Over the past couple of years we have made it a habit to reveal our income for our November-December Amazon sales but as many of our regular readers know we decided to no longer do that for various reasons. (You can read the reasons why here). However, we know that hearing about others successes is a real motivator – it helped us in the early days when we first ventured into this business and were trying to make a living from it – so we thought we might tell you about our best day on Amazon for November and a little about how December is going for us.
We mentioned in one of our recent newsletters that we saw a slow start to November for Amazon sales. Last year it took off with a bang and didn’t stop until well after Christmas. This year it looks as though a lot of people are struggling with the current economy in the US and were waiting for the sales to start in order to get a bargain.
Fortunately, however, we did see things start to pick up around mid November and we have had some record days for both earnings and orders.
Our biggest day overall for November was Cyber Monday which was surprising as I was expecting that Black Friday would have been a better day. As you can see from the stats below we did actually get more clicks on Black Friday than we did for Cyber Monday but the Cyber Monday shoppers were a little more keen to shop I guess, resulting in 263 orders for that day.
Our earnings for Cyber Monday were a little over $1000.
December so far has been going great…it always does much better than November. Our best day so far was a couple of days ago with earnings of just over $1500.
We’d love to be making over $1000 a day on a permanent basis from Amazon. It is doable of course….there’s no limit to what you can make from affiliate marketing. We just have to make it our goal for next year.
Our Year in Review
This year has been an interesting one for the both of us with a few different personal issues taking up a bit of our time particularly for Wanda. Fortunately this business allows us to take time out whenever we need or want to. This is one of the biggest benefits for making a living online – in my opinion the freedom you get is worth much more than the money.
We’ve also been caught up in a lot of different projects this year taking us away from our Amazon sites. We keep coming back to them and then for some reason get dragged away to something else. Not sure why that is because we are all for staying focused.
Our problem I think is that we want to diversify but in doing so we go back to working like we did when we first started out. In other words, we work on too many things at the one time and don’t focus enough. In a way, it has been good for us to do that as I think we needed a break from the Amazon sites. It can get a bit much doing the same things year after year so having a bit of project diversity has been fun. But if we are going to keep working on diversifying we need to focus on one thing at a time. We all know how easy that is right?? ;-)
We’re both looking forward to next year. We love this business and can’t wait to see what next year will bring. Let’s all hope that the economy picks up and we all have a happy and prosperous new year.
Hi Paula and Wanda,
It’s so inspiring to hear how well you two are doing and knowing that we can do the same thing. November was my best month for Amazon income. However it was a little less than yours: $160
I’m tempted to create another site but I am determined to make my main site an authority site and traffic is slowly building so that and increasing income(even though it’s not much yet) keep me going. Thanks for the continued inspiration.
Try not to start another site if you can Jerry. I know it is tempting to do it but as soon as you start that second site you will have double the work and it will take you twice as long to make it.
Hi Paula!
I should have understand/remembered after reading your blog not to start another sites as I know you have huge experience in IM and I trust you more than myself in that regard… BUT…what if… Google ‘punishes’ your site and it’s nowhere?
Wouldn’t be nice to have another site that brings some income while the first site is invisible? There is no warranty that a banned site will become visible again.
You know of course I’m describing my own situation.
The troubled site is getting back traffic and bringing some sales, but it was not for sure for a couple of months… so I’m happy I have at least two sites to work on. So even with one site being off I get increased income every month. My best day was yesterday – sold about 16 products /not all of them ‘main’ though! :) /
Thanks for this really inspiring sharing of your income! Please continue with that from time to time – it’s good to have a confirmation that ‘the sky is the limit’ even after reaching certain / =dream ? :) / level of income – it’s very difficult just to believe – you have to see it’s possible!
Best wishes for Christmas and New Year!
Elena
P.S.
I’m very happy I’ve chosen your system to follow – thanks!
Now is time for
Wow, you ladies are such an inspiration. I can´t believe what a difference my life would be if I could earn 1500$ in one day.
Awesome!
