The IM RunnerJourney of an Amazon Affiliate

Hi Fellow Amazon Affiliates,

I believe by now you should have received tons of email sent to your In-Box promoting this Amazon Super Affiliate ‘Golden’ Niches System – The Amazon Niche Nuke.

I mentioned in my last post that I am an Amazon Junkie, I buy almost all of the Amazon Affliates Training courses available at the market. I have set up this WarriorForum Alert system to alert me as soon as an Amazon related product launch at Warrior Forum.

When the Amazon Niche Nuke launched and I was alerted, immediately I visited the WSO sale page, after reading the sale copy, I bought the product at the starting price of $7  and I believe I was one of the very first buyer. There was no comment left at the thread yet.

2 hours later my In-Box started flooding with emails promoting Amazon Niche Nuke. I went through all these emails and I have the following to say.

Firstly, some of the emails mentioned that if you were the early birds, you would get the Link Pack bonus, but I being one of the very early buyer, I did not get it, meaning maybe I missed the mark, yet these people promoting Amazon Niche Nuke 2 hours after my purchase still mentioned about this Fast Action Bonus, obviously, they themselves DID NOT buy the product. If they have bought it they should realize that the bonus was no longer available. 

In fact, many times, you would receive this type of promotional emails, after going through them, you will realize that they simply copy the sale copy into their email, and very likely they did not buy the products. For these type of IM related products, if you did not buy them how then would you do a review and make a recommendation?

They are not like Amazon products even you do not own the product, you could still read the customers reviews, do you due diligent research before posting the product review. For IM Products, 99% of the “so call” reviews are promoting the products, you can’t really tell how good (or how bad) the product is unless you purchase the product and use/read them.

 

I do not recommend nor promote any IM Product that I do not own. Period. This is my principle.

 

Secondly, these Amazon Gurus/Experts/Super Affiliates are the same people promoting the earlier launched Azon Classroom, Amazon Revolution etc, may I ask these Amazon gurus/Experts/Super Affiliates, how many Amazon Affiliate Training products you want your readers to buy? You can’t simply promote to your readers any Amazon Affiliate courses/Amazon WordPress Theme/ Amazon WP Plugins etc that come along.

They trust you, you have the responsibility to give them (especially those who are new to the business) your best advice. So, may I ask, do you care more about these fellow Amazon Affiliate’s success or your very own pocket?????

Yes, I hear you. You are the guru/expert/super affiliate, these course are too basic and not worth your investment, then DO NOT promote them since you have absolutely no idea how good/bad  these products are. I ask again, you care more about your pocket or your reader’s benefits????

 

Amazon Niche Nuke Reviews

Okay, enough for that rant. Lets talk about the Amazon Niche Nuke.

This is a 44 pages pdf file filled with a lot of screen capture, these screen shots are mostly about Market Samurai, Google Keyword Tool, Amazon Product pages etc.

After taking out all the screen captures from the 44 pages, how much content is left. And this is a course for new Amazon affiliates, meaning it has to cover from A to Z, but how wide and how deep can the remaining pages cover?

Yes, quality is more important than the quantity, then this course has to be subject focus, just like the Amazon Presell Mastery released by Jeff Carson and Dave Toomey, Erica Stone’s Amazon Niche Master. Their courses just focus on one topic or one subject.

 

Talking about the value of Amazon Niche Nuke, in terms of content, quality, value for money, it is no way near Trevor’s Amazon Revolution, a 70 videos Amazon Affiliate Training Video course and Jeff & Dave’s Azon Classroom (Unfortunately, Jeff & Dave did what they indicated on the sale page,  removed the Azon Classroom from the market 10 days after the launch -  ie. Azon Classroom is no longer available now) .

I have nothing against Chris Sorrell, the creator of Amazon Niche Nuke, but if there is a better choice, shouldn’t I recommend the better product to my readers? If you can drive a car, why must you walk? If I could give you a private jet then why should I give you a car?

For new Amazon Affiliates, I would strongly recommend the Amazon Revolution instead of Amazon Niche Nuke.

You can check out my review of Amazon Revolution here.

http://www.theimrunner.com/amazon-revolution-azon-classroom-product-reviews/

Anyway, the Amazon Niche Nuke is now close to $10 where the Amazon Revolution is set at a fixed price of $17. If you are truly keen in getting an Amazon Affiliate Training course, instead of paying $10, might as well pay the additional $7 to get the 70 videos, 68 pdf, 68 mp3 video course instead of the 44-pages pdf, right?

 

Anyhow, if you are keen in the bonus of 1300 Amazon best seller keywords and 101,250 exact match domains, you can check out the sale page of Amazon Niche Nuke here:

http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-special-offers-forum/590877-copy-amazon-super-affiliate-golden-niches-system-hit-paydirt-amazon-today.html 

(NOT Affiliate Link. )

 

Okie, enough for today post.

Oh, if you have yet to download my free Amazon Treaure Box, please click on the picture below.

 

Till we meet again, smile and you have a beautiful day.

 

Related Posts:

How to Write Winning Amazon Product Reviews – The Resources

The Missing Link In Amazon Product Review Sites

Amazon Revolution vs Azon Classroom | Product Reviews

 

 

Hi Fellow Amazon Affiliates,

Yesterday I sent out an email to my subscribers saying that I bought the Amazon Affiliate Training Video course “Amazon Revolution“, and I would post a review about this step by step training course as well as to do a comparison to another similar training video course for Amazon Affiliates which I bought last week “The Azon Classroom“.

Sorry for the delay as Amazon Revolution Member Area was undergoing maintenance (change of server) the videos for the last 4 modules were not accessible and I wanted to view them all before posting this review. Thus the delay, sorry guys.

You could read about my Azon Classroom reviews I wrote last week Here.

Now, here is what I think about the Amazon Revolution.

What is Amazon Revolution?

Amazon Revolution is a step by step Amazon Affiliate Training Video Course created by Trevor Zacek who is a full-time Law Student (according to his sale page). There is in total 70 streaming videos, 68 pdf files, 68 mp3 audio files and 42 PowerPoint slides in the member area.

I went through all the 68 pdf files and most of the videos.  

There are 10 modules in the course:

1. Introduction – Overview of the course
2. Market Research – How to pick a market; How to pick a product; The Amazon Revolution Strategy.
3. Keyword Research – The Amazon Revolution Keyword Strategy; Keyword Research Tools; How to pick keywords. 
4. Pre-Launch – Domain selection; Setting up the hosting
5. WordPress – Installation and Setting of a Wordpress site; Installation and setting of list of WP plugins recommended;
6. SEO Introduction – Overview of On-Page and Off-Page SEO
7. On-Page SEO – How to apply On-Page SEO to your content and website structure
8. Off-Page SEO – Backlink strategies and tools
9. Copywriting – Content creation
10. Conclusion – Encouragement and reminders from Trevor

 

Pros (Goods) of Amazon Revolution

Videos

Although there are 70 videos in total, please do not get overwhelmed by the numbers. In actual fact, most of them are short clips with play time of 5 to 10 minutes. The longest is close to 30 minutes. I like short clips than the long video as I hate sitting through an hour long video.

PDF Files

These are not transcript nor copied from the presentation slides. These pdf are short and sweet with precise key points of the video presentation. Most of them are only 2 pages. I like them very much. Oh, by the way, these pdf files are not what we normally see in other IM courses, I would say there are the most “good-looking” pdf I have seen. Very beautifully done, they remind me of those guidebook for computer games.

Basically, these pdf explains the “WHY” and “WHAT” where the videos show the “HOW”

Course Detail

I must say Amazon Revolution is extremely detail, it covers almost every aspect of Amazon Affiliate Marketing, you can see its coverage I listed in the table above. This course is not only meant for new Amazon Affiliates but also for someone new to Internet Marketing who has decided to take the Amazon Affiliate road.

If you do not know how to set up the hosting; how to purchase the domain name; how to set up a WordPress blog; what WP plugins to use; how to do the required set up; how to apply for a Google AdWords account;  how to use Market Samurai etc. not to worry, Amazon Revolution covers them all.

 

Cons (Bads) of Amazon Revolution

 1. Some might find the pdf files too brief without screen capture;

2. The videos are streaming videos which are not downloadable. Thus, when the membership site undergoes maintenance (which happened 24 hours ago and lasted for more than 12 hours), one would not be able to view the videos;

3. One of the Off-Page SEO method covered was “Build My Rank”, which was very badly hit by Google last week. Most of the pages in BMR were de-indexed by Google. Checked with Trevor and he mentioned that this course was created before BMR was hit and he would do an update soon.

(Update: Trevor has replaced the video on “Build My Rank” with a new set of videos)

 

What I like about Amazon Revolution?

As I mentioned before about my philosophy of purchasing of courses, as long as I have learnt a thing or two from the new course that benefit my business, I would take it as a good investment and I am happy with that.

