38. Are You Making These Mistakes with Amazon?

Stephanie 0:00

One of the most common methods of affiliate marketing is the Amazon Associates Program. Just as common are the hurdles that can get in the way of actually seeing results from this monetization method. Let's chat about some mistakes you want to avoid with affiliate marketing through Amazon.

Stephanie 0:19

Hey there, teacher business owner, it's time to give your bank account a break and pause that ad campaign. I'm your host, Stephanie Royer, and I'm going to show you how to pay less for traffic.

Stephanie 0:31

Welcome back to the podcast. If you missed last week's episode, it is Monetization March. This podcast typically focuses on spending less money on your marketing in order to maximize your return on your investment. But there's another side to this coin, and that is increasing your revenue. By doing both of these things, spending less money on your marketing efforts while increasing your revenue, you're going to see a much better ROI as you blog and pin for your business. As I mentioned in last week's episode, many new bloggers turn to the Amazon associates program in order to monetize their blogs. Right out of the gate, there's a low barrier to entry, and it's relatively easy to get started. All you have to do is use the Amazon link builder, grab a link to whatever it is you're talking about in your post, insert that into your post, and then when someone clicks on it, it activates a cookie that lasts for 24 hours. And with that tracking cookie, anything that the person purchases from Amazon during that 24 hours, if you are the last cookie that gets activated, then you get a portion of that sale as a commission. And so it can be a really great opportunity for people, especially because they don't have to have a huge following in order to get started. But I will say that the majority of people who are using Amazon affiliate links feel like they might not be getting the results that they were hoping for. And I think this is partially due to the fact that there are some very common mistakes that people make when they are using Amazon links. And so let's chat about three of the most common ones that I see.

Stephanie 2:14

The first mistake I notice is that people just drop links throughout their content without a whole lot of strategy. So you're reading a blog post, and all of a sudden it says googly eyes, because they're talking about a craft, and the googly eyes take you to an Amazon link to purchase a set of googly eyes. It sounds simple, but there are actually several issues with doing this. The first is that people are more and more aware of the role that their consent plays in internet marketing. You know, you notice a lot of pop ups about cookies, saying that they consent to the use of cookies, and if you place a random link in your post with absolutely no context, you're taking away some of that consent. In the case of our googly eye link, users won't know if they're navigating to a package of googly eyes or a googly eye coloring book or a roundup post of content about the best googly eye crafts for kindergarten. Now, yes, I know they could hover over the link and they would see the URL at the bottom, you know, in the bottom corner of their browser. But really, this still doesn't give them enough information about what they're going to see on the other side of that link, because when you hover over an Amazon affiliate link, it usually is a, m, z n, dot, t, o, and that's pretty much all they can see so they don't know what product they're actually going to be looking at when they click that link. The drop and run link strategy can also be a problem. This isn't really a problem for conversions or making income, but it could get you in a little bit of hot water with Google or Amazon, and that is just how you're disclosing your affiliate links. So if all you have time to do is just hyperlink a few words in your post, make sure that you're still taking the time to mark those as sponsored, no follow links. And so when you click to edit the link in WordPress, you're going to see the check boxes where you can mark the link as sponsored and no follow. So to fix this link dropping issue where we're just hyperlinking a couple of words in a post, it's an easy fix. You just take a moment to explain in the post what the link is and why you're sharing it. It doesn't have to be a whole paragraph, just a sentence or two, explaining that it's an Amazon link and why you're taking the time to link it for them. And I think this really adds to that consent piece that I was talking about, because it shows them exactly what they can expect when they click, but it also just makes it more likely that they will use that link. So let's go back to our googly eyes one more time. Maybe you found the absolute best brand of self adhesive googly eyes. The backs are super easy to peel off, you know, for the little hands in your classroom, but they also stick really well to craft projects, so you don't have kids crying because their googly eyes fell off immediately. So instead of just highlighting the words googly eyes in your post when you're talking about adding the finishing touches to the craft, you could then just write one or two sentences about the best googly eyes to finish up the project. And I think you'll find that that link is going to convert a lot better than if you had just hyperlinked a couple of words within the post with no context.