My own situation has been a little disappointing over the last couple of months. I have two Amazon sites dealing with the English market, my bread maker site actually did worse in November than it did in October, but this was because my pages slid down the SERPS due to my own fault with heavy back linking.
My other site which is on Food Mixers I only started to build at the end of October. Due to work commitments and a cold virus that seemed to go on for 5 weeks I only managed to get 3 reviews up so far.
Even so two of the reviews are on page 1 of Google which is pleasing but they just don´t seem to be getting many sales in at all.
I am beginning to wonder if food mixers were´nt just a bad choice and maybe there just isn´t enough sales to be made there. But I think I will continue with it a bit longer before making any decision.
I am still looking forward to the new year and getting to grips with getting my pages ranking higher, understanding more about social networking and getting to see my bank account filling up.
Best of luck to you all for next year.
Thanks
Nigel
Try not to think of niches when you are determining whether you have made a bad choice or not. It’s not about the niches so much as it is about the products in that niche. If you have chosen good quality products in your niche then they will sell.
There are plenty of sales to be made with food mixers. Just focus on the best food mixers you can find…the ones with the best reviews. Your readers just want to know what is the best food mixer they can buy for their money so it’s your job to tell them that.
This is something that I’ve (sort of) learnt over the past year. I always start by slapping up WHATEVER products I come across inside a specific niche. Now I realise that people won’t buy any old tat – they want quality. So promote quality items that you genuinely know people are interested in, and the rest sorts itself out!
I agree Matt. It’s all about the quality:
quality products, quality reviews. We write our product reviews with the reader in mind and include all the things that we would want to see in a product review. It works.
My limited experience of 6 months with Amazon products shows that not only the choice of the quality product you are promoting and the quality of reviews reflects in your paycheck, the competition as well. I wish I would have chosen something less competitive to start with. Though after 6 months I see some promising results, so it’s just to continue to struggle :)
Wow, impressive stats of course. $1000/day is doable, I love that too :-)
Keep motivate us please :-)
We’ll do our best Alam.
Always good to catch up with how you ladies are doing. Your candid peaks inside your business are very encouraging for new affiliates.
Merry Christmas to you. :)
Thanks Dawn, and Merry Christmas to you too.
You both rock! I hope Wanda is doing ok :(
Thank you so much Rivka.
I am really well now, fully recovered. Have been doing lots of meditation and positive affirmations which seems to have helped, thank you for asking.
Wishing you have a great Christmas break and a happy and prosperous new year
hello you two – thank you for publishing your results though, even if they are just from several days. it is motivating to stick through the whole thing.
once again i noticed today that it is absolutely crazy to work on several projects at once. the main problem is that nothing really “works” until a special point of time. you need to stick through a hard time then. today i created a wall calendar with a magnetical background. then we wrote everything we do next year, special events as well as our product goals and such on the wall. the rest is pinned with magnets and we can move if needed. it helps so much to have a clean table and a sorted brain.
good luck to you two and have a happy holiday season!
Having a calendar is a great way of staying focused and the wall calendars work so much better than the computer ones because you can’t miss it when it sits on the wall. Me and Wanda went to Costco the other day and bought one for 2012. It isn’t magnetized unfortunately but it is plastic coated so we can change things on it quite easily.
Wow. I love seeing this. Very inspiring.
Thanks Steven. Hopefully it might help to motivate a few people.
Paula & Wanda,
I find it interesting seeing how many people clicked through to your site and then the actual amount they purchased. It just shows how much we need to work on getting traffic.
Thanks for sharing and being open.
That’s why the majority of time for anyone trying to make it with affiliate marketing should be spent on backlinking. The more traffic you have, the more sales you are likely to make.
Hey Paula & Wanda
Been to your site a few times but I believe this is my first comment.
Those numbers really are immpresive. Do you rekon you will get a $2000 day this month? That would be incredible.
I understand why you no longer report your earnings but as you say they are really motavating and show what is possible when you just focus and put in a lot of work.
Would you say that after the festive season sales drastically drop or do they hold up for a month or two after?
Regards
Rob Thomas
We would love to see a $2000 day. If we do we will let you know by replying to this comment.
