How to Make Money Blogging with the Amazon Affiliate Program

If you're new to working from home and want to make money blogging, we'll show you how to get started with Amazon and learn the pros and cons of the popular program.

The Amazon affiliate program uses the affiliate marketing business model to enable it's participants to earn online. It's one of the best ways to monetize your blog and make passive income.  

How to Get Started with the Amazon Affiliate Program

Amazon calls their affiliate program the Amazon Associates Program and it's very popular for the reasons  we discuss below.

To get started with the program, you can click here to be taken to their site. There you'll receive the details and everything and allows you to apply. It's is an excellent way to start monetizing your blog and be introduced to the world of internet marketing.

Once you understand how Amazon works, you can take that knowledge and use it to promote other programs.

Here are the primary reasons and benefits of starting your affiliate marketing journey with Amazon: 

1. They sell virtually everything, in literally every niche. You will find lots of items that will appeal to consumers in your niche on the Amazon platform. You're not limited to a specific brand. It's also a great way to promote your favorite retail brands without having to apply to their specific programs.
   
   Amazon has most popular brands on their platform and some even have their own landing pages. With the Amazon affiliate program you'll be able to promote the brand everyone loves.
   
   For example, I found a TUL discbound planner from Office Depot, but I bought it on Amazon. Here is the TUL store on Amazon.
   
2. They have tools you can use to build an Amazon business. Amazon makes it easy to make money blogging. They have an Influencer program with a live platform that you can use. Their live platform is similar to Facebook Live.
   
   With this feature you can apply to become an influencer and create a store that you can use to select and showcase products your audience would love. You can also use the live broadcast to highlight featured products deals and recommendations in your store.
   
   Feel free to check out my Amazon Influencer store where I curate items for bloggers and other work from home professionals.
   
   
3. They make it easy for you to share your affiliate links. They have Site Stripe which is a tool you can use while on Amazon to share products to your social media channels.
   
   A word of caution, even though they provide easy linking be sure to read your affiliate agreement to know where direct linking works for and the ones where they don’t allow it.
   
   
4. Amazon is a trusted brand. When you share affiliate products on Amazon and your buyers land on Amazon’s site, they are in familiar territory. They know the brand and are probably Prime members, so they have no problem making a purchase.
   
   
5. You’re not limited to earning from only the product(s) associated with your affiliate link. If a person clicks on your affiliate link and goes to Amazon and they buy (for example) your affiliate product, plus additional items, you get credit for the entire purchase.

Ideas for Making Money Blogging on Amazon

The most common way to make money blogging on Amazon (or any affiliate program) is to cut and paste their links into your blog posts and pages wherever they relate to your content. At the same time, you don't want to spam your readers with a ton of affiliate links, even if they are on your blog.

• Use eCommerce: To make the most from Amazon, create collections that show your audience how to make the most of things. For example, if you have a cooking business, use an eCommerce platform like Shopify or WooCommerce to showcase collections of niche related items that can be used in the kitchen.
• Use Video Marketing: Create a YouTube channel where you demonstrate the products you use in your kitchen and refer viewers to your Amazon page to make a purchase. 
• Create collections: Collections of items from cookware, kitchen utensils, slow cookers, blenders and gadgets that make cooking enjoyable and fast. Don't stop there, think about apparel, aprons, oven mitts, insulated bags and more. If someone buys your collection, you can earn more than if they buy just one product. 
• Maximize Your Blog: Create articles and demonstrations about products in your collections and include a call to action that leads to the collection in the Amazon store. 
• Use Deals as a Selling Point: Focus on niche related items in the deals section of Amazon
  
• Use Quick Delivery as a Selling Point: Mention the fact that Prime members can have items delivered to their home, in many cases the next day. 
• Solve Problems: Think about the pain points your audience may be faced with... special events, milestones and occasions that are happening in their lives. 
• Become a Personal Shopper: "Shop for" your audience and show them how to celebrate the happy times as well as solve specific issues. 
• Use Your Email List: Promote niche specific Amazon products and collections to your email subscribers using links to related products that solve the problems you talk about in your email.
  
  Blend in your Amazon deals, products and collections with your other niche specific content, (maybe one or two products per email) so that your subscribers are not overwhelmed. 
  

Promote your collections using images (made with tools like Canva), on various social media platforms. Include (package) your collections with recipes, videos, blog posts and other content. 

Continually promote your collections and follow practical trends. Utilize the Amazon Influencer program and their "live video sessions" along with "Facebook Live" to introduce new products and give your audience choice and variety.

You can use a variety of linking strategies to make your links relevant and natural, so that it doesn't look like your visitors are reading ads. I discuss linking strategies for posting on your blog and you can access it here for more information.

Next you'll want to promote your blog posts on social media, share them with your email subscribers, and repurposing the content on other platforms.

You can also share your posts, pages and other content in groups, in your email signature and other places where it will be seen by your ideal customers and clients. 

You can create videos, audio podcasts and courses from your content as well. Product reviews are also a great way to promote your content, because you can answer pre-sale questions and handle any objections people may have about buying the product. You can share your reviews in some of the areas outlined above.

And if you're interested in selling digital products, in addition to being an Amazon affiliate, you can self publish books with Amazon Kindle Publishing.  Amazon Kindle Publishing is separate from the affiliate program.

It's another popular way to earn money. With Amazon KDP, you can self publish all kinds of books and paperbacks in hard copy. Publishing books for Amazon Kindle (digital) is free. This is a way to start creating and earning from digital products.

There Are a Few Drawbacks

The only drawback to the Amazon Associates program is that their commissions range between 1 - 20%.  Check out the Amazon rate card to see current affiliate rates. And they provide a 24 hour cookie which is really short when compared to other programs. This cookie applies to everything your customer has in their cart for a single checkout.

Promoting products in the Amazon associates program requires a strategy if you want to earn higher commissions.

For example, don’t count on your typical buyer to have lots of items in their cart at one time. It’s important to promote products in your niche that have a higher cost, to balance out the lower commission structure and for those customers who purchase one item.

To balance things out on my blog, I have promoted items like electronics, home appliances and tech items that typically cost more. I also promote smaller items that compliment other items on my site. 

Tools Designed to Increase Productivity and Sales for Affiliate Marketers

No matter what affiliate program you choose, it's important to use products that will help you get more done in less time. You want to gather data as well that can help you determine what's working so that you can do more of that. The tools below will help you convert more visitors into leads and customers.

• Tailwind - Automates the most difficult parts of your social media marketing so you can grow smarter and faster. I use Tailwind to make social posting easy and carefree.
  

• Thrive Suite - Is the all in one sales and marketing toolkit (sitebuilder) that allows you to create a WordPress blog that converts visitors into leads and customers. It's the tool we use to run our sites.
  
  With Thrive Suite you can customize EVERYTHING and sell ANYTHING… Thrive Apprentice 4.0 is a complete game changer! Check it out here. 
  
  
• WooCommerce - Is a free open source eCommerce plugin you can use with WordPress to start a shop that you can use with your affiliate products.
  
  
• Shopify - Is a popular eCommerce platform you can use to build a shop you can use to sell Amazon or any other affiliate or POD products.
  
  
• aWeber - Is an email marketing provider that gives you lots of great tools you can use to communicate with your audience via email. Check out this training video to learn more about what they have to offer.
  

Amazon is an excellent way to start making money with your blog. Join the program, get your feet wet and see how it goes. You can always branch out to other networks as you get more experience with affiliate marketing.

There is so much more to do and learn about affiliate marketing.