How to Make $60,000 a Year with Amazon

hris Guthrie just shared his experience on how to make $60,000 a year with Amazon, it’s really worth a reading. Here it is:
Best Tactics to Make Money
1. Use in content linking as users are more likely to click links from within your blog posts or web pages (just simple HTML) than banner ads etc. – 45% of my earnings this way
2. Write bestseller list posts (i.e. Bestselling LaserJet Printers) – 15% of my earnings this way
3. Make any/all images clickable affiliate links to the Amazon product. I’m surprised how many people will get point #1 right but not make the image a clickable affiliate link. – 13.8% of earnings this way
4. Use buy now buttons in the content – 5% of my earnings
5. Focus heavily on shopping periods. HEAVILY. People want to be told about the best deals and if you take the time to write a great list pertaining to your niche people are grateful not annoyed by your consistent deal content during these times of the year. I also send out numerous emails via my newsletters on all the various websites during Black Friday / Cyber Monday – again people like getting this information so hit your lists hard.

Worst Tactics to Make Money
1. Don’t bother using Amazon’s banner ads. They convert poorly. People rarely click them in almost every niche I’ve tried and you could use that space to sell direct ad space or *gasp* simply display nothing.
2. Don’t bother with Amazon stores – they convert terribly. If you can even get a visitor to click a store link congrats. If you get them to actually buy something congrats again you got lucky.
3. Don’t promote products that aren’t related to your niche (should be obvious, but again I still see this when I’m roaming the web).
4. Don’t use Amazon Associates if it doesn’t fit with the type of visitor coming to your website (i.e. are they just looking for general information? If so Adsense will probably work better. Or are they looking to buy something? Amazon will work better)
These are tips I confirmed based on data gathered over the course of the year with the help of tons of tracking codes and I genuinely believe it should help you refocus your efforts into the areas that matter or to abandon Amazon Associates if it doesn’t fit your visitor profile.
Important: Remember the tracking cookie lasts only 24 hours. Target potential buyers not lookers.
Feel free to post your questions or comments. No I won’t post sample URL’s of the websites I run for obvious reasons. Just do keyword research, build a good website, link build and rinse repeat.