After Christmas, the sales do drop of course compared to November and December but even so our January sales are usually quite good. We usually see the drop in February.
Thanks Paula
Nice to know that January can also be a good month.
Thanks if you could do that it would be amazing.
Regards
Rob Thomas
P.S keep up the good work Paula And Wanda
Thanks for sharing your successes again! it’s such a boost and a good reminder that things can happen especially when it seems that your efforts are not going as you hoped. I’m still waiting for the day I see anything close to numbers like yours!
We just have to keep on going with the belief that one day it will happen.
Merry Xmas and Good Things for 2012 to All!
Good to hear from you again Shirley. Hope you have a good Christmas and New Year.
Great stuff! I had my best day yesterday – $72, so I’m on my way.
Excellent Jeff! Isn’t it a great feeling when you have a really good day on Amazon – it’s a real motivator.
Just imagine what next Christmas will bring you if you keep at it.
Wow, it must be exciting to see those numbers come up at the end of the day or when Amazon updates. Do you look at the items that are sold or ordered to get ideas for new products to promote ?
It is exciting – we still look forward to Amazon updating. Here in Australia it happens somewhere between 10.30 and 11.30 at night so we both often wait up for it. Sometimes I will sit there and refresh the screen over and over until it updates…LOL. Whoever has seen it update first will usually send the other an email and then we’ll discuss whether it was a particularly good day or not. If it was a really good day then we may even ring each other to talk about it (even if it is 11.30 at night).
In answer to your question, sometimes we will look at items for ideas but we have enough products on our sites already that we can work on so we tend not to introduce new products too often.
Me too….with the refreshes….it’s like getting presents! I’m in Australia also so it looks a bit sad staring at a screen at 11.30-12.00 but it becomes a bit addictive even though I’m nowhere near your earnings.
Hello Paula. I had a question regarding keyword products to go after. Would you recommend going after (this is an example) Toshiba LCD 202 TV or Toshiba LCD 202 review ?
What would be a better term to target? With Review or just the keyword like that stated above.
I would be looking at the competition for each of those keywords before I made my decision. Some keywords are going to be easier to rank for than others.
But if we put the competition aside for a minute then I would prefer to go for ‘Toshiba LCD 202 review’ simply because it is more likely that the reader is just about ready to buy. Hopefully my review will tip them over the edge.
Wow! did my jaw dropped when I saw the screenshot… I stared at it for I don’t know how long? I was in a discouraged state as I had sufficient traffic but very less conversion. I of course know the reason now after going through what you shared here.
You don’t know how much of an inspiration this is for me just when I needed it. Thanks.
We went through the same thing John. We actually got to a point where we had the traffic but nothing was converting for us. You really need to look at your reviews and think about whether they are providing value and rework them and make them long and detailed. You will notice a difference if you do that.
Hi
Well done to you both, like lots of people have said you are both very inspiring. I have one question roughly what percentage of traffic from your sites click through to Amazon? Like on the 25th November where you had 2358 clicks on Amazon , how much traffic produced that? It is just I am trying to concentrate on traffic and would be good to have traffic target to work towards.
Many thanks
Kathy
That’s difficult to answer because we have multiple sites and it would probably take me a day to work out the stats for it all…and personally I don’t like spending a lot of time on stats. However I grabbed a couple of tracking ids that we use in Amazon and was able to work out the stats for those two for the 25th November which should give you an idea.
tracking id 1 – 982 unique visitors, 646 clicks, 73 sales
tracking id 2 – 773 unique visitors, 655 clicks, 48 sales
Hi Paula
Many thanks, how many sites would you say you have now that you work on, and is there always one that stands out for sales. I know you always encourage people to get one site earning money before you go onto any others. Thanks you for your reply.
Regards
Kathy
We don’t work on ‘sites’, we work on ‘pages’. We find pages on our sites that already get traffic, rework the pages into quality reviews and then back link to those pages.
This process can work well for people who already have multiple sites but if you are starting out then stick with one website. That’s what we would do if we were starting from scratch again. Too many sites equals too much work.
Hi Paula
I too work on pages I have 3 sites each with 5 money pages on each.The rest is just content which is hard enough.
