google-you-win-ill-never-use-private-blog-networks-again/
Awesome case study! How many products are you an affiliate for? Did you do multiple products per silo to Amazon?
I’m an affiliate for all of them :). Doesn’t matter what someone buys on Amazon, I get paid.
Yes, I review multiple products per article (think a chart of 10 products in one article). So, we have charts or reviews of probably hundreds of products on the site.
Great, thanks. One more question, do you tell them they are affiliate links just let them click away?
Hi Spencer. Stumbling upon your blog post has given me some hope for my website. I’ve been operating it for almost a year and traffic seems to be building slowly. I can see that I still have a lot to learn with all of these site building strategies. I hope I can be as successful as you someday. Cheers! ๐
Good luck, Shannon! Glad you stumbled across the site.
Hi, Spencer.
What if 7-9 sites in SERP are SEO optimized niche sites? Should I pass that KW even if KCs are 16-22?
Really great article thanks Spencer for sharing with us such priceless information.
It’s all about being strategic and focus on long term goals !
This is really inspirational at the same time full of tips and tactics, im reading your guide for amazon for amazon comparison chart, and want to learn more about product review. Thanks for this
Hi Spencer. Thanks for the article. I am learning a lot from you. I hope I can grow my niche
Guys thanks so much for the GeniusLink tip, I have just had a look at analytics and realised that 20% of my traffic comes from the US and I have been letting sales slip through my fingers for the past 2 years!
Yep, that’s typical for traffic. Good luck!
Spencer,
Great case study highlighting the timeline and progress. Good for users to understand the process. Whilst i think the timeline and earnings is great, it would be nice to understand the financials behind it as well. For instance people going on this journey will be watching the spend whilst trying to grow that monthly revenue and i get the sense that the costs for this can be quite high and potentially all up front. Please correct me on my following assumptions.
124 articles up to April 2016. How much are you paying for each article?
$40, $50, $60, more or less? Either way the figures start to add up. 124 (1500 word) articles x $50 = $6200, if not more. Now that is significant. Yes you could write these on your own to save costs, but would you want to, especially if you want to scale? Probably not… What had you earned up to this point? Break even, behind or in front. My point is this process potentially has cost implications that could restrict some people in starting on this journey?
Be interesting to know your thoughts round this financial process to break into a review niche site. All other things considered, loving your work Spencer ๐
Sometimes you can get articles for $1.00 per 100 words especially if you tell your writer that you will be using them ongoing. Other times it can cost more. I paid $21 dollars for a 1,500 word article myself. But yes that is still some coin for sure.
Correct, some people won’t be able to replicate what I’ve done due to the costs. However, if they can write their own content, they can avoid the bulk of the costs. Average article price is around $30 to $40. Lets just say $40 x 124. That’s about $5000. So, I’ve definitely made my money back. And I’m now at $3,500 a month. Investing $5,000 to get a $3500 a month return is ridiculously profitable. Its almost insane.
But but risk is way higher. So I’d go for articles under $20 (1k word) at the beginning.
Hey Spencer, I know that was awhile ago, but had another comment/question:
I’d love to spend $5000 to make $3000/month. But, I’ve not had a good experience with outsourcing. I’ve not used I-writer or Upwork yet, I’m just afraid of wasting money. If I knew ahead of time that the content quality would be good, I’d spend 5k in a heartbeat for 124 articles!!!
Were you satisfied with the articles you purchased?
Where do you get your writers from? I’d love to give my money to quality writers.
Thanks,
Bryan-
You might have to go through several writers before you find a good one. I’ve gone through lots of writers. Hire several writers to write just 1 article for you. Once you find one that produces the quality you want, give them more articles.
I was curious do you think that the content checker that Yoast has on their website is a good tool to see if keyword density is good for an article? Do you feel Yoast is the best tool for an Amazon affiliate site? Do you use any insights from Google Webmaster tools? Thanks again, great stuff!
Not really. I don’t use it. I use webmaster tools.
would you share the actual website to get a feel of the content? thanks
nope.
I would like to thank you for the comparison charts & Geniuslink tips.
I like these things and i will try to play with it.
Thanks for the long a valuable post, a lot of niche site building tutorials discourage using keywords with love search result (less than 50000/month) You used low competition keywords with great result. For someone trying their hands on niche building this is really a useful insight, thanks!
It’s really a great case study. I love your keyword research strategy. Link building prossess is also good. I’ll follow your strategy in my niche site.
Do you think food blog can make enough money from amazon affiliate and i guess you need targeted traffic when you are doing affiliate marketing. I do agree with the points you have shared with us!
If you review products used to make food (blenders, kitchen tools, etc), then yes, you can do very well with that. If all you write about is recipes, then no, I don’t think you will do well on Amazon.