Let’s go through things in Amazon Revolution that I like and have learnt. 

1. Product Selection Criteria

It is very similar to those I always emphasize:

• Product price – minimum of $150
• Product Rating – at least a 4 Stars
• Customer Reviews – at least 20 reviews.

But Trevor mentioned one additional product selection criteria which I have never thought of : about the competition. Great point.

 2. The Amazon Revolution System

This is the very first time I heard about this unique system in all the Amazon Affiliate courses that I have come across. 

Sometime last year after going through quite a number of such Amazon Affiliate courses (Have I told you that I am an Amazon Junkie and I have bought almost every popular Amazon Affiliate training courses), I had ever thought about this strategy but had soon forgotten about. I am glad that Trevor has not only thought about it but implemented it with success. Just to reveal, this is about how to plan and construct a number of Amazon review sites and it is powerful for SEO purposes. Surprisingly, Trevor did not mention about the purpose and the power of this strategy.

3. Amazon Review Site Structure

Trevor explained in detail about the structure, content, internal linking for home page, inner pages and blog post etc. This is something new I have learnt from this course which I think it is important especially for On-Page SEO purposes.

4. Internal Linking and Affiliate Links

I noticed lately (I guess due to latest Google Algo changes), Internal Linking has been mentioned quite often in IM Forums. In Amazon Revolution, Trevor also touches on this topic in detail.

Talking about Affiliate Link, I have never thought of WHEN to add the link, that is a great point I have learnt which I think it is very useful and important especially knowing Google does not like affiliate sites.

5. Google+

This is the first time, Google+ is mentioned in such courses, though I’m not sure how powerful Google+ is, would love to give it a try though.

6. WordPress Plugins

Similarly to the WP Plugins list I posted in my one of my earlier posts,  there are couple of plugins I have not heard of. So it is a good addition to my existing list.

 7. Backlinks and Anchor Texts

Trevor revealed the number of backlinks and anchor text used in percentage form. Example, how many percent of backlinks to be built to the Home Page, Blog Post etc, and how many percent of the anchor text with the main keyword, primary keyword and secondary keyword be used. Trevor has highlighted that the percentage figure is just an estimation, though I agree Trevor’s approach in large, I have tried another approach which is totally opposite Trevor’s with success too.

8. Little Tips

For example, the setting of WordPress blog before the launch of the site. I did not think of that before but I do agree that makes sense.

Another example will be the setting (or the figures used) for Market Samurai; the percentage of backlinks to the Home Page and Inner Pages; the percentage of Main, Primary and Secondary keywords etc. 

 

What I Found Amiss in Amazon Revolution

Like most of the Amazon Affiliate Training courses (Except Daniel Brock’s DeadBeat Super Affiliate – no longer available), Amazon Revolution did not go into detail of Amazon Product Reviews writing, nor the review structure/format was mentioned.

Anyway, just in case you need to know how to write killing Amazon Product Review, read my post How To Write Winning Amazon Product Reviews and How to Write Winning Amazon Product Reviews – The Resources.

 

Who Is Amazon Revolution For?

1. New Amazon Affiliates
2. Amazon Affiliates who are yet to make $3,000 per month 
3. Anyone who is new to Internet Marketing and wanting to make money from Amazon as an Amazon affiliate

Thus, if you are an experienced Amazon Affiliate already making thousands of dollars per month, skip this course unless you are like me, willing to pay $17 for the 10% new info.

 

Okay, I heard your question.

Last week, I recommended a similar Amazon Affiliate Training Video course the “Azon Classroom“. Let’s make a comparison.

 

Amazon Revolution vs. Azon Classroom

VS

Videos

Amazon Revolution has 70 videos where Azon Classroom has 26 training videos plus 4 case studies/follow-up videos (at this time of writing as more follow-up videos will be added in the near future).

Both sets of videos are of high quality. Both Trevor (Amazon Revolution) and Jeff (Azon Classroom) did a wonderful job in presenting their material. One can definitely see that the videos were well planned and prepared before the actual filming.

Personally I like Jeff’s pace and energy, somehow I find Jeff’s voice more “charming” that enabled me to sit through all the videos at one go. I particularly like the illustration Jeff used to explain the concept of backlinking, that’s a stroke of genius.

Whereas Trevor’s voice is bit dry and his videos are more technical, thus needed to take breaks in between in order to finish watching all the 70 videos. Well, to be fair, 70 videos is too much for one seating.

There is one thing I dislike the videos from these 2 courses is both are streaming videos, ie. not downloadable. Meaning one must log into the Internet in order to watch the videos, and if your Internet connection is slow, the viewing experience might be affected though I do not have that problem as mine is a high speed connection.

Correction: Thanks to Cheryl pointing out that the videos at Azon Classroom are now downloadable. Thanks to Jeff & Dave quick answer to member’s request. That’s what we call Superb Customer Support.

PDF Files

Amazon Revolution’s pdf files are superb, short and sharp. Whereas Azon Classroom has no pdf files. Thus, for Azon Classroom, one has to go through the videos even just to retrieve certain points.

Course Detail

Amazon Revolution is extremely detail, truly step by step teaching, and perfect for newbies though experienced Amazon affiliates would benefit from this course too. Azon Classroom is for someone who already has some basic understanding of Internet Marketing.

The backlinking method recommended and taught by these 2 courses are different except both are using the same service for Social Bookmarking. I would say methods used by Azon Classroom are the more fundamental and some may call them “old school”.

As I mentioned earlier, both course did not touch on the Amazon Product Review writing but Azon Classroom includes a free download (not advertised) of Jeff’s earlier course “Amazon Presell Mastery” which in a way closed up this gap.

 Support

For Amazon Revolution, if you encounter any problem, shoot an email to Trevor and he will reply to you.

But I like Azon Classroom’s style of support. Azon Classroom’s videos are streamed in a forum, thus for each video you can leave a comment if you have any question, and I could see that Jeff and Dave are actively monitoring the comments and they have been answering the questions within hours. That’s great support.

Not only that, you see other’s questions raised and the answers given by Jeff and Dave, and I learnt a great deal from those questions and answers.

 

Amazon Revolution or Azon Classroom For You?

1. Internet Marketing Newbies – Go for Amazon Revolution

2. New Amazon Affiliates – Go for Azon Classroom but if your budget permits, might as well take up the Amazon Revolution too for all the good points I mentioned

3. Experienced Amazon Affiliates – Majority of the content of both courses might be something you are already familiar with.

But if you are like me, willing to invest for that 10% new and useful information, go and get Azon Classroom for the “Amazon Presell Mastery” and

Amazon Revolution for the  ”The Amazon Revolution System” (point 2 under the section “What I like about Amazon Revolution? above”) as I have yet to see it being taught in any of the Amazon Affiliates courses.

Okay, I guess I have given all of my opinion about these 2 excellent Amazon Affiliate Training Video Courses.

 Click HERE to check out the Amazon Revolution

 

 Click HERE to check out the Azon Classroom

 

That’s all folks. Till we talk again, take care and God bless.

Hi Fellow Amazon Affiliates,

Just like to share what I have observed from the performance of my Amazon Affiliate sites built during the last one year. And what and how we should we do to our existing sites and future sites to improve their performance and to bring in more earnings.

 

Type of Amazon Product Review Sites and Their Performance

Product Review Sites Structure

I have about 12 Amazon Product Review Sites which I adopted 3 different structures.

Structure #1 – Blog Posts + Product Review Page + other pages including About Me, Contact Me, Disclaimer. The blog posts may be related to the product or any topics in the same niche.

Structure #2 – 1 Page Product Review, 1 Page Product Buying Guides, 1 Page Product Comparison + other pages including About Me, Contact Me, Disclaimer.

Structure #3 – 1 Page Amazon Product Review + other pages including About Me, Contact Me, Disclaimer.

 

Keyword Ranking & Effect of Google SE Algorithm Changes

1. Base on my experiment, Product Review Sites using Structure #1 have more keywords rank in Google Page 1 and the change of Google Search Engine algorithm has very little effect on these type of product review sites.

2. Whereas for Product Review Sites adopting Structure #2 took a little longer to rank in Google Page 1 for the targeted keywords than Structure #1 sites but some of the targeted keywords could still not get to Page 1 after months of building backlinks . These type of sites were also able to withstand the Google algorithm changes.

3. For Product Review Sites built using Structure #3, the targeted keywords could hardly climb to Google Page 1, in actual fact, they had never achieved that. And when the Panda or subsequent Google SE algorithm changes took place, their ranking fell drastically, some even out of the top 200.

Though I must say those sites built using Structure #3 have very well written Amazon product reviews, each with at least 1,500 words to about 2,500 words, but it seems like high quality product reviews are not good enough.

 

Earnings Consistency

1. Product Review Sites with Structure #1 consistently bring in quite a regular traffic as well as good CTR and thus consistent earnings from Amazon commission. I believe due to more blog posts/articles more keywords were ranked well in Google, more info were available to the potential buyers and in turn boost their confidence to click the Amazon Affiliate Links.