Thanks for your replies
Kathy
That’s the way to do it Kathy. The less you work on the better.
Hi Paula, thanks for sharing these. These seem to be visitors to Amazon though and not the total visitors to your sites correct?
The ctr seems way too high to be your overall traffic from the sites.
It looks like these came from this type of report:
http://www.affiliateblogonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Amazon-Daily-Trend-Results-for-Nov-Dec-2008.bmp
And possibly those figures are backwards if so as visitors would be less than clicks.
Yes, they are visitors that have clicked through to Amazon from our sites. When you log into Amazon you get that report which displays the visitors we have sent them.
The trend results image you have there comes from this blog post which will explain what they mean. http://www.affiliateblogonline.com/2009/12/02/how-much-did-we-make-on-amazon-this-month/
Thanks, so any idea on how much traffic from your site it took to get that many visitors to Amazon then (think that was intention of the original question).
To be honest Jesse, we really don’t look at our stats all that much anymore. And if I had to look, it would take too long to figure it out because those click-thrus come from specific pages so I would have to look at each page and that would take a while. Stats were something we used to spend a lot of time on and we realized that it was just a big time waster. If we do look at our stats now we simply scan them to see if anything major is going on.
The oddest thing about this post is that you have to check your Amazon stats in the evening! I check them at 8-9am! In a way, I think your way is easier, because you can look forward to it all day, while I have to look forward to waking up the next day to see the fruits of my labor from an entire day’s work! Anyway, both time zones have their advantages, and we all know about the days that the Amazon people seem to oversleep, and our stats are delayed!
Thank you so much for sharing these numbers; it’s really inspirational! My December earnings are very close to your earnings for just that one day of December 12th, however, I see where I need to go and what I need to do to catch up to you!
You know what else would be inspirational? If you could share your December (or November) stats for the past 5 years, since you started focusing on Amazon. To see that you earned $500 in Dec ’06 and $2,000 in ’07, $5,000 in ’08 [I am totally imagining these numbers, obviously!!] would help us and inspire us further to follow in your footsteps.
Have a wonderful holiday,
Ellen
Here our our December Stats for the past 5 years:
Dec 2006 – 0
Dec 2007 – 0
Dec 2008 – $2528.27
Dec 2009 – $16,507.32
Dec 2010 – $34,397.96
WOW!
That’s Amazing. Getting a check for $34,000+ must be a great feeling.
It’s very impressive to see the growth from 2008 and 2009. 2010 was almost double.
How did you grow your business like that? Do you on-going build mini-sites, or just add content to those authority ones?
Thanks!
We don’t build new sites…we have enough already. And we add content to our sites on a regular basis but we don’t go crazy with it.
Mostly we just focus on a few pages at a time and get them ranking.
Hope you don’t mind.
Would I know how much sites you have, and how many that have traffic and orders that are contributing to your solid income?
I have some $100+/day this month and trying to scale up the no of sites and product review pages.
You gals have been a great inspiration to me.
We have over 20 websites…maybe 25 I think but the money comes from a variety of different sites. Some of those sites make no money. But it’s not about the sites, it’s about the pages on those sites. So one site might have 5 pages that money, another site might have 2 pages and another site might have 10 pages.
A lot of people ask us about our stats but we don’t check stats much anymore so we never have a real answer to that question. We just couldn’t be bothered anymore with constantly checking stats. We used to but we figured that it was just another thing that was wasting our time.
Try not to keep building sites. We found that it just doesn’t work. When we focused on less we did so much better. The more sites we had, the harder we had to work and the longer it took us to make money.
Wow! Thanks so much for sharing! Would you want to share those #’s for November too, or am I being too nosy?
It’s really inspirational!
Here’s my stats:
Nov 2009: $18.90
Nov 2010: $450.34
Nov 2011: $2,792.13
Here you go:
November 2007 – $0
November 2008 – $461.40
November 2009 – $14,662.41
November 2010 – $19,023.09
Hi – I was just wondering if my earlier comment was deleted or if it is in your spam folder? I had a question I really wanted you to see and possibly address. For some reason, my comment submissions constantly go into people’s spam folders, so it may have happened again.
