RachelThe Amazon Associates Program is one of the largest affiliate networks in the world. This program will help you monetize your website or blog by directing traffic to Amazon affiliate links on your site. You can earn affiliate commissions if customers purchase the featured products after visiting your website or blog.
The whole point of enrolling in the Amazon Associates Program is to drive traffic to your website and purchase the product you are featuring (earning you a commission, baby!), but this will only happen if you create a great Amazon Associates piece.
If you have enrolled or you are thinking of enrolling in the Amazon Associates Program, you need to know how to create the best layout and strategy to create an Amazon Associates piece. We will provide the tools necessary to create a great post.
1. Niche-Related Product
Your product should be related to your website niche, and your website niche should be something you are knowledgeable or passionate about. (If you need to know more about a website niche, take a look at our article about website niche selection.)
For example, if your website niche is health and beauty, you will want to promote a product such as makeup brushes, curling wands, or facial cleansers. You would not want to include a product related to dog grooming.
2. Believe in the Product
The best way to promote a product is to believe in it. Does this mean the product has to be the best-of-the-best? No. But you also don’t want readers to visit your site in search of a product, only to leave your site because of a lackluster endorsement of the item. If you are going to promote an Amazon item on your website, you need to believe in it. This is the only way to increase your sales.
3. Analyze the Competition
We have an entire post dedicated to competitor analysis, so hop on over if you want to read a more in-depth explanation of what this is.
For an Amazon Associates website, you should look at your competition. The best way to do this is to take a product you are interested in promoting and conduct a Google search of the product. The search results should return a couple of different websites promoting this same product. Use this to your advantage by looking at the company’s website and social media accounts to determine if you should mimic their approach.
4. Install Plug-ins
One of the best ways to enhance your Amazon Associates piece to take it from good to great is to install helpful plug-ins to your website. If you are using WordPress, which we recommend, there are many plug-ins you can choose to add to your website to make the Amazon Associates piece great.
Our favorite? Hands down, it’s AmaLinks Pro. You can read all about this gem in our post on recommended tools.
Content Strategy
Now that you know the layout of the content you need to include, you need to decide the type of piece you want to write. There are many types of Amazon Associate pieces you can write, so you should decide which is the best one that will fit your website.
1. The Review Piece
The most common Amazon Associates content piece is the review article. These product reviews are in-depth articles that discuss the pros, cons, and detailed information about the product. These pieces should be lengthy, at least 1,000 words at minimum, and more if you are comparing more than one product.
This piece is what will tell readers why they should buy this product. The piece should also include all the information the reader needs to know about the product. Ensure that the post is well written and has numerous keywords so that it will rank higher on search engines.
2. The BEST Piece
Many Amazon Associate websites will focus on listing the best products in a piece. Continuing to use the healthy and beauty website niche, let’s say an Amazon Associate wants to promote the best curling wands. They will list at least five products and label them in a “best of” class. Some examples may include:
- Best curling wand for the money
- Best curling wand for beach waves
- Best professional curling wand
- Best overall curling wand
- Best curling wand for extensions
In these pieces, you can review multiple products by giving readers their best options. You typically cater to all readers by writing these best pieces.
3. How-To Pieces
This is one of those methods that you may call in the retail world, “The Up-Sale.”
For example, a reader may be coming to your website to strictly read a guide on how to do something. Let’s go back to the curling wand example.
Let’s say a reader has searched, “how to curl extensions with a curling wand,” and they have landed on your how-to page. They are solely on your site to read information about how to curl their extensions with a curling wand, but because you are an Amazon Affiliate, you have included the best curling wand for extensions in this piece. Because of this, the reader has decided they should purchase this curling wand for their extensions. Classic up-sale (or impulse buy!).
Amazon Associates Posts: Putting it All Together
Becoming an Amazon affiliate can create passive income through your affiliate site. You must be knowledgeable about the type of content you post and believe in the products you are promoting.
To increase traffic to your site use social media, marketing campaigns and keywords in your content.
Now that you have strategized the content and layout of your Amazon Associates piece, you can put together awesome pieces that will lead to earning affiliate commissions! Before you get started, make sure you decide who your audience is, how you are going to target them, and that the product fits your website. Once you have answered those questions, you are ready to write a great Amazon piece!