I also believe that Google likes these type of informational sites and thus the targeted keywords were able to rank high to the Top 3 position in Page 1.

2. Product Review Sites with Structure #2 do bring in earnings but not as consistent as the formers. I believe since there are only 3 pages (excluding the About Me, Contact Me, Disclaimer), not many keywords could be ranked. On the other hand, since Google would not consider these type of sites as thin sites and yet due to fact that each site has only 3 pages of product information, Google would not rank it to Top 3 in Page 1. And this certainly affects the traffic.

3. Product Review Sites with Structure #3 have hardly brought in a penny. They are totally waste of time and effort to build.

 

Deduction

BAD

Avoid Structure #3 at all cost!!!!

Do NOT ever believe those gurus telling you that you can build a ONE page Amazon Product Review Site and you can have your commission coming in day in and day out. This might have worked fine in the older days, but not now anymore!!!!! Unless the main source of targeted traffic for these type of sites you are looking for is from other than the Search Engines.

GOOD

I would think the best approach is a combination of Structure #1 & #2. Meaning with Page of product reviews, blog of articles related to the product/niche, product related pages (Buyer’s Guide, product comparison tables) + other pages including About Me, Contact Me, Disclaimer.

 

Anyway, from the experiment, we could very well tell the importance of informational articles in the Amazon Product Review Sites in terms of ranking high with the targeted keywords, sustainability and consistent traffic (earnings as well).

I wanted to dig further to find out more the WHYs and how I should use the informational articles to further improve the performance of these existing Product Review Sites as well as the new sites. Lucky me that I chanced upon Erica Stone’s latest product “Amazon Niche Master“.

 

Amazon Niche Master

 I am glad that this Amazon Niche Master came out at the time I needed it.

In this 30-page “Amazon Niche Master” pdf, Erica not only explains the importance of informational articles in the product review sites creation, she also touches on ways to getting the required info and writing the informational articles. On top of that, Erica listed out 10 types of articles a review site should have.

In the 13-page “Template for Amazon Niche Master” pdf , Erica provides the templates for the 10 informational articles, and all you need to do is to follow the templates and fill in the blank with the stipulated info.

I particularly like Erica’s very clear instruction on how internal linking for each of these 10 informational articles should be constructed. Erica also shares what are the external backlinks should be built.

After reading this section of the course, then I came to understand the power of internal links in On-Page SEO. With Structure #3 type of Amazon Product Review Site, it is very difficult to implement the Internal Link On-Page SEO Strategy as there is no informational article other than the product review post/page.

Now, fom the experiment I shared at the beginning of this post, you could well see that having information articles in your Amazon Product Review Sites not only help to promote your site by ranking high more of your targeted keywords, it also up the CTR and thus your Amazon earnings.

For any Amazon Affiliates who are building the product review sites, this is the missing puzzle that one MUST have.

Check Out The Amazon Niche Master Here.

 

Extreme Review

Based on the recommendation in Amazon Niche Master, I also bought another great product from Erica “The Extreme Review“.

Extreme Review is a complete Amazon Affiliate Handbook in a 73-pages PDF.

The topics it covers basically are:

• Product Selection
• Keyword Research
• Site Building using WordPress
• Product Review Writing
• Informational Articles Writing
• Site Promotion

 

 Yes, the Product Review Writing is covered in Extreme Review but it is not as comprehensive as Reviewer’s Edge (read my take on the Reviewer’s Edge HERE). And the Informational Articles Writing is similarly not as detail as in the Amazon Niche Master.

The Extreme Review gives an overall view on building an Amazon Product Review Site and both the Reviewer’s Edge and Amazon Niche Master complement the product review creation portion very well.

You May Like To Check Out The Extreme Review Here

 

But to be honest, if you ask me for my opinion for an Amazon Affiliate Training course for new Amazon Affiliates, I would recommend Jeff & Dave Step by Step Video Training Course “The Azon Classroom“. Azon Classroom is the most up-to-date and newbie-friendly Amazon Affiliate Training Video Course for new Amazon Affiliates. You could read my review HERE. 

 

 

What Are You Going To Do With Your Amazon Review Sites?

I am not sure about you, but for me, I will add informational articles to all my existing Amazon Product Review Sites that have no informational articles. For all the new Product Review Sites, I will certainly add on the informational articles section.

 

That’s all for now. Till we meet again, all the best to your building of Amazon Product Review Sites.

 

Related Posts:

How To Write Winning Amazon Product Reviews

How to Write Winning Amazon Product Reviews – The Resources

 Hi Fellow Amazon Affiliates,

Hope this post find you well.

I have not written any article since I wrote about How To Write Winning Amazon Product Reviews. Oh, many thanks for all the comments for this post. I truly appreciate your feedback and contribution. And I must say some of you guys sent in really good ideas and I have added them into the post.

I must say that the Amazon Product Review Writing Formula I shared is just something I put together based on my experience, it is certainly not THE formula, there will be fine tuning as I continue to experiment different approaches.

Lately, I come across a number of Amazon Product Reviews Writing guides which I find them of really good value. They have given me new ideas and new angles to approach this task of how to write a product review.

Without further ado, let me share these 3 resources with you, so that all of us can produce top-notch product review websites.

 

I. Reviewer’s Edge by Erica Stone (Sojourn)

Erica Stone is a well-known Amazon Affiliate who has produced quite a number of good quality Amazon Marketing related materials. I like Erica’s products as they go straight to the points with no additional sale pitch or self praise. I believe you undersatnd what I meant if you have purchased some of those Internet Marketing courses.

If you have read my earlier posts you will know that I am a firm believer of long product reviews. Based on my experience, I am convinced that long product reviews give a better conversion rate as well as a better Google ranking in the SERP. And that is the reason I do not favor the eStore concept that uses very short product description.

In this Reviewer’s Edge, Erica conducted a case study to test out  the performance of 2 reviews with 500+ and 1000 word count each.

And the results showed the following:

1. The long review had not only better ranking for the targeted keywords but also more keywords rank in the 1st page of Google SERP
2. Long review requires fewer backlinks for good ranking in Google
3. With a longer review, it provides more info to the potential buyers and thus a better CTR.

I am happy that Erica’s case study has proven my belief. For the detail and the test result of this case study, click HERE.

Though The Reviewer’s Edge is only a short 23 pages PDF file, as I have mentioned earlier, there is no filler in Erica’s reports. In this guide, Erica provided not only the product review structure but also a Sample Review which she demonstrated steps by steps how a product review can be produced from scratch to finish. This illustration really makes product review writing less daunting.

I particularly like the Amazon Triggers provided in this guide (in Page 17 & 18) which help to improve the CTR.

Oh, if you really do not want to write the product views, Erica also provides a short Outsourcing Guide which includes the instructions and review templates for the outsourcers.

To end the Reviewer’s Edge, Erica provides a list of info/things you could add to the Existing Reviews. So, you can follow the list in this guide to make your existing reviews yield a better CTR and earnings.

I highly recommend The Reviewer’s Edge.

Purchase Reviewer’s Edge Here.

 

II. Amazon Presell Mastery by Jeff Carson & Dave Toomey 

As the title of this course suggests, the Amazon Presell Mastery (22 pages PDF eBook) focuses on the Pre-Sell to different groups of potential buyers. Its main emphasis is on the Buyers and not so much on the products.

There are two important components which are:

1. Presell

According to Jeff and Dave, this is the concept of “conditioning a web page visitor to do what you want them to do”.  As Amazon affiliate marketers, we want people to click over to Amazon. The further we can convince them they need a certain product, or type of product, or that Amazon has the product they need, the more we will earn from our web pages.

2. Niche Selection

Product Selection is based on the different ways to solve people’s problems, or finding different problems.

 

Presell Tactics

Jeff and Dave listed 7 type of Pre-Sell Tactics namely:

1. The “How To” Pre-Sell
2. The “Best/Top Rated” Pre-Sell
3. The “Vs/Or/Compared to” Pre-Sell
4. The “Cheap/Discount” Pre-Sell
5. The “Review/Reviews” Pre-Sell
6. The “Multi-Concept” Pre-Sell
7. The “Holiday Gift” Pre-Sell

This course does not provide the normal Standard Amazon Product Review Format. In fact, it provides 7 product review templates to cater for 7 types of preselling. The 7 templates are presented in a separate 20 pages PDF file and all we need to do is to fill in the blanks.

The best of all is Live Web Page Examples are given for all the 7 tactics, so that we could really understand how to apply the 7 tactics much better.

Certainly, I personally believe that we can always mix the different tactics into 1 Product Review. To be honest, I have never thought about these 7 approaches. Almost all the Amazon courses I have gone through teaches one standard product review format. I am glad to have found this course.

I highly recommend Amazon Presell Mastery even you own most of the popular Amazon courses, because it touches on something that is not found in those popular Amazon courses. 

