by Signing up for the Amazon affiliate marketing program doesn’t automatically guarantee an income from sharing affiliate links. First, you need to research how to become a successful amazon affiliate. Then, you need to put in the work.
So, how do you stand out from the other 900,000 people in an affiliate partnership with Amazon? To reach the pinnacle of Amazon Associates’ program success and make real money, you need a few things:
- Funding to get started
- Top-notch affiliate websites for promoting Amazon products
- To work in the right niche selling the right products
- Nail your SEO
Use this guide to get smart tips on becoming successful on Amazon and leveraging the affiliate marketing program to your benefit.
Contents
Personal Tips to Help You Achieve Amazon Associates Success
Have Money to Get Your Business Off the Ground
While it’s free to sign up for an Amazon Associate account (learn how to do this in our Amazon Affiliate Associates Guide), there are other startup expenses you need to consider.
Buy a Website
First, you need funds to secure a website from which to sell products. Your options are a premade affiliate website or an affiliate website from scratch.
We recommend purchasing a premade, also known as a turnkey, affiliate website.
This type of website has an existing footprint on Google and search engines. It likely generates an income already and can bring in quicker earnings for you.
However, purchasing a turnkey site is generally the pricier option. This is because you pay for the time and effort a person has put into designing the site, creating content, and optimizing it for SEO.
On the other hand, you can probably save money by building a website from scratch. In this case, you need to purchase a domain name and select a suitable website builder.
It is possible to design and build a website yourself. Many website builders, for example, WordPress, let you apply eye-catching DIY themes and design elements to personalize the look of your affiliate site.
The biggest investment you make when building a website from scratch is that of your time. Besides the effort you put into designing and creating your site, you also need to wait for Google to rank it.
This, unfortunately, can take months, which means it will be a while before you get a commission from any sales.
Create Content
Whether going the premade or built-from-scratch route, you need funds to pay for the content you publish on your site and share on social media.
It’s essential to build a library of great content. Content serves several purposes in your journey to becoming a successful affiliate on the Amazon Associate program.
Content is where you insert your affiliate links that people click on to purchase products.
Furthermore, SEO-optimized content helps you attract website visitors who can learn more about the products you promote.
Finally, compelling and trustworthy content helps to persuade your audience to make qualifying purchases from Amazon.
Generally speaking, you need a decent monetary investment to build a content library. You need to hire writers, do keyword research, edit content, and possibly even produce videos.
Even if you buy a turnkey site with an existing blog that’s ranking, you still need to invest in content. Google rewards sites that consistently upload fresh content.
Pay for Hosting
Domain hosting is relatively affordable these days. Nevertheless, factor this in as money to part with before you kick-start your affiliate business.
Create and Run Multiple Sites in Different Niches
The toss-up between having a multi-niche site versus a niche site has been a hot debate for years. But we’ve found the latter to be far more effective.
In theory, you can promote all your amazon affiliate products on one website. It will likely save you money and be a little less work as you maintain one website.
But, you won’t see the same level of success as you would by focusing on one niche.
Why? Because concentrating your efforts will help you attract the right audience and do better with SEO.
It Helps Build an Engaged Following
When you create a niche website, you’re likely to grow a community and build a solid and engaged audience. But the biggest benefit is return customers. If you are creating high-quality content that is relevant and promoting products the community likes, you’ll see a higher conversion rate.
You’re Better Positioned to Win at SEO
Having a single niche website will help the overall SEO health of your website. If all pages on your website are relevant to other content, it will be easy to link to related content and drive people to other parts of your website. It will lower your bounce rate – the rate of single-page visits on your website – and improve SEO.
It will also tell the search engines that your site is an authority on one particular topic, which is ideal for ranking visibility.
If you want to run several websites in different niches so that not all your eggs are in one basket, that’s great! This can make you less susceptible to lulls in sales due to seasons, holidays, or changing trends.
For inspiration, look at what these Amazon affiliate website examples are doing to achieve success in their respective niches.
Select the Right Niche
It’s a harsh truth but an important one: there are a lot of great Amazon affiliate marketers out there. Depending on the niche you enter, you may be up against some tough competition.
That’s why it’s so important to choose your niche wisely.
Do you have personal knowledge of the products or topics you’re promoting?
Can you get that expertise across in your content?
Is this niche already saturated?
The best thing to do here is to promote in the space where you’re an expert. From there, drill down to be more specific than you think you need to be.
