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I make my living selling products on Amazon.com, but selling products on Amazon isn’t the only way to make a nice income.
What is the Amazon Affiliate Program?
Amazon.com is a website where you can buy products (most people know this).
It’s also a place where you can sell your own products (not everyone knows this).
But, Amazon is also a place where you can earn money by referring someone to the site. If that someone buys something (or lots of somethings), you get a commission from Amazon.
Most often, you’ll create a link (Amazon shows you how to do this) to a specific product on Amazon. Someone clicks on your link and buys they product you link to or ads other products to their cart, you get a commission.
It’s called the Amazon Affiliate Program.
Why you should care about the Amazon Affiliate Program.
If you sell products, like I do, what benefit does the Amazon program give you?
For me, it was a ride of a lifetime (more on that later).
Essentially, you have the chance to
- Make extra income without having to purchase and hold on to inventory.
- Provide your customers with a wider selection of products.
- Test products you’d like to carry by first seeing how well referrals to similar products perform.
Even if you don’t currently have a business selling products online, you can get started with the Amazon Affiliate Program earning referral income with little to no startup costs.
But aren’t the Commission Percentages Small?
Yes, compared to other affiliate programs, the commission percentages are small, but the benefit is that sales are higher because you’re sending buyers to one of the most-shopped websites in the world.
So How Can you Apply the Affiliate Program to a New or Existing Internet Business?
It’s pretty easy, you sign up for an Amazon Affiliate Account and start use any or all of the following 3 methods (#3 is my favorite):
1. Embedded – Create a Mini Store on Your Site.
Amazon lets you create a mini-store on your own site called an aStore.
You can select the products that are listed there, and it acts like a little store. Customers can add items to their shopping cart, and then check out and pay at the end.
You can also add little widgets to install on your website or blog through the associates program, but they’re not the best either.
The “embedded” option has its place and uses, but it’s not what Paula and Wand use or others that are making a lot of money with the Amazon affiliate program.
That leads us to what is making money for a lot of people…
2. Quality Links – Links back to Amazon from Pages that Provide Tons of Value
The best way for making money with the Amazon affiliate program is by offering incredible value to the person you’re referring to Amazon.
You can do this on your existing website or create a blog or website dedicated to this purpose.
Before people buy something on the Internet, they often search for information about the product using the Internet.
If you provide a detailed description about the product, the pros and cons, and really give detailed information, enough that someone could become well informed by visiting your page, you provide value that’s hard to find in other places.
You’ve provided information they need to make a buying decision, so when they click through your link and buy, you get a commission.