Purchase Amazon Presell Mastery Here

Important Updates:

Do NOT purchase the Amazon Presell Mastery!!!!!

I learnt that Jeff & Dave released a new step by step Amazon Affiliate Video Course “Azon Classroom“. I bought it and surprisingly I went through all the 28 video at one setting. I hardly sit still for any video course.  And I was pleasantly surprised to discovered that in the 3th module a complete Amazon Presell Mastery course was there for free download though it was not mentioned in the Azon Classroom sale page at all

The Amazon Presell Mastery costs $17 where the Azon Classroom costs less than $20.50 (at this writing), I would strongly suggest if you are keen to get the Amazon Presell Mastery, get the Azon Classroom instead. 

Let’s take a look at Azon Classroom.

Azon Classroom by Jeff Carson & Dave Toomey

  As I mentioned earlier, I hardly could sit through a video course at one setting, but ths Azon Classroom is an exception.

There are 28 videos (more will be added especially the study cases) which covers Introduction to Amazon, Niche research to site building, backlinks building etc.

What I like about this video course is very newbies friendly and one can definitely see Jeff (who was the presenter) put in a lot of effort in preparing the videos course. There is no filler or lost moments where often we see in other video course that the presenter simply does not know what to say or do next.

Jeff’s way of presentation was the reason why I could complete the full 28 videos without taking a break. His pace was not too fast nor too slow, very clear in his speech. I particularly like the way he explained the concept of Off-Page SEO (backlinking). I have seen no one explained this concept with such clear illustration making it so easy to understand.

Okay, below are the modules of Azon Classroom:

1. Introduction Module
1. Introduction Module – Introduction
2. Introduction Module – Amazon Intro
3. Introduction Module – Amazon Intro Part2
2. Research Module
1. Selecting a Niche – Tools and Rules
2. Domain Selection Technique 1
3. Domain Selection Technique 2
4. Domain Selection Technique 3
3. Site Building Module
1. Blog Installation
2. Blog Settings
3. Blog Appearance Theme
4. Create a Header
5. Plugins SEO and Analytics
6. Plugins Concluded
4. Content Module
1. SEO Pages for Google
2. Example Site
3. Internal Linking
4. Affiliate Links
5. Promotion Module
1. Web Page Ranking Module Introduction
2. Article Marketing 1
3. Article Marketing 2
4. Social Bookmarking
5. Blog Commenting
6. Guest Blogging
7. Back Linking
8. Back Linking and Conclusion
6. Follow Up Module
1. Follow Up #1
2. Follow Up #2
3. Follow Up #3

I would say Azon Classroom is the most up to date (it covers the Google Panda effect) Amazon Affiliate Marketing Video Course in the market and the Best Amazon Affiliate Video Course for New Amazon Affiliates.

If you are an experienced Amazon Affiliate, you might have learnt most of things taught in this course thought I am still happy to pick up a few good tips especially the WordPress Plugins used by Jeff and Dave.

If you have the intention to purchase the Amazon Presell Mastery or being new to Amazon Affiliate Marketing, I strongly recommend you to purchase the Azon Classroom.

Oh yes, Jef & Dave are going to remove the Azon Classroom video course on the April 20, 2012. Please be hurry before it disappears from the market.

Latest Update: Azon Classroom is no longer available.

Purchase Azon Classroom Here

 

III. Amazon Mind Control by Jamie Garside (GoGetta)

The Amazon Mind Control comes with a 29 pages PDF guide and 4 videos. Similar to The Amazon Presell Mastery, the Amazon Mind Control‘s focus is also on the buyers. It touches on the buyer’s thought process, meaning what the potential buyers are looking for or what is on their mind when they land on your review website.

It is similar to the Amazon Presell Mastery tactics, when the information of your product reviews provide an answer to the questions in the potential buyer’s mind, the chances of the buyers clicking your affiliate link will certainly become higher. Yes, you are right, it is not really Mind Control as the title of the course suggests.

Thought the concept of Amazon Mind Control is similar to Amazon Presell Mastery, the angles or the approach is different.

 

The 4 Amazon Mind Control Thought Processes

In Amazon Mind Control, there are 4 approaches, Jamie called them the thought process, namely:

1. The Bestseller Thought Process
2. Feature Based Thought Processes
3. Intended Use Thought Process
4. Buyer Demographic Thought Processes

Similarly, for each though process, Jamie provides a Live Web Page Examples to help the reader to have a better understanding of the way and format the review should be written.

If you read my Amazon Product Review Formula, at point (j) Who Are The People This Product For?  With this info, it makes the potential buyer feel more assured that this particular product is meant for him/her, but getting this piece of info can be a challenge. You will be pleased to know that Jamie shows us a very easy way to find the required info.

There is a One-Time-Offer which is 3 videos where Jamie shows us how to do the following:

1. Product Research
2. Product Review Writing
3. Product Review Posting & Formatting

I particularly like the 3rd video where I have learnt something new and useful about formatting my product review.

I highly recommend Amazon Mind Control. If you ask me which one to get, the Amazon Presell Mastery or the Amazon Mind Control? I would say BOTH as they complement each other very well.

Purchase Amazon Mind Control Here

 

Okay, the above are the 3 Best Amazon Product ReviewsWriting Courses that I have come across so far. They are currently below $17 but some of them the prices goes up with each sale, so if you want to learn to write better Amazon Product Reviews or any product reviews, get them now before the price go higher.

Last but not least, if you have not downloaded my free Amazon Treasure Box report which is a series of Amazon Product Lists, please click on the picture below for instant download.

That’s about all for this post, folks. Until we meet again, take care and God bless.

 

Related Posts:

The Missing Link In Amazon Product Review Sites

How To Write Winning Amazon Product Reviews

Hi Fellow Amazon Affiliates,

Hope everything is fine with you.

Sorry for having disappeared for almost 2 months.

Wow, I was shock too to see that my last post was made in February. Time really flies.

Some family matters happened in February and I was fully occupied since then. Besides answering emails, I did not work a single bit on my Amazon Affiliate business. Though the family matters are not fully settled yet, this month I could squeeze out some time to create one or two Amazon Affiliate Review site. I have not created a single one since last September. I better do something about it.

Without further ado, let’s go to my earnings report.

I thought February would be a low month yet it did not perform too badly, in fact I was rather pleased with the result though nothing much to boast about.

 

As compared to January 2012 Amazon Earnings of $96.56,  in actual fact there was an increase of almost $40 for February. Hey, good news, isn’t it?

 

Clash with YouTube Again

While I was busy handling my family matters, YouTube dropped me a bomb. On February 27th, YouTube terminated most of my accounts. I later discovered that my PC was hacked or infected by virus what sent tons of messages to the membership sites I was subscribed to which resulted termination of some of my memberships, and Fiverr.com was one of them.

Though YouTube did not provide me a reason for my account termination, I believed it could be that too.

Anyway, I talked about my experience with YouTube in this post, at the end I managed to overcome the odds and keep my PLR videos alive in YouTube, and not only that I could rank them in page 1 in both YouTube and Google. And they did bring some sales for me.

Wow, now YouTube suspended my accounts, I thought my March earnings will drop very badly.

Surprisingly, it did drop but not that bad.

As compared to February, the dip was only $8. Praise God.

 

Google Change of Algorithm

I am not sure whether you are aware of the changes in Google’s search algorithm. I hope that that did not affect your sites ranking. Unfortunately, it did affect most of my sites. 

Most of my sites disappear from Page 1 for their major keywords. I am partly to be blamed too. As my major keywords are rather competitive and yet I did not do any backlink building the past 2 months.  Well, I better work doubly hard the next few months. Hahahaha….

 

Azon Snatch Review Follow-Up

Just last week, one of my reader after reading my post on the Azon Snatch Review, wrote and tell me he liked my honesty. Out of curiosity, I visited the WarriorForum thread HERE and was really shock to see that there were 19 pages for this thread and more than half of the total number of posts were asking for REFUND!!!!

If you have not visited the thread, please go and take a look, I found many posts were rather entertaining. I have not seen so many posts asking for refund for a single product launched at Warrior Forum.

Anyway, I am really glad that I did not recommend this product though at that time seem like every Internet Marketers were pushing for this product. Hey, now I know whose list I should opt out.

Okie, I better stop here and go back for my Amazon Product Research.

 

Amazon Product List

Oh, talking about Amazon Product Research, if you have not downloaded my Amazon Treasure Box which is a series of Amazon Products I selected based on the following criteria, please click on the picture below and provide me with your email address, I will send the very first report to you immediately.

My personal Amazon Product Selection Criteria:

1. Product price – minimum of $150;
2. Product Rating – at least a 4 Stars;
3. Customer Reviews – at least 20 reviews.

Tomorrow is Good Friday, for those who are celebrating Good Friday, I wish you a Blessed Good Friday and to the rest, A Happy Holiday.

