Tag: home business ideas

How to Make Money With Amazon

Amazon is one of the best affiliate for many people who want to promote products and make money on side. If you are on hubpages, (or not), you can join amazon as an affiliate. It is very easy to do so by providing your email and login to to get tracking id. If you are using Hubpages to promote you site, I will show a few ways to make money via Amazon on Hubpages as well.

Update Note: If you are in USA, Amazon have removed its affiliates program in several states, such as California, Illinois, Colorado and others due to government Tax issues.

How to Get Signed up for Amazon:

  1. Sign up for an Amazon Associates account here.
  2. Then of course, sign in to your account.
  3. Click on “Build Links”. You will also see your tracking code, ending in -20.
  4. You can create text link, image link or combine text and image link and place it on your site.
  5. If you are Hubpages it is easy, just go to earning section on your own account and configure your amazon account by adding your unique tracking id for amazon. You are allowed to have up to 200 such tracking id for unit.
  6. In Hubpages, when you are writing hubs just go add an amazon capsule and you can use simple keyword to get amazon listing such as “books” or “cookbooks”. Or you can do specific product by getting its original ISBN from amazon.
  7. Once you have amazon capsule ready, and write about the subject or the product and publish.
  8. Do linkbuilding and add it to social media such as twitter or stumble upon and wait. Sometimes waiting for amazon earning can take some time but it happens. I got my first amazon sell in about 3.5 weeks, it was thrilling.

Current Status of Amazon on HP:

Right now amazon on Hubpages might be in limbo as they are being in California and Amazon has nixed all california affiliates, including myself. However, right now Hubpages is working with Amazon and other people who are not affected with a few US states, still continues to make money with Amazon, so this might be still a useful subject for those who are in other states or countries. It is also good for those who have their own websites along with hubpages.

Tips on Making Most out Amazon Affiliate Program:

I had been most successful with amazon prior to nixing California Affiliates, I was making some decent money with my cooking and cookware blog. Nothing to retire on, but it was increasing. Now, I can not use many tips but I want to make sure others can use it and make money by using this time trying tips that has worked for me and others.

  • Amazon always works best when you are doing specific product review type of post or hub. Let’s suppose you are writing, how to buy a best cast iron cookware, and you can write a review based on the product.
  • Choose a product that has 4 or 5 star ratings.
  • Choose a product that has at least 30 customer reviews on amazon.
  • Amazon also has a “bestseller” category for each products subject so go through it and pick the one of top seller products.
  • Do not cut and paste reviews from other site, do research from several sites (if you do not own the product yourself) and do genuine review with good things and bad things about the product.
  • Always add a good clear image of the product and link back to amazon at the end, so if people like it, they can buy it from your link.
  • You do not have to own the product and do not have to say you own it, when you do not, In my opinion honest reviews seems to be work best.
  • I have done shorter and longer reviews both and in my experience 800-1000 words long reviews seems to always convert better for me, so do not short change and write a good detailed review.
  • You can sometimes add related products but it is not necessary, when review is well written.

Problem with Amazon:

While I said earlier, amazon is one of the best affiliates for people, I still think there are some issues to remember when working with amazon.

  • Amazon has only 24 hour cookie, meaning, if someone visits your post but does not buy it right away and it is over 24 hours, you will not get commission for it.
  • Amazon has very low percentages such as 4% to start out with with maximum of 8% which I never quite made it. I got up to 6.5% once. Many other affiliate program may offer better commission.
  • Amazon only pays $25 for some electronics items such as laptop and some camera, regardless of if someone paid over $1000 for item, you will not get 4% of it or more. That sucks.
  • Amazon is nixing affiliate program in Many US states and it can follow in other states and other countries which may not be good thing for those who want to make money online.

Summury:

No matter what you do and choose, writing honest reviews and being valuable always helps. Content is always king or should I say Queen as being a woman! Good luck and hope you make money with Amazon.