Another critical point around choosing a niche is the commission rate from Amazon. Amazon offers rates ranging from 1% to 20%. 
Do you want to promote cheap products in greater volumes where your earnings will be low but consistent? Or would you prefer to focus on more expensive items that fetch a higher commission less often?
Make sure you’re working in a space where the commission rate makes sense for your circumstances and goals.
Choose the Right Domain and Hosting
Your website’s domain name should complement the products you promote. This will help to prevent any confusion with your audience.
Imagine searching online for handbags to be met with a result where the domain name looks like a health website. It doesn’t leave much room for trust.
You’ll have more leeway on this if you’re creating a website from scratch and can choose your name.
But, if you’re going the premade route, look for a domain name that aligns with your niche ideas.
Note here that you can buy a live domain. Or you can buy an expired, also known as a dropped domain.
The other point on domains if you’re buying a turnkey site is to check its traffic and backlink profile. You can get this information from a tool such as Ahrefs. 
As we can see in this profile from Ahrefs, the website Dog Food Advisor doesn’t appear to have major traffic fluctuations that could be suspicious.
It also shows that the website has 165k backlinks and has gained 1,8k links in the last seven days.
Both of these paint a positive picture in Google. There’s no obvious sign of the site being hit by a Google penalty. Of course, the problem if this happens (or has happened) is it can impact how much the site earns.
When it comes to hosting, look for providers that can guarantee a high uptime for your website. This refers to the time your site is available online. Obviously, the higher, the better.
You should also consider guaranteed site loading speed, storage capacity, support on offer, and relevant add-ons, such as SSL certificates.
All these factors help create a great user experience and build trust with the people visiting your site.
Choose the Right Products With the Right Price
Want to know how to be a successful amazon affiliate? The number one rule when listing products on your website is to ensure you can create authoritative content on them.
Aside from that, consider products you can bundle with those you already promote. You might be able to create a package people can’t resist.
You can also look in your Amazon dashboard at other items people have added to their carts and purchased after following your referral links.
These types of sales are great!
Not only do you earn affiliate commissions, but you can also find products you haven’t promoted yet that might fit your niche.
As far as pricing goes, don’t mention pricing in your product reviews. This is because products can go out of stock, go on special, or change in price on Amazon.
You don’t want to mislead your audience. So, it’s safer to use your affiliate links to send traffic to Amazon, where people can check the correct prices.
Apply SEO Best Practices to Your Amazon Affiliate Website
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is what you do to rank your website on Google, establish your authority, and drive people to your website.
Here are some vital SEO considerations for building a successful affiliate website, a few of which we’ve touched on already:
- Keywords: Do keyword research, choose various informational and commercial intent keywords, and seek out longtail variations targeting specific products. Add keywords naturally and optimally to your content, and include the correct affiliate links.
- High authority backlinks: Master link building to link relevant content from high authority websites to your own. It will create backlinks to your content and help boost SEO.
- Internal links: Link strategically to other content on your website. It will create an optimal link structure that search engines and people can use to discover relevant topics on your site.
- Quality content: Typically, search engines favor long-form content that’s relevant to the chosen keyword and contains valuable information. That said, write to add value to humans before writing for algorithms.
In Time, Sell a Website That’s on the Rise
Did you know that many entrepreneurs make money by selling affiliate websites they build? There’s an industry around creating, ranking, and then selling affiliate websites for profit.
So, your end goal doesn’t necessarily have to be to continue promoting products for sale. Instead, you can also generate income by selling your website for a profit.
We have listed several brokers in the article on premade vs building a website from scratch. To recap, big names in the industry include Flippa, Empire Flippers, and Domain Coasters.
FAQs on How to Become a Successful Amazon Affiliate
Should You Buy a Ready-Made Website or Do it Yourself?
If you have the capital to buy a ready-made website with the right audience and niche, do it. It will likely earn you an income immediately.
Buy a Drop Domain or Register a New One?
If you find a suitable dropped domain relevant to your niche and products, buy it. You’ll have immediate domain authority and can start to earn an income more quickly.
Why is SEO the Secret to a Successful Amazon Affiliate Site?
SEO is the best way for an affiliate marketer to win relevant and organic website traffic. If you can drive traffic to your website, you can engage people and prompt them to buy the products you refer.
Can I use Amazon Affiliate side by side with other affiliate marketing programs?
The answer is yes, absolutely. The Amazon Affiliate program is not exclusive, which means that you can use other affiliate marketing programs on your website as well.