Seeya at my next post.

Dear Fellow Amazon Affiliates,

I hope everything is going fine with you.

I am terribly sorry for posting my January earnings report this late. I have totally forgotten about it at all. Too occupied with my family matters.

Let’s begin…..

Foretold by experienced Amazon Affiliates, January is a one of the lowest month of the year. True enough, by the middle of January, my commission was only $30, but thank God that it did pick up a bit during the last 2 weeks of the month.

Here is the screen capture of my January 2012 Amazon earnings.

Hey, I said to myself, $96.56 is not that bad.

Some seasoned Amazon Affiliates even told me that February would be equally bad.

Looking at my current month report, they are right too, my February’s earnings is similar to January’s. Looking at the list of my products, I reckon that the sales might only start to pick up in April as majority of my products are for outdoor use and now it is still winter.

So, for the next few months, I will not be too bothered with the sales and commission. Gonna plan for the summer sales.

I have stopped building Amazon Product Review Sites since my last site built in September. For this month I am pretty tied down with some family matters, guess I could only start building Amazon Product Review sites again in March.

 

Amazon Affiliate Marketing Course and PLR Products 

Since late November 2011 till late last month, I noticed quite a lot of Amazon related products launched. For example, Amazon Affiliate Marketing courses, Amazon Product Reviews PLR, Amazon Product Videos PLR, etc.

Guess most of these marketers are cashing in from people who were aiming to make money during this festive seasons. So, these marketers are making money from people who want to make money from Amazon.

Who knows, these marketers might even make more money from selling these Amazon related products than the actual selling of Amazon products.

To me, that is perfectly fine.

 

Amazon Affiliate Marketing Training Course

But there was one thing I did not like about those selling their Amazon Affiliate Marketing courses was couple of them purposely highlighting that they made 6 figures even millions of revenue.

There are 2 things we need to take note.

Firstly, the period that the money was made. If you take a closer look at the screen shot, you will notice the period spanned across 2 years or more, so in actual fact, the monthly commission is not that great.

Secondly, on the screen shot, they circled the “Revenue” figure, but in reality, their actual Amazon earnings is shown under the “Advertising Fees”. The revenue belongs to Amazon, it has nothing much to do with the Affiliate. From the Revenue  alone, we can’t even tell the amount of  commission the affiliate received as it ties with the commission rate.

When they said they made millions of dollars in revenue, in actual fact, Amazon was the one who made millions dollars revenue.

So, why these marketers used that figures in their sales letter? To me, this is to mislead the buyers. Of course, as long as we have been an Amazon Affiliate for a while, we should be able to read those figures, but to someone who are new to Amazon Affiliate Program, this can be misleading.

In actual fact, I have a reader wrote and asked me where I spent the Advertising Fees thinking that the amount under the Revenue was my earnings.

To these Amazon Marketers, I feel that they are not only fooling their potential customers/readers, they are also fooling themselves. Fooling themselves by thinking that people are dumb enough to be fooled by them.

So, in the future, if you are ever shown with their earnings screenshot, do read them carefully and don’t be fooled.

 

Amazon Product Review Articles PLR

Talking about the Amazon Product Reviews PLR, if you want to use them, that is perfectly fine, but please go for those of good quality. Ask for a sample before you decide to click the BUY button. And make sure that they are not those 300 words review articles. Though we can not expect the seller to produce 1,500 words reviews, 700 words is the minimum and reasonable length for a good product review article. Of course, you are right to say that the content is still the winning factor.

And if you bought them, please rewrite them before posting it to your blog/websites. Though duplicate content would not get your site penalized by Google, they would not rank well most of the time.

 

Amazon Product Review Videos PLR

When comes to the Amazon Product Review Videos, if you bought them and wanting to upload to YouTube, make sure you modify them, as YouTube does not like duplicate videos. If you ever do that, YouTube will remove your PLR videos and suspend your YouTube Account.

You can read more about this from the post I wrote sometime back. Click HERE to read my experience and my cash with YouTube.

 

 Okay, that’s about all I would like to talk about this time round, before I sign off, if you have not downloaded my free gift for you, The Amazon Treasure Box – Amazon Product Lists, you can do so by clicking on the image below. 

 Take care and all the best to your journey as a Successful Amazon Affiliate.

 

My Dear Fellow Amazon Affiliates,

Hope this post find you well.

At my previous post “Free Amazon Products List – The Amazon Treasure Box“, I mentioned that in order to generate Amazon Income Stream, we as the Amazon Affiliates need to do the following 3 steps:-

1. Amazon Product Selection;

2. Well Written Amazon Product Reviews;

3.  Traffic Traffic Traffic.

Regarding Amazon Product Selection, I have done the research and spared you from all the hard work by producing a series of Amazon Product Lists called “The Amazon Treasure Box“.

If you have not downloaded this free report, you can get it HERE.

After publishing that post, quite a number of readers wrote to me asking for Tips for Writing Amazon Product Reviews, and a resounding YES, one of the 3 important steps to generate Amazon Affiliate Income is to write Good Product Reviews. 

So in this post, I am going to share with you guys what I have learnt and fine tuned my formula for writing a Good and High CTR Amazon Product Reviews.

 Many people find writing product review a very overwhelming task. I found it that way too when I wrote my very first review. Not to worry, I am going to share my Secret Product Review Writing formula with you.

 So, how do you eat an elephant? Yes, cut it into smaller pieces and eat them one by one.

 Similarly, writing product reviews need not to be daunting. Break the process and review into smaller tasks and sections, not only it is easier for you to write, it is also easier for the readers to read.

I am going to share with you where to gather the info required for the product review writing as well as the format which I view it as the most important.

By the way, a product review is NOT just a product review to convert the reader into a customer but also for On-Page SEO purposes. I would talk about it as I go along as well as at the end of this post.  

Let’s begin…….

 

How To Write Winning Amazon Product Reviews

 

1. Preparation for Product Review Writing

 

A.   Where to Get the Info?

 Certainly we need to have all the facts of this product even you own one, so let’s go and get the info.

a. Amazon Customer Reviews

You will notice many times I mentioned in my posts I only promote products with at least 20 customer reviews (at the same time, with at least a 4 Stars rating). One of the reason is of course I could be certain that the product I am going to promote is of good quality, the second reason is I could make use of the info provided by the customers for my review writing. 

Go through those customer reviews with 4 and 5 Stars rating to learn why the customers were happy with the products. These are the Pro’s of the products. Next read those reviews with 1 and 2 Stars rating to learn about the Con’s of the product.

b. Product Features and Details

You can get all these info at the Amazon Product Page.  At the same time, locate the manufacturer’s official website to get additional info about product, if there is a free product manual/guidebook for download, note down the download url.

c. What Other Promoters Say About This Product?

Google “Product Name Reviews“, you should be able to find a lot of other sites promoting the same product. Read these reviews listed in the top 2 pages. Take note of the info that is not found in the (a) & (b). BUT I Must Stress That Do NOT copy and paste this into your review later. This is unethical. Do NOT do that!!!!!!

By now you should have gathered quite a fair bit of info, Pro’s, Con’s and other useful info about this product.

 

B. Keyword Research

Do your keyword research either with the free Google Keyword Tool or Market Samurai. Pick a main key and 2 secondary keywords or SLI keywords. Use the Main Keyword for your main header (H1/H2 Tag) and the secondary keywords for your sub-headers (H2/H3/H4 Tag).  Also to use them in the first, middle and last paragraphs of your review.

 

2. Format of A Winning Product Review 

 Below is the format of the product review broken down into 13 sections in the following order.

a. Introduction – Start Off with A Story 

 

Story Sells!

Based on my and other’s experience, a very formal with great details product review does not convert as well as a review with personal touch which may not be as well written as the former one.

Try to start with a story telling a problem. For example in my Seiko Running Metronome Reviews, I started saying I was a runner but as I got older, I found myself could not maintain my running speed and distance, until I found the Seiko Running Metronome as well as discovered the barefoot running form.

People can relate to a problem better. People surf the Net for info/solution and entertainment.

If you own the product like I use the Seiko Running Metronome,  you will have more info to share as well as being more convincing. But we can’t possibly buy every product that we promote, that is where the Amazon Customer Reviews come in handy. From these reviews, you could figure out the problem/reason why the customer bought the product.

Turn this into a story. For example, you have a friend Joe having this problem…….

Or, you read about this problem and decided to do a research for a solution………

 Tips: Add your photo at this section. People would and love to related to a real human being. If you wish not to reveal your look or identity, that is fine. Just pick a nice name and an AVERAGE looking profile photo from iStockPhoto.com

Yes, an average looking human. People trust a real average Joe than a Super Model.

 

b. General & Brief Summary

There are people with little patience to read from the beginning to the end of your review, just give a brief summary of your review. For example, what you think about this product and what you like this product the most. Next tell the reader where to buy it with your affiliate link.