Seven Best Decisions You Can Make About Blogging

There are seven best decisions anyone can make about blogging and being successful at blogging. Hope you enjoy it.

Blogging Tip 1

Do not spend more than you earn on blog tools, specially with money you do not have. It is tempting in blogging world with various software and tools to buy to make your blog life easier. There are always new ebooks and courses out there promising you riches if you buy them. We know as we have bought quite few in our early stage of blogging.

There are so great and not so great products out there to make you successful. Buy only what you can afford after making a little money. At most you need to spend money for domain and hosting, rest of the products can wait, if you do not have extra money.

Blogging Tip 2

Do no expect blogging or money help from anyone. There are plenty of bloggers and experts who are more than willing to share free tips and suggestions on how to make your blog grow. However, no one is going to hand you everything on platter or do work for you.

You must work hard for it, for example asking and preparing for a guest post or leaving thoughtful comments and linking to right posts on your blog. Do not feel bad if expert blogger does not return favor by commenting back on your blog. It is not personal, every relationship takes time to build.

Blogging Tip 3

It is okay not have niche but more planned you are about your blog, the better it will be for people who are searching for information to find you. It will also be beneficial to search engine to figure out what is your blog is about. Yes, there are many mega site and article directories have multiple subjects and niche, but they balance it will quantity. If you have large site, you can get away with many niche subject, when you are new try to stick to general niche or subject if possible.

We are not saying, multiple niche does not work, it might take little longer but it will work eventually.

 Blogging Tip 4

Be kind and helpful to other bloggers, big and small size. Many times we have seen blogger only writing about successful bloggers and commenting on only their sites. Now following successful blogger is good idea and we do that too. However, you want to also focus on same size or little blogs too. Sometimes it works out best when you are nice to medium to small size blogs.

It is just like real life, you do not want to be friend only with rich people, you want to be friends with people who have same amount money or even bit less than you. Diversity is key and being genuinely nice helps out in blogging world.

Blogging Tip 5

Plan for busy times, emergency situation such as blog crash, family and work issues; You can always predict what will happen but you can prepare extra post drafts when you have time so when you are busy, your blog still have content flowing. For other emergency situation, just take one step at the time and get help from web guys or forums. Have blog schedule if you can. Some blogger post everyday, some every Monday, Wednesday or Friday, and some do not have schedule. We fall under later category, as we do not want to be bound by deadline to have our creative juice flowing. But we agree, having regular schedule even when no one seems to be reading you blog, will make you more credible in reader’s eye.

Blogging Tip 6

Most important thing about being successful is to provide valuable information to your readers! Pat at Smart Passive Income provides great value to many, which is not found anywhere else on blogsphere. Therefore, he gets big following from readers everywhere. Pat’s posts are well thought out, helpful and honest. What I also like about Pat is that he is family man, when he went to Blogworld, he came back early as he has young infant son. I like that that family is his first priority over fame or money.

Other value providing bloggers are Devesh from Technshare and Ishan from Blogging with success provide. They both are young teens who write with other authors and who all are amazingly talented. I love their blogs from short time I have been reading their blog. Although I am older than them, I still have lot to learn from these teen bloggers.

Yaro, Daniel from dailyblogtips, Darren from Problogger are few of the experts who provide value to bloggers and readers everywhere. If you want readers to stick around and keep coming back provide the best valuable information to them.

Blogging Tip 7

Content is king or queen (if you are girl blogger), so write great and unique content that is helpful to people. You do not need to be copy editor but make sure your spelling and grammar is correct before you hit publish on your post. We know we have made in past and it is only human thing to do. The best way we found to correct this is to read your post aloud and you will see if there is something not working right away. If you realize later after publishing a post, don’t fear. Just change to mistakes as soon as you find them. If reader or blogger tells you about it, thank them without feeling that you are being criticized. They are just trying to help you.

Final & Extra Blogging Tips

Treat other bloggers the way you want to be treated!

Write from your heart!

Rome was not built in a day and same goes for your blog success. Don’t hurry success!

Happy Blogging!