Two questions for you Spencer:
1. Do you collect email addresses on this niche site?
2. Do you have comments turned on? If yes, how do you handle questions on a subject for which you aren’t knowledgeable?
Thanks again for your help!
Ree
Hi Ree – I can answer this. We do collect emails and send follow-up sequences to send people back to some of the “greatest hits” on our site. We don’t have comments turned on at all, so that hasn’t been an issue.
50k daily visitors or 50,000 visitors for 1 month ? does it really need to get to that amount of traffic to get $4,000 monthly ?
Hi Spencer,
Thank you very much for sharing this article.
As you mentioned that during your keyword research you were more concerned with KC than with search volume, I would like to know how many searches the keywords were getting (according to Google) that you targeted in your first 100 articles for the site.
Thank you again for all your work.
Just want I needed to get me back in the game, very motivating article to read. It’s like seeing the light at the end of a long tunnel.
Quick question, out of all the 134 articles published on your site. Are they silo’d in anyway or they just write & post?
Do you link (internally) these 134 articles in anyway?
Congrats again and I hope I can come here and share my success story!
Hey, Spencer—
This is fantastic! Glad to see the site is doing so well. I’m hoping you or a member of your team can answer this—are you at all concerned about any kind of penalty against sites that get backlinks by posting guest posts on other sites? Matt Cutts had mentioned something last year about Google seeing guest posting as a spammy practice, and you mentioned that you’ve done a few guest posts to build backlinks for this site—is that a safe practice?
Thanks, Spencer, and congratulations again!
Matt
I’m not concerned. Yes, I think its generally safe, unless you are mass producing or being spammy about it.
Hello Spencer
I was just about to subscribe to Easy Azon and you came up with Genius Links. Would you be kind enough to tell my why so that I can make an informed decision. It would help me a lot.
Kind regards
Easy Azon makes it faster to find and link to products. Genius makes it possible to get paid commissions no matter where a person resides (for the most part).
Doesnโt Easy Azon localize links like Genius too? Or is there any difference between them for localizing links?
Hi Spencer, long time subscriber…!
Reading most of your posts as they are always very good and it certainly does provide motivation.
I used to build sites a long time ago for lead generation and made a living out of it until Penguin / Panda!
Switched to paid traffic since them but this certainly provides some food for thought.
5,000 – 6,000 USD over a year or so is very enticing! Especially when most of the work can be outsourced. I’ll definitely be bookmarking this post and giving this a go. Working on a new AMZ project at the moment though.
I may have missed it in your post but what are your plans with the site medium term?
As once you can show 12 months earnings above $3,000 and growing, that could be a big sale.
Hi!. I loved your article. I’m thinking of investing in income through Amazon (now my focus is Adsense ) .
A question pls… what percentage of people who click on affiliate links?
That is , for every 100 people who read one review, how many go to amazon ? Thanks!!
(Sorry my english!)
I believe that among the people who go to the Amazon , 1 % buy …. right?
Hi Spencer,
you mentioned that you are not concerned at all with search volume when deciding which keywords to target as long as KC is below 30 and some other factors are met.
I am currently also targeting mostly keywords with a monthly search volume of 10. However, I am concerned that I will end up with a site that does not get enough daily traffic even if I targeted several hundred of those low KC and very low search volume (10 monthly searches) keywords.
Any feedback or advise would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
Well done Spencer!
What length do you recommend for articles that are written?
Spencer, Did you linked all the articles in any certain way? (silo?)
Hi Spencer,
Do you remember when was around the $500 mark monthly profit? I understand you reached now about $3000/mo. But I wonder it would be GREAT to know how approx. many artciles that you have up on the site when you were doing like $500/month and at what point in time was that?
Thanks
Eddie
Thanks for a nice and inspiring post and waiting for triple figure from my site though it was already aged one year.
Excellent post mate.
I am interested in Geniuslink but I thought Amazon against redirecting their affiliate links and only their shorten links are allowed. Can you confirm that this statement is no longer valid.
Your statement never was valid. You have always been allowed to use redirects; you just can’t cloak. Its 2 different things.
Hi Spencer,
I left a comment earlier but did not get a reply, that’s why I am writing again in the hope of receiving a reply this time.
In NSP 3 coaching call 4 you asked Samara to find 20 suitable keywords with at least 3 of them having a search volume of 1000.
My questions:
1. In this article you wrote that you are not concerned at all with search volume when deciding which keywords to target. Does that mean you would start a new site by publishing 100 articles targeting keywords that each have a monthly search volume of 10?
2. What search volume did the first 100 keywords have that you targeted for the site in this article?
Thank you.
1. That’s correct. 10 or more. There is a whole range though. Some keywords only show a 10 search volume, others 200, others 1000, others 5000+.
2. The entire range as explained in question 1.
Fantastic Article. More than 700 words per article enough or not?
May I know your domain name?
no
Quick question. Whats the minimum number of words per article in your posts for this project?