Use a rating system with those Stars found at Amazon page. Take a look at my site about the Garmin Forerunner 305 Review. 

Do not forget to insert your Amazon Affiliate Link into the Buy button as well as the product picture.

 

c. Information Related to The Product or The Manufacturer

From the info you have collected from the Product official website, you will be able to talk briefly about this product as well as the manufacturer. For example when/why this product was invented, who/where is the manufacturer etc.

On-Page SEO Tip: Do not forget to link to the Official site with the anchor text. 

 

d. What Is In the Box?

Briefly talk about what is included in the package/shipping box. For example, the main product, the accessories, the user handbook etc. You can usually get this info from the Amazon page under the Product Features and the Product Description sections.

On-Page SEO Tip: Go to www.YouTube.com to look for a video about this product and embed it here.  People love watching videos, it will certainly enhance their experience with your review. And more importantly Google views the time the reader stays at your webpage as an indicator of whether the reader found your info relevant. The longer the better.  Usually the video lasts for a minute or more, that means with the video you can keep your reader staying at your page for at least a minute.

 

e. Product Features, Specification and Technical Details

To be honest, not many people care or understand the product features as many of them are just too technical. People concern about benefits. So, let turn each of these features into benefits.

Let say there is this notebook you want to promote, and it’s battery life is 100 hours (just assume). If you put down as “100 Hours Battery Life”, it means very little to the buyer. Let’s do it this way:

100 Hours Battery Life – This battery can keep your Notebook working non-stop for more than 4 days. If you are going for a short 4 days business trip, you need not to worry about forgetting to bring your battery charger along.

So, for every features, try (some features are difficult to “beautify” them) append the benefit after it.

 

f. Personal Quick Reviews

Start off with what/why you (or most customers) like about this product, just like what you wrote at the beginning of this review. Followed by saying something like:

“Let’s find out what the customers say about this product (replace product with the product name)”

 

g. Pro’s of Product

 List out the important Pro’s and turn each Pro’s into a paragraph with the Pro’s as a header (with your keyword if possible). For example “<Product keyword> Can Help You to Save Your Monthly Water Bill by 30%”

Yes, if you read my Garmin Forerunner 305 review (which was my second product review I wrote), I did not do that, but I have learnt and fine-tuned it, am now sharing this with you. It not only makes the benefits stand out to the readers, it also gives you the opportunity to On-Page SEO your review as each sub-header now contains your secondary keyword.

 

h. Con’s of Product

For Con’s of product, you list them with bullet points, so as not to capture too much attention from the readers, but be honest; if there are Con’s, list them. If there are too many too serious Con’s, skip promoting this product.

For each Con’s, try to look for a solution for the reader. For example my review on the Seiko Running Metronome:

Con: Seiko DM50 Metronome turns on easily

Solution: before you put it in your gym bag, keep it in the box that comes with it or any small box.

Reader’s Contribution by Dave TongJust to add, highlight the cons in a constructive way, remember that niche sites are designed to sell as compared to blog posts… So try to handle it like a typical job interview session…Highlight cons that don’t really matter too much in the grand scheme of things.For example… Instead of saying an item is quite large and bulky (turn-off!) just say that… “While product X’s size is larger than its competitors, it’s more of a necessity to accommodate the great number of features included in the product. The slight size difference is an extremely minor tradeoff to the great [insert benefit] this product provides.” You’re still stating the fact that the product is larger than others, but you made it a positive thing instead.

 

Reader’s Contribution by Ian Products Comparison Comparison with other products makes writing an extensive review relatively easy. We don’t have to destroy the alternative items, just explain the unique selling points of each design and which niche or task they are suited to.

 

i. Tips /FAQ

Readers will appreciate if you could share some tips or FAQ with them. You would be able to get these info from the Amazon Customer Reviews as well as stroll down to the bottom of the product page, there is a Customer Discussion Forum. Go through them, you will be able to come out with some tips and FAQ.

At the ”Where to Get the Info?” section, I mentioned to take note of the manual download url, you can provide the link here for the reader to download the free user manual. You readers will appreciate it. 

 

j. Who Are The People This Product For?

People like to identify the product with their needs, so list them out. For example, this toaster oven set is for people who do not have a big kitchen to accommodate a normal size oven yet enjoy baking …… etc.  

 

k. Customer Reviews

You could start off by saying:

“What Are People Raving About product (replace product with the product name)” 

 Followed by customer reviews extract from the Amazon Customer reviews.

Please pick those reviews with 4 or 5 Stars rating. Read them first before you use them, and if possible pick those with a human name and not name like “Buddy2012″. And to append the names to their reviews.

 

l. Verdict or Conclusion

Give an Overall Score (in %) and a short summary emphasizing the good points of the product and repeat the solution to an frequently asked Con’s.

 

m. Where to Buy?

Here is where the name Amazon is mentioned, list out the benefits of buying this product from Amazon, like Amazon is a reputable company, FREE Super Saver Shipping etc. 

Please take note that do NOT mention the price here as Amazon’s pricing changes quite often.

Besides inserting the Affiliate link into the “Click To Buy or View Product Name”, add a picture of the product with your affiliate link.

 

Okay, quite straight forward, right? That is about all I need to share with you the format of a good product Review.

 

3. Additional Notes on Writing Product Reviews

 a. Add to your review with more pictures(with your affiliate links) to make your review easier to read and certainly pictures do spice up the reviews. Use the WordPress plugins for videos and pictures (images) I talked about at this post ” Top WordPress Plugins for Amazon Affiliates“ for On-Page SEO purposes.

b. Besides using your main and secondary keywords in your main header and sub-header, use them in the first, middle and last paragraphs.

c. Cloak your Affiliate links using the method I talked about at this post “Amazon Affiliate Links – Why and How You Should Cloak Them?“. Google does not like webpages filled with too many affiliate links.

d. With the format I provided, you can certainly come out with a reviews with word count 1,500 or more. I have ever produced a product review using this format with word count closed to 3,000 words. Personally I believe long product reviews produce a higher CTR.  Besides, it is easier to do On-Page SEO with longer review. With a 200 words review, it is hard not to annoy your readers with the repeat use of your keywords. Agree?

e. You need not to complete the full review in one go. You can complete a few sections in a day, continue with other sections on another day. Then without knowing, you have created one winning Amazon Product Review. Hurray!!!!!  :-)

 

Final Note

 Do drop by this post again coz if I discover important points I missed out or there is additional info to add, I will edit this post again.

If you think you have something to contribute to product review writing, I appreciate if you could leave your comments here.

Okay, that is about all I would love to share with you about How To Write Winning Amazon Product Reviews. Download the Amazon Treasure Box if you have not done so, and I would share about On-Page SEO in the next post.

 

Till we meet again, take care and have a beautiful month of February.

P.S. February is my birthday month.

 

Related Posts:

How to Write Winning Amazon Product Reviews – The Resources

The Missing Link In Amazon Product Review Sites

Top WordPress Plugins Used by Amazon Affiliates?

Okay, these are indeed not really Top WordPress Plugins for Amazon Affiliates. There are just the WordPress Plugins used by me.

A number of readers wrote to ask me which were the WordPress Plugins I used for my Amazon Affiliate Review sites, I thought why not I share with my readers, especially those who are new to using WordPress as their site platform, they might not know which are the plugins useful to them.

So, for this post, I will list out all the WordPress Plugins I used for most of my Amazon Affiliate Review Sites.

There are 15 of them and out of these 15, 14 are free and can be downloaded at WordPress plugins Directory. There is 1 paid WP Plugin “SEO Beast“, I will talk about it later.

 

 

How To Download & Install WordPress Plugins

Anyway, for the benefits for those who are new to WordPress plugins installation, here are the steps to follow.

Log in to your WordPress website Dashboard, click on Plugins

Next, click “Add New” and enter the name of the plugin into the Search Box and hit the “Search Plugin” button 

 

 Hit the “Install Now” button. Remember to Activate the Plugin after installation.

 Pretty easy, isn’t it?

 Okay, let’s move on the list of WordPress Plugins I used.

 

List of My Top WordPress Plugins

1. All in One SEO Pack

Description:  Optimizes your WordPress blog for Search Engines (Search Engine Optimization).

Comment: This is a must-have for all Internet Marketers for On-Page SEO. There are few other plugins which perform the similar task, but I am used to this particular plugin.

 

2. Amazon Affiliate Link Localizer

Description:  This plugin not only automatically changes any Amazon link on your site to use your affiliate ID, but it also changes the link to point to the user’s local Amazon store.

So if your visitor is visiting from the UK they’ll get a link to Amazon.co.uk, if they’re visiting from the US they’ll get a link to the same product on Amazon.com.

For more info about this Amazon Affiliate Link Localizer, please click Here to read my previous post written about it.

Comment: This is a Must-Have plugin for ALL Amazon Affiliates, it helps you as an Amazon Affiliate to make money from all Amazon Online stores. You may like to read about my earlier post written about this plugin HERE.