It must have Amy. This one went to spam as well but I just caught it on the first page before I hit the Empty Spam button. We get around 1000 spam comments a day so we don’t bother looking through them anymore for real comments. I have approved this one so hopefully if you add another one it should go through okay.
Hello Ladies!
I know people(including me) love to see the Fee’s Earned, but what catches my attention more than fees earned are the number of clicks that you get. Those click numbers are mouth dropping. If your click through numbers are that high, I can only imagine what the traffic volume is like.
Simply Amazing. I’m sure over time as you start to rank for your main keywords, you also get found for lots of long tails as well.
Great work ladies. Keep it up!
That’s why back linking is so important. If you want lots of traffic you really have to work at it.
And yes, we do tend to rank automatically for lots of keywords…the stronger the site the more likely this happens.
Hi Paula,
I’m really impressed with your stats. I didn’t know that someone can earn this amount of money through amazon. I’m really inspired. Maybe you can make a post on how you achieve this amazing figures.
Thanks,
Veronica
There are many posts on this blog that explain how we go about it. They are scattered around a bit but if you read through most of the posts on this site you will get a pretty good understanding of what we do.
The basics are quality reviews, quality content, quality products and quality back links.
I agree, the basis just works. I believe your site would go even strong after panda update or whatever Google algorithm updates.
Unique and Great product reviews always please readers and Google.
Hi Ladies,
With all of the Google updates is there anything you; would change, would add to Amazonian Profit Plan or remove completely??
No, I wouldn’t change anything. Google wants to see quality sites in their listings and that is what the Amazonian Profit Plan is all about.
Paula, with the demise of Yahoo Site Explorer, what are your recommendations for checking out the competition now?
What would you say is your percentage of promoted product sales to other “cookie” sales?
For diversity, would there be any usefulness in branching out to other affiliate products?
We use SEO Spyglass. It’s free to use although you can pay to upgrade but we just use the free tool.
I don’t know the exact percentage but we actually get more ‘other’ sales than promoted product sales. That’s the beauty of Amazon. If someone buys from Amazon, generally they buy more than one item.
Yes, it’s always good to diversify but no point diversifying until you are already making money from whatever it is you are promoting now.
Oh Good, Paula, I’m glad you caught my latter comment at least, before it went to spam. That’s so frustrating when commenting on others’ blogs too!
Anyway, I think I have a good reviews site and your first comments to Jerry at the top caused me to have a pause. I was thinking of starting yet another site, but I’m not holding off as well.
My problem is PANDA! I honestly think my reviews site is excellent. I am now purchasing and reviewing the products I showcase, the link below is an example of just that. I use my own photos, make my own YouTube video review and write original content. My page rank even went up 2 positions with all the backlinking I’ve been doing! But traffic keeps dropping.
But Panda has penalized me just the same, so rather than getting the $2,500 earnings I was hoping for this month, I will be lucky if I hit $600.
My question is how you handle the threat of Panda? From what I understand, Google is especially critical of review websites. Are you prepared if, overnight, this fabulous income you are getting now will be all but wiped out?
This is the one aspect of affiliate marketing that I find the least palatable. There one day, next day, your livlihood has disappeared.
Sorry so long, but this is what I wanted to ask.
If that happens then we will just move on to something else. The Internet is ever evolving and to be in this business you have to be prepared for that. It is risky but if you think too much about the risks then your focus is on all the wrong things.
But then any job is risky. Even in a 9 to 5 job you could have an income one day and be out on the street the next.
Agreed. I try not to think about it too much. I like to think that with the skills we’ve gained writing good reviews, there will always be something to fall back on.
Also agree with you about the “regular job” security – or lack thereof.
Have a Merry Christmas!
Amy, Your site looks great, I think. When I researched your placing in the search engines, it seems to me that you are in a great position for several keywords but the volume of traffic for those keywords are not really high.
I’m no expert (lol) but I think you just need more traffic.
Just my $.02.
