RSSBe An Amazon.com Associate!
When I was in college, I used to save literally hundreds of dollars buying my textbooks from Amazon.com. I would make sure that I got my book list from the bookstore about two weeks before the semester started and then I would find the cheapest copy on Amazon.com and get it. There are two ways to sell things on eBay that you can make money with. You can either sell your own items or you can sell Amazon’s items and get paid based on referral sales. They’re both great ways to have an internet business and I’m going to focus on how you can be an Amazon associate.
What are Amazon Associates?
Amazon is widely credited for being the first company to use online affiliate marketing to promote their products. They sell not only books, but hundreds of other items that you can market or advertise and get commissions from for selling.
Basically, Amazon has a lot of stuff to sell and they figure that they can increase their reach with your help. If you have a successful website or blog running, you can get lots of eyes to Amazon’s products and get people to buy from the. The only drawback is that their commission scale is rather small, but it is a good credibility booster to show to your viewers or potential customers that you are affiliated with Amazon. If you are an Amazon Associate you get to advertise Amazon’s products from your own website and get commission for every sale that is made.
Getting Started with Amazon.com Associates
This is completely free, so there is no financial risk in signing up. First go to the associate website and click on the blue button in the upper right hand corner that says, “Not a member? Join now for free!” That will take you to the sign in page. If you already have an Amazon.com account, you can use that to sign in. If you don’t, enter in your email address, and select the option of “I am a new customer” and sign in. Once you’ve done that, it will guide you through the setup process. Most of it is fairly intuitive, it will ask you to fill out your account information, information about your website (or blog) and then you can start using your associates account. When you fill out the information about your website or blog, make sure that you are clear, concise, thorough, and honest. If you are found to be in violation of their terms of service, they may terminate your account.
Different ways to advertise with Amazon
Now that you’re signed up to be an Amazon Associate, let’s make money online! There are several different ways to advertise Amazon’s products on your website. You can do anything from advertising just a single box to making an entire aStore to go with your page! When you sign in to your account with Amazon, take the time to familiarize yourself with the layout of the site and the different ways that you can advertise products.
At the top of the page you’ll see a series of blue tabs that list the types of advertising banners and boxes that you can use. You can use links and banners, Widgets, or an Astore. It will also give you a product advertising api and reports.
Recommended Product Links
Recommended Product links are differently sized banners that you can use to put on your site to feature content that Amazon thinks matches the content of your site. You can choose any number of sizes of your banners. These are dymanic links that are based on the preferences you put in.
Omakase Links
These are similar to the recommended product links, except that you don’t input any preferences on what Amazon should include, Amazon decides what should be included depending on what they have found on your site. You can customize this extensively so that your banner displays the content that is most relevant to your site.
Product Previews
These banners allow your customers to hover their mouse over an image from an Amazon banner and get a preview of the product. This will give the users more information about what the product is and will, hopefully, entice them to buy it.
Individual Product links
Individual product links will show the customers just one specific product or item from Amazon’s catalogue. With these you can decide exactly what you want to show.
aStore
When you set up your aStore you can put as many different categories as you want. You can also customize the store to include your own logo and color scheme. The best thing about an aStore is that your customers will never have to leave the store to make a purchase. Amazon provides the shopping cart and checkout methods for you on the site, so your customers can trust the security of their information. Don’t forget to include a healthy mix of physical, downloadable, inexpensive, and more costly items in your store, like we talked about in this post. That will make it possible for people to be return customers and give you a constant income stream.
Now What?
Now that you’ve become an Amazon associate, you can start making money for your internet business by posting individual banners and even an aStore and make money! Choose what products you want to sell or that match up with your site’s theme. Let’s make some money online!
Filed Under: E-Commerce