 

3. Broken Link Checker

Description: This plugin will monitor your blog looking for broken links and let you know if any are found.

Comment: Broken Link is a big No No for On-Page SEO. This plugin alerts you if a broken link is detected, and a simple one click is all you need to fix the problem.

 

4. cbnet Ping Optimizer

Description: Do you know your WordPress blog pings unnecessarily every time you edit a post? Think how many times you click on “Save and Continue Editing” or “Save” button. Your blog will ping unnecessarily that many times you click on those buttons.

Save your blog from getting tagged as ping spammer by installing this plugin.

Comment: This plugin is a must if you edit your post very frequently to save your site from being tagged as a spammer by the Ping sites.

 

5. Google Analytics for WordPress

Description: The Google Analytics for WordPress plugin allows you to track your blog easily and with lots of metadata.

Comment: This is optional. If you are using Google Analytics to analyze your websites, you might want to install this plugin for your WordPress sites. But there is a saying that if you do this, Google will know everything about all your sites included in the Google Analytics, and this can be a RISK, because you never know what Google will do to you after knowing the detail of your internet empire. I personally do NOT install Google Analytics to all my sites. 

 

6. Google XML Sitemap for Images

Description: Sitemaps are a way to tell Google, Bing and other search engines about web pages, images and video content on your site that they may otherwise not discover.

The Image Sitemap plugin will generate a sitemap for your WordPress blog with all the image URLs that are used in your posts and pages.

Comment: All sitemaps including Sitemap for Images are important for SEO purposes. And you must have image in every of your post to enhance your On-Page SEO. 

 

7. Google XML Sitemap for Videos

Description: Sitemaps are a way to tell Google, Bing and other search engines about web pages, images and video content on your site that they may otherwise not discover.

The Video Sitemap plugin will generate an XML Sitemap for your WordPress blog using all YouTube videos that you may have embedded in your blog posts.

Comment: If possible, include a YouTube video on your post for On-Page SEO purposes. But having a YouTube video on your post does nothing much unless you have this plugin installed. Once the plugin is installed, remember to hit the link at the plugin to generate the Video Sitemap and submit it to Google. 

 

8. Google XML Sitemaps

Description: This plugin will generate a special XML sitemap which will help search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask.com to better index your blog. With such a sitemap, it’s much easier for the crawlers to see the complete structure of your site and retrieve it more efficiently. The plugin supports all kinds of WordPress generated pages as well as custom URLs. Additionally it notifies all major search engines every time you create a post about the new content.

Comment: As mentioned earlier, Sitemap is a Must-Have for SEO purpose.

 

9. Secure WordPress

Description: Secure WordPress beefs up the security of your WordPress installation by removing error information on login pages, adds index.html to plugin directories, hides the WordPress version and much more.

Comment: This is a Must-Have to protect your WordPress site from being hacked.

 

10. SEO Beast

Description: This WordPress Plugin automatically analyzes the On-Page SEO for your page, alerts the On-Page SEO component that you have missed out and even execute certain On-Page SEO steps for you.

Comment: This plugin works like an On-Page SEO expert looking over your shoulder and advise your what to do to enhance your On-Page SEO. This WP plugin also comes with Title Tag, Description Tag and Keyword Tag sections just like the All-in-One SEO Pack, with this WP SEO Beast, one does not need to install All-in-One SEO Pack.

I have bought Daniel Tan’s SEOPressor when it was first launched at WarriorForum at a more affortable price, now it is selling at $97 which I think it is a bit steep. I found SEO Beast a month later and it was and still is priced at $37 which is much cheaper than SEOPrssor. I personally find that SEO Beast is better as it covers more aspect of On-Page SEO as well as the features similar to All-in-One SEO Pack.

 

11. TinyMCE Advanced

Description: This plugin adds 16 plugins to TinyMCE: Advanced HR, Advanced Image, Advanced Link, Advanced List, Context Menu, Emotions (Smilies), Date and Time, IESpell, Layer, Nonbreaking, Print, Search and Replace, Style, Table, Visual Characters and XHTML Extras.

Comment: I like this plugin which helps in editing my post, it has more options and certainly more powerful than the standard editing tool provided by WordPress.

 

12. WP-DBManager

Description: Allows you to optimize database, repair database, backup database, restore database, delete backup database , drop/empty tables and run selected queries. Supports automatic scheduling of backing up, optimizing and repairing of database.

Comment: Certainly you do not want to lose everything should your site be hacked and something freaky happened. Use this WP plugin to auto back-up your site content, and restore it if something unfortunate happened.

 

13. WP Super Cache

Description:  This plugin generates static html files from your dynamic WordPress blog. After a html file is generated your webserver will serve that file instead of processing the comparatively heavier and more expensive WordPress PHP scripts.

Comment: Site loading time is part of SEO. The longer the time your site takes to load, the highest the change your reader will surf away, and the least favor Google (and other Search engines) has for you.

 

14. WPtouch

Description: WPtouch automatically transforms your WordPress website into an application-like theme, complete with ajax loading articles and effects when viewed from the most popular mobile web browsing devices like the iPhone, iPod touch, Android mobile devices, Palm Pre/Pixi and BlackBerry OS6 mobile devices.

Comment: Mobile web surfing is gaining strength exponentially, everyone is surfing the Net using their iPhone, iPad, you can not affort not to make your WordPress site mobile-friendly.

 

15. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin

Description: Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP) gives you a list of posts and/or pages related to the current entry, introducing the reader to other relevant content on your site.

Comment: This plugin in is for Internal-Linking purposes, and this is an important component of On-Page SEO. You can see it at this blog – under every post, there is a section “Related Posts”.

 

Okay, there you have my list of Top WordPress Plugins for Amazon Affiliates. That is quite a number of these plugins I used, you can pick those you think is useful for your WordPress sites.

 

What Are Your Top WordPress Plugins?

I believe many of you are using WordPress plugins other than those listed here, why not share with the readers here, so that everyone can benefit? Leave your comment in this post with the plugins you use that you think its worth to have/invest. It does not matter whether it is a paid or free plugins. Thanks in advance, my fellow Amazon Afiliates.

Okay, since quite a number of the WordPress plugins have to do with On-Page SEO, I will write about On-Page SEO in my post next month. Besides the standard On-Page SEO stuff, I will share some On-Page SEO strategies I personally used and yet to see anyone share in detail about them on the Net. So stay tuned.

 

All the best and take care.

Hello My Dear Fellow Amazon Affiliates,

A Very Prosperous Year 2012 to all of you.

Wow, wow, wow, I was really surprise and at the same time felt rather honored that quite a number of you wrote to me reminding me to post my December’s earnings report.

I must apologize for my late update due to the busyness of this Christmas and New Year seasons.

As I replied to some of them that in every post including my earnings reports I would like to dig, explore and share some useful finding or learning experiences with my readers, so that all of us can move forward together, that’s one of  the reasons this post was delayed.

Okay, without further ado, let take a look at my December Amazon Commission Earnings.

December 2011 Amazon Affiliate Commission

It is $164.53 just a few dollars more than November’s earnings of $161.48. Very little improvement indeed.

Let’s take a look at the Conversion Rate:

It is 4.02%, lower than November’s 4.78%. The average Amazon conversion rate is 4.5% to 5%. So I would  consider 4.02% is lower than the average.

 

December Month is Amazon Affiliates’ Harvest Month

Almost all seasoned Amazon Affiliates told me that December’s earnings is the highest month of the year, and it is at least double the average monthly earnings, but mine……..

I looked at my other Affiliate earnings from other networks or companies, they are at least double and even triple of their average. So the expectation of high earnings for the month of December is valid, but then why my December earnings though it was record high but not that significant?

 

Factors Affecting Amazon Earnings – Title Not Available

As I mentioned earlier, 4.02% conversion rate is rather low, so I took a look at the Orders Report:

I clicked on the “Show All Items” button, and wow, I saw a long long long list of “Titles Not Available“

In total, there were 234 items not found. That means I could have lost 234 sales. Wow.

I recalled the first week, my sales was pretty good. Just the first week alone I had made 50% what I made in November, so what happened?

Then I realized I loaded a piece of software to my websites and it could be the cause of this “Title Not Available” problem. I immediately removed the software and the day after all were back to normal, no more such problem happened, but I only discovered this problem close to 3 weeks after loading that software and Christmas was over.

Anyway, I am glad that at least I have found out the cause of the problem.

So, when we look at our earnings, please do not just look at the Earnings Report, but also the Orders Report, and remember to check on the “Item with No Order“, you may discover something that may save your earnings.

And if you load a piece of new software or plugin, please monitor your sale/earnings performance closely.

 

Factors Affecting Amazon Earnings – Item with No Order

Besides the Title Not Available, I discovered that there were about 500 items with ”Title with No Order”. I dug further and discovered 2 of the products were [Discontinued] meaning Amazon does not sell these products anymore.