Well done on the earnings for last month! I know you don’t share your earnings anymore, but let us know if you did better than last year? IM is the best business to be in and you can diversify your earnings in so many ways, it’s mind boggling!
Have a merry Christmas!
It is mind boggling. A lot of people don’t realize that the sky is the limit when it comes to making money online.
Hi paula
Those are great earning stats, it’s a shame you get people who don’t believe others because they haven’t achieved the same success themselves. I haven’t done much with Amazon but have done quite a bit with the Ebay Partner Network which after building traffic up and building more blogs has led to an increase in revenue. I’ve not earned quite as much as you guys, but I’m getting there. I wish you even more success in 2012.
We haven’t tried the eBay network as yet. I know a lot of people do well with it.
You are an inspiration. In 2010 I had begin doubling my income from Amazon until July 26th when google de-indexed my entire site almost. The SERPs never recovered. Congrats on a great November.
We had this happen to us many years ago. We had a site that was ranking on the first page of Google for the top keyword in that niche and then Google decided to take it all away. We just moved on to another site at the time.
I feel bad that happened to you too. I found it almost unbelievable when it happened. On top of everything, the very day it happened to me, my wife had just gone into the emergency room and hours later when she got out, I logged in to see my stats and WHAMO! No stats really.
Everything I had was coming up on page one. I did mostly post press releases so it was duplicate content. Not all, but a lot. I also used the Review-a-zon plug in and I think that may have killed me. I had read that if Google spiders detect such a plugin, they will penalize. Not sure if that is true or not. But I do not aim to use it any longer until I can figure out how to have spiders not detect it which I understand is possible.
It’s hard to say whether Google are penalizing sites using those sorts of plugins. We have sites using them and they haven’t been penalized. Then again we don’t use the plugin to build sites (apart from a couple of test sites we are using it on), we use it more for adding images and links.
Brian, did this happen just like that? didn’t you blast your pages with some heavy backlinking to your website or something similar?
Paula, could you please tell us how to avoid being de-indexed?
Thanks!
It’s impossible to give a definitive answer on how we can avoid being penalised by Google. We can really only do our best based on what we think Google wants to see based on the few bits of information they release to the public.
Google wants to see quality listings in their results so that means quality content and a site that isn’t full of spammy ads. It also means getting quality sites to link to your site.
We will look at writing a post about it.
Brian’s post was exactly what I was getting at earlier in the comments. It is disheartening, but we move on. I look forward to more of your detailed thoughts on the subject.
An online friend of mine had the same thing happened to him too. He pushes on, revamping his site, doing detailed video reviews, etc. etc. hoping that one day Google simply cannot ignore him any longer.
Anyway, I wait with baited breath for your post on this topic!
Actually Ellen, I didn’t even know much about backlinking in 2010. I knew about it, but I didn’t actively pursue it. How my website ranked so high at the time is beyond me. I was juat happy it did. It was actually 94,000 on Alexa. It still has about 100 backlinks. But for some reason, most pages aren’t indexed any longer.
Hey Paula :) I was wondering what would you do if one of the 3-5 products you were promoting suddenly got “temporarily out of stock”? Would you stop building links to it and only focus on the remaining products until it’s back in stock? Would you rather simply link to another retailer? Are there any chances it won’t ever get back to stock in Amazon? The specific product i’m working on suddenly got out of stock on all major retailer websites… :( Have you ever encountered this problem?
BIG THANKS!
We have had that happen and it was for one of our best selling products. The manufacturer was reworking it which was why it was out of stock and it was out of stock on and off for about 6 months.
I would contact the manufacturer first to see what the reason is for it not being available. They may be upgrading the model or they may just no longer be selling the item. So it is worth finding out the exact reason as you don’t want to waste time back linking to a product that is no longer going to be available.
Thanks for answering Paula.
I see… This is quite a turn off I might say. Imagine If I had killed myself to build backlinks for a period of 3 months and then when I get to top position in google the product is no longer available ? :D Isn’t there a way we can at least gauge how long the product will still be available in the long term ?
