One of the cool things about internet marketing is that there are so many ways to make money.  The Amazon Affiliate program, which I am about to discuss, is just one such opportunity.

I was introduced to internet marketing back in 2008 when I attended a week long course to learn about the topic.

It was severely overpriced, and ultimately, it only skimmed the surface.

Since then the world of internet marketing has become much more advanced and sophisticated.  As a result, as with any profession, it’s really just the top marketers who make the majority of the money.

However, there are still some normal folks out there who are making a decent income in one way or another on the internet.

One of those ways is through Amazon and its affiliate program.

Compared to other affiliate programs, the Amazon affiliate program’s commission rates are quite low.  You start out at 4%, and you can ultimately end up at 10% for some products.  So, if you are just selling a book that may cost $10 you’ll only make 40 cents on the deal.  Chump change for sure.  And, to get to that 10% level, you’ve really got to be an all star Amazon affiliate.

Also, the person who clicks on one of your Amazon links needs to buy something within 24 hours, or you won’t get credit for the sale.

Those are a couple of the reasons why some people shy away from the Amazon affiliate program, or only add it as a secondary source of income.

On the other hand, some people have made A LOT of money with the Amazon affiliate program.   Brent Hale has sold over $15 million worth of goods on Amazon.  So, even at that 4% commission rate, that works out to a hefty $600,000 in earnings.

Let’s face it, Amazon is one of the most trusted brands out there, which is just one really good reason why it’s a good idea to consider becoming an Amazon affiliate.  Also, when people shop on Amazon, they often don’t just buy one product.  And the beauty of that is you get credit for EVERY product they purchase after they’ve clicked on your link (given that 24 hour period issue).

That last point is pretty cool, because you can buy virtually anything on Amazon these days.  In fact, we even buy dog food in the really big bag as it gets delivered straight to our door.

How do you make money as an Amazon Affiliate?

The way the big Amazon affiliate marketers make money with the program is by building websites around a product or related products that are sold on Amazon.  These days, Amazon sells just about everything, from books to groceries, and even to high ticket items such as golf clubs, high end cameras and more.

Once you build your site with a particular product in mind, you place content on the website, and within and around that content, you place links to products being sold on Amazon.  You can use text links or image links, all provided by Amazon.

Some people try to make money by building many of these product websites in order to sell products on Amazon.  Still others create a handful of authority websites where they specialize in just a few products and focus only on those products.  Over time, these become rather large websites with lots of content, and many advertising opportunities to generate income.

Let’s have a look at some basic steps for making some money as an Amazon affiliate.

Amazon Affiliate Marketing Step 1 – Find a Niche

The first thing you need to do is find a product niche where there are lots of buyers.  If you have a product in mind, go to the Google Keyword Planner to see if there are actually people searching on Google for that product.

For a low price item, you’ll want to see tens of thousands of searches per month.  If it is a higher priced item, you’ll want to see at least several thousand searches per month.

Now, go to Google and do a search of your product such as this… “best treadmills.”  Go ahead, try that one specifically.  What you’ll notice is that occupying the second slot on Google is a site domain www.treadmillreviews.net.

That is a pure niche affiliate site.  That is not an Amazon affiliate site, as the products are sold through the various manufacturers.  For some name brands, that is also one way to go as well when it comes to niche marketing.

In any event, what you want to see when you do a Google search of a particular type of product is some advertising for that product, and at least one niche site that is ranked on the first page.  This means that the product sellers find it worthwhile to pay Google for advertising, and it is possible to rank ahead of the manufacturers themselves.

The treadmill niche is also a good one because the product prices are fairly high.

Once you’ve found a niche, you’ll want to get yourself a website so you can market that niche online.  Otherwise, how do you expect to make any money?  Head on over to Bluehost to get started!

Amazon Affiliate Marketing Step 2 – Sign Up For the Program

Once you’ve found a product that you really want to sell, and that you know you can write a lot about (yeah that is important, and we’ll get to that in a bit), it’s time to head on over to the Amazon Affilate Program and sign up.  It’s quick and easy and won’t cost you a dime.  However, you should have your website up and running first so you can immediately get started on your marketing.

Amazon Affliate Marketing Step 3 – Traffic To Your Website

I am going to skip several steps ahead here from the design of your website and such as I’ll cover that down the road.

The first step toward getting traffic to your website is simply by adding content to your blog.  Keep in mind, this won’t happen overnight, and it will require you to do a lot of work.

You’ll need to do some more keyword research related to your product, such as “best treadmills,” “treadmill reviews,” “cheap treadmills,” “treadmill buyers guide,” etc.

You then want to write LONG articles with these keywords sprinkled in the title of your post and throughout the article.  By long I mean at least 1,000 words.  Some marketers suggest that you need to write articles that are at least 2,000 words long in order to rank highly in the Google search engines for a particular keyword.

You should also include some images as well.  This is all part of the search engine optimization (SEO) process.

These articles are also how you link to Amazon.  You can use both text ads and image ads on your page.  When a visitor clicks on one of those ads, AND buys a product, ANY product on Amazon within 24 hours of clicking on your links, you’ll get credit for a commission.

For instance, they may click on a link advertising a camera, and end up by some tennis balls instead.  While that would suck, you’ll still get a few pennies for the tennis ball purchase.

Now, while you may have written some great and lengthy content that will eventually rank well in Google, you’ve got to get some traffic to those articles, because it will be some time before those articles rank well on Google.

Social media is one strategy  you can employ.  Twitter and Facebook are an absolute must, so if you don’t have accounts there yet, get them!  Once you’ve written an article, you can then make a comment on Twitter and Facebook along with a link to the article.  Better yet, you can use a service like Hootsuite that will do this for you automatically.

There are tons of other ideas for getting more traffic to a website, another topic I will cover down the road.  But, at the very least, produce high quality content that answers every question your visitors may have, and share that content on social media.  In a few months you should really see some heavier traffic and some earnings.

Final Thoughts

Amazon is just one of the many affiliate programs you can join if you are interested in generating an alternative income stream as an internet marketer.

Like any worthwhile endeavor, it will take some time to get the ball rolling, but the Amazon affiliate program has the potential to provide you with a steady stream of income for years to come.

With that in mind, I highly recommend employing this program into your potential arsenal of online income streams, if you decide to create an alternative income stream through internet marketing.