So, how to over come this problem? Please read my earlier post here where experienced Amazon Affiliate Colleen Slater shares about her strategies.

 Basically, it is to join the affiliate program of a company selling the same products, replace the Amazon Affiliate links in your website with the new affiliate links provided by that company.  

 Colleen Slater also shares what other approach you can adopt with websites promoting products Amazon no long sells. Click here to learn more.  

 

Factors Affecting Amazon Earnings – Item with No Order 2

This is not what I experienced, but just like to share with those who are not aware of this possible cause of No Order.

For certain products, there are more buyers from countries other than the USA.

Let’s do a keyword research using Google Insights

This Regional Interest result is for a particular brand of vacuum cleaner. This graphic shows that the British prefers this brand of vacuum cleaner.

How about this:

You can see that majority of the people searching for this product are from countries outside USA.

So, if your Amazon Affiliate links are from the Amazon.com, people from these countries clicking your Amazon Affiliate links will be directed to Amazon USA which most likely they would prefer to order the product from the Amazon online store located in or near their countries. Thus, no sale for you.

To solve this problem you need a Amazon Link Localizer plugin. You can read about it in my earlier post here. 

 

Factors Affecting Amazon Earnings – Shipping Only To USA

There are certain products where Amazon do not provide international shipping.

If you click on the Detail for Free Super Saving Shipping

For some product you will see this under the terms and condition:

It means even people from other countries willing to pay for the international shipping charges, Amazon will not ship the product to them. Thus, no sale for you as an Amazon Affiliate.

One of such products is the car seat. The road safety regulation in USA is different from the European countries. Certain brand/model is not allowed to be use in cars running on the roads in European countries.

 

Factors Affecting Amazon Earnings – Product Reviews

I personally think that a well written, comprehensive and informative review will lead to higher conversion. Reason being after reading such a high quality review, the potential buyer is already pre-sold, and he/she will be more likely to take out his/her credit card.

I have seen Amazon Affiliate websites paste with Amazon Affiliate Links all over the webpage with little useful product information, their main strategy is to get the potential customer to Amazon and let Amazon do the conversion. Well, this is certainly one of the commonly used strategies but I would think the conversion rate will be low.

Another possible reason is the web post is not properly On-Page Optimized with the product keyword (brand+model). So, it attracts browsers instead of serious buyers. Thus, lower the conversion rate. 

 

What To Look When Reading the Monthly Earnings Report

In conclusion, what should we do when we log in to our Amazon Affiliate Account?

1. Take a look at the Earnings Report.

If the commission improves, put on a smile and say to yourself “Well Done!”; If the commission drops, put on a smile and say to yourself “No worries, I will work harder!”

2. Take a look at the Orders Report

If the Conversion Rate is 4% or lower, do some analysis. One way is to check on the “Item with No Order“.

Go through the items and reflect upon what I have shared earlier and see whether you could locate the possible cause of the low conversion rate.

 

Okay, I guess I have shared quite a lot with this month earnings update. I hope you have learnt something from my mistakes and avoid them in your venture.

 

 

 Before I leave, if you have not downloaded the free Amazon Treasure Box Report, please click here to get it.

 

 

 

Take care and all the best.

Cheers.

 

Dear fellow Amazon Affiliates,

A Very Prosperous and Rewarding Year 2012 to YOU.

Have you started making good use of the Amazon Products List “The Amazon Treasure Box“ I gave you?

YES? Bravo!

No? You can downloaded “The Amazon Treasure Box” HERE

 

When I first set up this blog, I wanted to use it to journal my journey as an Amazon Affiliate, to share what I have learnt and experienced with whoever is interested, especially for those who are new to Amazon Affiliate Marketing, so that they can avoid the mistakes I made.

As times go by, more and more readers started leaving their valuable comments, asking questions or sharing their very own experiences. This blog has slowly evolved into a platform where every person can share their experience as an Amazon Affiliate regardless whether they are Amazon newbies or seasoned Amazon Marketers. I am really glad and honored to see this transformation.

So, please keep your contribution coming and let this blog be a place for inspired Amazon Affiliates meet and exchange ideas.

Today, I am super excited to welcome our very first guest, Missy Diaz to contribute her very first article here.

Missy is also an Amazon Affiliate who is making more Amazon commission than me.

Without further ado, let’s welcome Missy and her sharing.

How To Make $200 per Month with The Amazon Affiliate Program  I love the Amazon affiliate program and let me tell you why. It converts like no other affiliate program I have used or tried since 2007 on a number of niches and on a number of sites. But why? Why does the Amazon affiliate program convert so well.  I’ve given this a lot of thought over the years and my conclusions are below. I’m not a math whiz by any stretch of the imagination, so the conclusions noted in the following paragraphs are mine and mine alone. First, let me say that the beginning of my love affair with Amazon began in late 2008 when I created a niche site dedicated to Twilight, the movie sensation. This site was aptly titled Twilight Movie News and in it I discussed all things Twilight, and this included mentioning various Twilight themed merchandise.  To my surprise and delight, this new and relatively small niche blog made $80 in less than two weeks. Wow! I was hooked. I think my early success was a combination of things; a hot niche, a new untapped (not yet competitive) niche, quick adoption and a merchandise oriented site. I tried to go after the demographic that would be looking for all sorts of Twilight items, everything from t-shirts to DVDs, books and so on. They came, they saw and they bought.  I have created a few other notable blogs since my initial Twilight blog and they were BIGGER and BETTER than Twilight ever was. I sold them all and I’ve got a new set on the burner.  Since 2008, there’s more competition in any and every niche (except new ones, of course) more blogs, social media which plays a part in SEO now and all sorts of changes. However one thing remains the same, Amazon rocks and converts like a son of a gun.  Below I want to point out a few key guidelines on how you too can rake in and possibly make $200 or more via the Amazon affiliate program.   1. Niche  One of the most important aspects of making good with Amazon is niche. With the right niche, sky’s the limit. With the wrong niche, you stand the chance of wasting a lot of content and time. There are a lot of guru theories on how to pick a good Amazon niche with all sort of fancy charts and graphs to back it up, I say pick a product niche that is relatively NEW, has good demand (a/k/a search volume) and is moderately priced. Then build a good blog around this niche.   2. Content Type  When you create your niche blog, have a good mix of info versus product oriented articles. An info article is one that contains information such as a How to article, a video demo, detailed  instructions, etc. A product article is just that, one that discusses and highlights various products. Try to keep a 70/30 mix, as in 70% informational and 30% product specific.   3. SEO  This is where it gets very tricky and a whole separate article is in order for this as SEO is not as easy as many would have you believe. To me SEO is as much as science as it is practice. However a few things to keep in mind is that you will want to target words and phrases within your overall niche that fit are in demand yet have low competition. If it’s an older established niche, for example the iPhone – forget it. Because by now it’s highly saturated and extremely competitive. It would take you loads of content and loads of time just to catch up, not to mention compete. Another thing to keep in mind is that there are two kinds of SEO, on page and off page. Both are important and both carry their own kind of weight when it comes to search placement.  The other piece of the puzzle when it comes to SEO is popularity, as in how many links from other sites in your niche point back to your blog. This is another HUGE area within SEO that I can’t possibly cover in this bullet point, however (Keith a/k/a The IM Runner) might be able to point you to articles of his own on this topic.   4. Social Media  Social media is a beast onto itself and one that can no longer be ignored. It has become a crucial component of SEO, which we briefly mentioned above and plays a role in everything from site engagement to search rank and so much more. The big three are Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus. If you have yet to sign up and become a member of either of these three social networks, pick one (or all) and hop on board the social media train. As an Amazon associate your duty is to drive traffic to your site, so you can make sales – and social media plays a part in traffic.   5. Amazon Links  It’s important to strategically place your Amazon associate links on your site so as to produce the best results. Banners in my experience are the least effective, followed by sidebar widgets. The best place for your Amazon links are in blog articles. Write good reviews of items in your niche and include your links directly in the article. These will be your best placement. However it will all be for naught, if you don’t do the above – especially number one (pick a good niche) and number two (SEO).  Let me briefly point out that I’m not making thousands of dollars with the Amazon program, however I have made a good amount over the years and hope to make a lot more. How I have done it is listed above. Are you making any money with Amazon? If so, let us know below and feel free to tell us more such as the name and URL of your site. We want to hear more stories of those who have successfully used the Amazon affiliate program.    This guest article comes courtesy of Missy who writes for an online car hire Mallorca service provider and aside from being an affiliate for Amazon, loves to shop there as well.

 

I believe all of us have enjoyed and learnt something from Missy’s very insightful sharing.

If you are keen to make your contribution, you are more than welcome to write to me at info@TheIMRunner.com

 

So folks, that is our very first guest blog post from Missy Diaz. will seeya at the next post update.

Have a beautiful week.