Who doesn’t know Amazon nowadays? It’s the largest, most popular online shopping site on the globe. You can practically find ANYTHING to buy there. What is Amazon Associates then? It is the affiliate program that Amazon offers for those who like to promote products they sell at Amazon.
Yes, Amazon Has an Affiliate Program
If you are new to online marketing, learning how to make money on Amazon Associates will be a great start to your online business. Their affiliate program is totally free to join, and the setting up process is quite simple. I will walk you through it later in this article.
In case that you are not familiar with the concept of affiliate marketing, I encourage you to read this post first “What is Affiliate Marketing?“
In a nutshell, affiliate marketing means you promote someone else’s products and earn commissions by doing so. It is same with Amazon. You promote products you find on Amazon, and when people make a purchase Amazon pays you a commission. It is by far the best way to earn income online unless you have your own products to sell. It also generates a passive income for many years to come as your website matures and receive more visitors
Of course, there are other affiliate programs you can join on the internet. However, there is no shopping destination as globally known as Amazon, so if you are new to affiliate marketing Amazon will be a great place to start.
Can Anyone join?
Amazon Associates program is available in countries other than the USA. Within the US, however, there are states that don’t allow you to join this program due to their tax law regarding sales tax from online sales. These states are Arkansas, California, Colorado, Illinois, Rhode Island, North Carolina and Connecticut.
How Much Money Can you Make?
The common complaints you hear about Amazon Associate is their low commission rate. It starts with 4%. If you sell more than 6 items, it goes up to 6%.
As you can see below, how much you earn depends on how much you sell. Their commission rate can go up to 8.5%, but I know it’s not much when you promote $30-$50 products.
The beauty of their program, however, is that the customers you sent to Amazon do not have to buy the product you promote, for you to receive a commission. As long as they purchase something at Amazon within 24 hours of you sending them, you will still earn money.
Let’s say you promote a $50 baby carrier on your website. A reader came to your site, read about the carrier and moved to Amazon through the link you embedded in your article. This person now carries your unique affiliate ID for the next 24 hours.
She didn’t purchase the wonderful carrier you recommended after all. Instead, she decided to buy XBox ONE with Kinect (Gaming Console) as a birthday gift for her husband, which is $499.99. There you go, you just earned a commission from this purchase.
If you ever had the experience of shopping at Amazon, you know how it is. It’s so much fun to browse around the site that you often ended up buying more than one item. What if the same customer above ended up purchasing a $2000 smart HDTV? The possibility is certainly there and I call it Amazon magic. lol
This is why I recommend giving Amazon a try in spite of their low commission rate. It may not make you rich instantly, but it builds over time and could be quite profitable.
You can choose the payment method from the following.
How To Become an Amazon Affiliate
Here are the simple 4 steps you need to follow.
1. Have a blog/website
2. Pick a niche and write a few posts
3. Sign up for Amazon Associates
4. Build Amazon links on your blog
1. Have a Blog/Website
Setting up your own blog site or website is a breeze nowadays. There are numbers of companies such as WIX.com or Weebly that offer you a free website. All you have to do is Google search under the keyword “free website.”
My recommendation is SiteRubix.com since it comes with free hosting, training, and wonderful support team. I built this website with them free. Later, I began paying for a domain name and upgraded training, but in the beginning it didn’t cost me anything. I explained how to build a website free in this post.
2. Pick a niche
This could be anything that you are willing to write about on your website. I always recommend choosing something that you are either knowledgeable of or passionate about.
If you could pick a niche that relates to your personal life or history, that would be wonderful as readers always connect better with personal stories. If you live with a certain medical symptom, for example, you can share how you deal with it daily and what has helped you or didn’t help with your condition. If you are a mother of a little one, you can share tips for traveling with an infant during the holiday season, etc. The $50 baby carrier I mentioned earlier will be a perfect item to promote on your blog.
The niche could be anything but just be careful not to cover a topic too broad. Try to be specific with your theme. With the examples above, “living with atopic dermatitis” is better than “Keeping healhty skin” and “Traveling with an infant” is better than “How to raise a baby.” I think you got the point.
Before signing up for Amazon Associates, be sure to write a few posts on your website as Amazon reviews a site manually before approval.
3. Sign up for Amazon Associates
Here is the homepage of Amazon Associates. The signing up procedure has 5 steps as below.
The step 3 “Your Website Profile” will take most of your time to fill out. Expect to answer the following questions. For each question, you are directed to choose answers from the drop-down options (except for #1 & 2) so it is not too hard.
1. What is the name of your website?
2. What is your website(s) about?
3. Which of the following topics best describes the topic of your website(s)?
4. What type of Amazon items do you intend to list on your website(s)?
5. What type of site is your website(s)?
6. How do you drive traffic to your website(s)?
7. How else do you monetize your website(s)?
8. How do you usually build links?
9. How many unique visitors does your website(s) get per month?
10. What is your primary reason for joining the Amazon Associates Program?
11. How did you hear about us?
4. Build Amazon links on your blog
Once you submit all the information and your website gets approved, Amazon gives you a unique associate ID attached to your account.
When you log in to Amazon as usual, now you will notice the gray affiliate bar appears on top of the screen. This is where you get links for the product of your choice. Let’s say I found a baby carrier that I want to promote. I click on “Link to This Page” on the bar, and it brings out information as below with all the links.
Click on the tab “Text Only” to obtain text only links.
Under the tab “Text and Image,” I can get the HTML code to copy and paste into my site. It will appear as an image link as you can see here.
Click on the link to see where it takes you. Now you see how it works, right? It takes you to the specific page on Amazon of the baby carrier I am promoting. It works quite beautifully, doesn’t it?
All I did was pick the product and copy the link onto my page. As I said, it is not so hard to start out as an Amazon affiliate.
IT Will Pay You Back for Your Time
Amazon is the most well-known, gigantic shopping platform on the internet. Learning how to make money with Amazon Associates will be a great start to your online endeavor as you can pretty much find any products relevant to every niche. After all, nothing beats the recognition and trust among users that Amazon has established over years.
I would encourage you to make a website, pick a niche and set up an Amazon Associate account. It is ok even if your site does not have tons of traffic yet. It grows over time and those links begin to pay you, as long as you keep working on your website.
In case you are unsure as to how to pick a niche, how to develop a website, or how to write effective blog posts, there is a free startup online training available for you at Wealthy Affiliate. It is an online platform that educates you with the basics of online business through 10 free lessons. I am a member and will assist you when you need help.
If you have comments or want to share your experience as an Amazon associate, do leave them in the comment area below. As always, I would love to hear from you. 🙂
Yuko
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