We usually shoot for 1500, some might have as little as 750 words though.
do you buy it from a particular text broker or do you have a dedicated VA/writer.
I don’t have a dedicated VA. I use various writers on Upwork or other places. (I stick with a good one while I can, but they rarely last a long time).
What are you going to do now that LTP no longer works cos of Google throttling adword accounts?
LTP is alive and well.
Hey Spencer,
You have almost clear all my doubts on Amazon Affiliate Site. Especially this article would be a road map for me to start with my own. Thanks a lot for the detailed post. I Will mention you when I will write my own success story with Amazon Affiliate site.
Thanks,
Riyaz
After reading this full content I really happy to see that, you discuss about AdSense ads somewhere. I have some doubt that, Google Adsense and amazon can’t use together. But now I confirm that, it can used. What about you say, Can I used Adsense and Amazon ads together. or it harmful.
You can use it together, I do it all the time.
HI Spencer, just found your blog…very thorough and interesting to read. I am going to mention it as one stellar example of Amazon affiliate marketing on my newest blog to inspire my subscribers. I’ve used Long Tail Pro keyword tool and promoted it (got some affiliate sales because it’s THAT good)…and it’s nice to see a face to match with the tool. Awesome results you’ve had. Congrats! I’m really glad to see you post “real-world” case studies of what it looks like when you and others are just getting started. Often, we expect overnight success, but the reality it that it takes consistent, focused action. But, oh boy, it is worth when it starts paying off. Thank you for the inspiration your blog is providing for me personally, and all those that follow! Have a grand October – Warmly, Kristie
I landed on your website by incident and read your article it was so good that I am bookmarking your site and hope to learn new things from you in near future as well. You really did some good work by putting this all together….thank-you again
Hi Spencer,
This is a truly great and actionable post. Congratulations and very inspiring. I have just a quick question. Does your affiliate site disclose that you own some of the products that it is promoting (the private label ones that you are selling through Amazon FBA). Is there a conflict of interest there, and how have you handled this? Thanks for putting together such great content for us!
Thanks for this Spencer. a small doubt. Do you bunch 3-5 keywords in one post or write a new one for each. so say, Example 1: In a 5,000+ word post of say “Best xx” you have a H2 with “Best xx for women” with say 500 words
Example 2: Have a different post for “Best xx for women” with 500 words but the whole page is optimized for the keyword so Title, slug, desc, H1, H2 are all targeting “Best xx for women”.
Which one will rank higher for the keyword “Best xx for women” assuming other factors (internal links/ backlinks) are constant for both the posts?
Great post but can I ask from where do you buy the articles ? I’ve tried many sources but I end with crappy writers who aren’t looking for a long term job. Once I assign more articles to a writer, he/she start to produce crappy content so your advice is appreciated.
This is really a great post. And I want to know one thing. How did you optimize the website to earn that handsome income from AdSense? How many ads and what is their locations? It is really impressive!
Best regards
Kawser
Adsense earnings depends a lot on the niche.
no way, how can it gain ranking from google if you dont have that much links? I always though SEO is about linking, I mean givin you have good content but link is still so important. But this case is diffirent, how come? Maybe Ill have to make the domain aged and just put good content w/o that much link, and this is exactly how you made it right? Anyway , well see if I can do it also. Im still surprised about the lesser links though haha.
In my opinion, keyword research and content are at least a big a part of seo as link building.
This post literally blew my mind with the possibilities of a small niche site. I realized I have been going about niche affiliate sites all wrong! No wonder I was so frustrated. I started a site back in may that would be perfect to use this strategy. Thanks!
I felt the same. At first, you go “meh, why would anyone go into that niche?” and then you see Spencer’s numbers and you start hating yourself for not pursuing this whole Amazing earlier.
Whenever some lacks motivation and doubt is creeping up, I send them here to get thrilled by what is possible! Thanks!
Hi, greate article. I have a question on you. Where do you buy the articles ? How much are you paying for 1500 words wrticle?
Peter
We hire writers from Upwork or Onlinejobs.ph.
Amazing case study, the thing is this can be a great journey, if done properly. Currently I’m also targeting the long tail keywords and publishing fresh content every week. But this is quite a long process & sometimes I do get tired from all the work. Hoping to reach milestones like you did Spencer. ๐
Thanks Tian!
I loved this piece of content. I’m in the process of starting an Amazon niche site. I have a couple of other blogs and I just got to see the power of targeting low competitive long tailed keywords.
This post is very inspiring for me. And I was surprised about how you diversified your income from one site like this; AdSense, Amazon aff, amazing FBA. That’s amazing..
One question: is it a must for you to see a weak site ranking for a low competition keyword to choose it? Cuz sometimes I see low competitive keywords < 19 and yet has strong websites ranking in first page with no room for me.
Thanks anyways!
You are awesome