In my humble opinion, I think this is also the reason why it’s much better to be ranked for general keywords than specific product keywords (which are in my opinion much difficult to rank for anyway after the Panda update because Google now gives higher rankings for e-commerce websites, which quite frankly deserve to be ranked for such keywords anyways since they are the ones to sell the product), plus Amazon will always be ranked higher for such specific product keywords.
I don’t think there are such issues with Clickbank right? I mean digital products are always available for purchase right ?
Thanks!
There is no real way of gauging whether a product is going to be around for a while or not. The only thing you might keep in mind is that products like cameras, laptops and so on generally upgrade quite often.
And yes, it is good to go for the more generic keywords. We focus on both generic and the more specific product based keywords when we backlink… a mix of both is a good thing.
And in terms of Clickbank, you can get just the same sorts of problems. New techniques are introduced so some products are no longer viable.
I don’t totally agree that ecommerce sites should necessarily rank first for product based keywords. Most buyers want to see the basics of a product before buying but then they want to see some good reviews. They aren’t going to trust retailers to get a real idea of what the product is like. That’s why Amazon has done so well…they were one of the first to add reviews to their products. Usually a ecommerce site is the last place a person goes before buying the product. They only go there once they have enough information about the product and they feel confident enough to buy it.
Well said Paula. But I might also add those google shopping results and hundreds of product adds in the search results won’t help affiliate targeting specific product keywords at all. I mean even I myself would NEVER notice a normal review webpage if I typed in google a product keyword and got hit by all those pretty images and best price tags.
But still, I want to humbly ask you and Wanda, who have been excellent amazon affiliates for a long time now: have you noticed any decrease in traffic coming from google WITH such specific product keywords? I don’t mean from keywords like “product review”, i mean from keywords like ” brand product” or “brand product model number”.
BIG THANKS.
To be honest Ellen, we don’t check our traffic stats much anymore so I wouldn’t know. We probably should but we spent years analyzing stats and figures and it was just a time waster really. We just focus on writing good content and getting good backlinks. We very rarely go into Google Analytics to check stats.
You’re a great inspiration. Those numbers are insane.
1. Is blog commenting for backlinks still effective? If so, should you focus on commenting on blogs with a minimum page rank or are PR0 blogs worth commenting on?
2. When you write a review, what is the minimum keyword density you aim for the main keyword which you are targetting?
3. Do you also aim for a minimum keyword density for generic keywords you include in your review or does the keyword density only apply for the main keyword you are targetting?
Thanks,
1. I don’t think blog commenting is particularly good for getting backlinks but it is a good way to get traffic particularly if you target high traffic blogs and be the first to leave a comment.
2. We don’t care about the keyword density. Our goal is to write a good quality review first and foremost. Sure, we do make sure we get our main keywords in there but we don’t worry too much about it.
3. As above.
I too saw a great spike in sales for Black friday and cyber monday I think both days were over 50 orders which is why I have decided to put up a new amazon site every month so come the holidays in 2012 I can have days like your screen shot above.
Look forward to a great 2012.
My suggestion is to not build too many sites. The more you build, the more work you will have to do. The only time you really need to build a second site is if you first one is making a full time income for you. The second site should just be there as protection in case something happens to the first.
Building more and more sites was our downfall at the beginning. If we had stuck to only one at the start, it wouldn’t have taken us 6 years to make it.
Hi Paula and Wanda,
I have been reading your blog regularly and have even bought your course. Your course have given me huge hopes for earning a decent income from the comfort of my home! Thank you very much for that!
It’s very exciting to see how you both are progressing in your business. Keep it up!
I just have a doubt on how you receive your earnings. Does Amazon sends you the check or through direct deposit?
Is there an option in Amazon to receive earnings through direct deposit after reaching a certain threshold of money? (like say, above $1000). Is it possible with Amazon at all? I mean for countries outside USA.
Amazon sends us a monthly cheque. If you reside in the US you can get direct deposit but because we live in Australia we can only get a cheque. And it doesn’t matter how much you earn…it is still a cheque.
I would much prefer direct deposit because we pay a fee everytime we bank an international cheque and it takes 20 working days for it to clear.
All inspiring posts about making money fast. God knows how 2012 will turn out to be.