Stephanie 5:46

The next mistake I see people make with Amazon links is that they don't take user intent into consideration. What is someone ultimately trying to find when they click on your blog post? Does an Amazon product fit into that user intent? So put yourself in the shoes of a busy teacher who is visiting your blog post for the solution that you're offering. Maybe they saw a pin on Pinterest. Are they likely going to go on a side quest to Amazon for a random word that you've hyperlinked? Will a trip to Amazon help them solve the problem that they're looking to solve? Or is your post about a freebie? Are they likely not wanting to go shopping right now, and instead they were actually on the hunt for some freebies? It's important to take these things into consideration when deciding, like, is it really worth it to add some affiliate links to this post. Some people might think, well, what's the harm in adding affiliate links just in case, even if it doesn't totally match user intent, can it really be that big of an issue to just go ahead and add some links here and there? Well, I hate to break it to you, but in today's Google climate, yes, it could be that big of an issue. The algorithm has been targeting affiliate websites that basically only write posts that round up a bunch of products from Amazon. Now these roundup posts are okay in moderation, we'll talk about that in just a second, but there are websites whose sole purpose is to write these posts. The issue is that Google has to give the algorithm signals to watch out for because they don't want to send people to these major affiliate websites anymore, and they had to teach the algorithm that somehow. And so there are certain signals that Google watches for. And I think, this is just me speculating, but I have a feeling one of those is how many Amazon links are in one post. You don't want to send a signal to Google that you're one of those spammy affiliate websites. So be thoughtful with your links and add them when it makes sense to user intent for your post. The links will be more successful and you'll send the right signals to Google.

Stephanie 7:57

The final mistake that I notice people making with Amazon affiliate links is that they share things that they have never used before. So going back to the spammy affiliate sites, this is something that they're known for, and this is exactly why Google is targeting them, because they just cruise Amazon for the top rated products that go for a particular search term, like the best hiking boots. So they gather links for the top 10, and they usually have chat GPT write up a little summary for each one, and then they create this roundup post, and Google does not like that. The algorithm treats that as low effort content. You don't want to be giving signals to Google that you've never used the products that you're linking to. Now, avoiding this mistake is pretty simple. Whenever possible, take a photo of the product in your possession. Heck, I'd even suggest taking a selfie of you holding the product - anything that shows you've actually used it. And in addition to making Google happy, your recommendations are just going to be more genuine and people will be more likely to use your affiliate links, I think you'll find that they are way more successful in that way. So if you're feeling underwhelmed by your results from Amazon Associates, try to be a little more strategic with your links, match user intent for your blog post topic, and be sure that you're sharing products you've actually used.

Stephanie 9:25

So I thought I'd illustrate just the difference that it can make in the success of your affiliate marketing when you avoid these three mistakes. I thought I'd illustrate the difference that it can make in the success of your affiliate marketing when you avoid these three mistakes. So when I first started my blog, I knew about Amazon links, and I thought, great, I'm just gonna hyperlink a few words here and there, and it'll be a piece of cake. And obviously I did not see results from the Amazon program. But then I needed something in my life, for a life event, and I was like, this item is an absolute game changer. And so I wrote a post about it for my website, and it matched user intent, because the post that I created was a list of things that people should have on hand for this particular life event. So it was already a post where people were looking for ideas. Now I did not only use Amazon products. I used things that they might have on hand or they could borrow from someone else. So it wasn't Amazon, Amazon, Amazon, but when it came time to share the link to that product, I made sure I said that if there's one thing on this list that they get, it needs to be this, because it is such a game changer. And so I really highlighted that particular product in the post. The rest of the post was very helpful, but not necessarily only Amazon links, if that makes sense. And so I felt like the post was way more genuine, I wasn't trying to trick anyone to click an affiliate link to start a cookie, I wasn't exaggerating or trying to be salesy. I was just genuinely trying to help people prioritize their purchases by sharing what worked for me, and I even included a picture of me using the item in my post. And as you can probably guess, I have seen much different results from this post than I did those initial efforts with Amazon links. This particular post has generated 1000s upon 1000s of dollars of revenue for my business, but it's been over seven or eight years. and I think that's an important thing to keep in mind, that you might hear these Amazon mistakes and think, well, I'm not doing any of those things, and I'm still underwhelmed by the numbers, and that's understandable, but just remember that blogging is a long game, and people are finding your blog posts on autopilot, and once they're written and once those links are placed strategically, they can be bringing you even small amounts of revenue on autopilot, and those small amounts can add up and make a big difference in your business.

So if you feel like you could use even more tips to help you make the most of your affiliate marketing efforts, I think you're going to love the brand new monetization module of the Bring Your Own Traffic Course. You can find it at stephanieroyer.podia.com that's stephanie royer dot, P, O, D, I, A.com and if you're already a student of the course, you can find these tips in module six.

Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. If you enjoyed this conversation, I'd love it if you could share it with a teacher biz bestie. You have created high quality resources, now let's help teachers find them. I'll see you next time.