Let’s hope it’s a good one Anita.
Wow…What were you sold? I’m suprised that you earn $8 per item, amazing!
The beauty of Amazon is that you can sell anything. So we might have a site on dog beds but the person who clicks through from Amazon might not even buy a dog bed. They may end up buying a number of totally unrelated items.
So in answer to your question we sell a variety of products. We choose products that get really good reviews and they are the ones we promote.
We inspiring blog! Your interaction with everyone in the comments is also very inspiring and informative.
With all of your current knowledge how long do you guess it would take to get to the point that you are at right now if you had to start from $0?
Some products are more competitive so it might take us a year to get it ranking or even longer. For less competitive products it might take a few months. There are too many variables to take into account to give an accurate figure.
To get where we are today took us around 6 years. Of course we were doing everything wrong for quite a few of those years but when we got serious about it, it probably took about 2 years to start making a full time income.
I didn’t even know Amazon Associates existed until I found your site just now, really surprised at the amount that can be made from it, thanks for sharing.
Even those that know about Amazon Associates tend not to use them. They think that the commission is too low. We thought the same until we realized that the more you sell the greater the commission.
very interesting
and i agree with alot of the comments,
but a little off topic…why is such a big company (amazon) running on such an outdated looking site?
thanks heaps :)
james
Good question but it works for them. I think they are still the biggest online retailer in the world so they must be doing something right.
Thanks for sharing the information in regards to Amazon results for the end of the year. Question if you don’t mind. How many sites or blog posts do you have to achieve those numbers?
We have over 20 websites but not all of them make money. When we were working on all 20 we didn’t get anywhere. We focused on just one and that’s when things started to happen for us.
You don’t need a lot of sites to make a full time income – just one is enough. And you don’t need a lot of product reviews either. You can actually make a full-time income from just one review.
We don’t really check our stats much anymore so we don’t have exact numbers. I’m kind of over looking at stats – we did that for so many years and all it did was create stress. We focus more on providing quality content and backlinking.
But to give you an idea, we probably have around 10 to 20 pages that regularly make us money and then various ones that intermittently earn income.
Hey Paula…
We’ve been in touch over the past…
I love reading this blog as its such a great example of how well you can do with affiliate sites.
My questions –
1. On average… how long does it take you to rank a good keyword term that makes you money? Whether its a generic term or a product specific term.
2. What exactly is your weekly routine now when it comes to your work? Its not the Person 1 person 2 work method… what do you do exaclty? How many times do you contact a webmaster for guest posting content, writing reviews etc etc.
3. Does it really take you a year to rank a keyword?
4. Since you have really started to make it… have you really been that effected by google updates? To the point where you got worried? I mean… you seem to be doing everything right when you create and promote a site.
Thanks Paula ;)
Sean
1. This is the most commonly asked question we get and the answer is always the same. It could take a day or it could take a year or even longer. There are just too many variables to take into account to say but mostly it comes down to how competitive that keyword is and also how much effort you put in to get that keyword ranking as well as where your backlinks sit. Are they are on strong sites or weak sites?
2. We will be writing a blog post about this so stay tuned.
3. Yes it can take a year or longer. Hopefully not that long but you have to be prepared for that in this business.
4. We haven’t been affected by any of the Google updates. That’s not to say we won’t in the future. Who knows what Google is going to do next but we just have to keep going and do our best.
I just started amazon affiliate sites. It’s is very inspiring to see that people like you can still make a load of money off of amazon affiliate sites. Your post gives me the motivation to continue after a slow start. Thank you.
It’s always going to be a slow start Matt. It was a very slow start for us but we got there in the end because we just didn’t give up.
Inspiring! thanks for sharing your successes.
No problem Heidi and thanks for visiting.
Hi Paula,
What happens if someone clicks on your affiliate link, but ends up buying other unrelated items, do you still get the commission? if yes, is it the same percentage or a lower one because it is not a direct referral?
Thanks
Yes, you definitely still get the commission. Most of our commissions come from unrelated items – that’s what makes Amazon so special for us affiliate marketers.
And yes, it is the same commission rate.