in this video I interview Amazon
affiliate expert Doug Carrington now
Doug dropped a comment on one of my
videos just a couple of weeks ago he was
watching one of my tutorials about
building an Amazon affiliate website and
he dropped the bombshell that he's
created an Amazon affiliate website that
had gone on to be sold via you know
flipper type site for over two hundred
thousand dollars yeah two hundred
thousand dollars so I got back in touch
with him and said well that's amazing
tell me about it and he agreed to set up
a call on skype and let me record it and
share his stories of building Amazon
affiliate websites and making those
money from them and then ultimately
selling them so I thought you guys are
going to absolutely love this especially
if you are setting up an Amazon
affiliate website or you've already got
one the stuff that Doug shares with me
in this call is absolutely gold and yet
really good tips so well let's get
started
[Music]
hello it's Alex here from WP go I hope
you're all well so I want to get the the
Skype call running as kritis possible so
I'm going to cut the chitchat out but
basically as I said I had a chat with
Doug on Monday and he shared me loads of
tips and loads of stories about Amazon
food marketing including things like how
to find a niche and how to create
content and how to get traffic and and
all the stuff that I know you guys
really want to learn about so I think
you're going to really enjoy this also
as a bonus Doug has offered to give away
did some research on and I think got
about 15,000 keywords that are suitable
for an Amazon affiliate website you'll
find all the links that we mentioned in
the call and the link to those keywords
in the description as well as a link to
Doug's YouTube channel which I strongly
recommend that you check out as well
but that's enough chitchat from me let's
roll the Skype call tape a recording
thing and yeah I hope you enjoy it I'll
see you at the end
thanks very much for joining me tonight
Doug so you tell me a little bit about
yourself and how you got into you know
Amazon stuff and affiliate marketing and
all that kind of thing sure well I'm
Doug Pennington and I've been doing
affiliate marketing for about four years
and I basically discovered this whole
like online world from Pat Flynn on
smart passive income I heard the podcast
and okay I just randomly found it and
then found out people had websites and
they were making money online before
that I was doing management consulting
as a project manager so okay a normal
you know then would total job yeah let's
go out go in every day and do what can
one stuff yeah so I guess look your time
sorry took up quite a lot your time i
dimension yeah just about all of it and
for a while I was you know traveling and
you know it's fun at first when you
first get a job it's fun to travel yeah
I've like a per diem and you get to eat
out with your friends but then of course
it becomes like a terrible corporate job
and that's what happened for me yeah but
I found out that you know people were
making money online they were doing this
Amazon niche site stuff so I started to
research it about
four years ago like you know built a
couple sites and I think probably a lot
of people can relate I did like
everything wrong so yeah yeah I think
most people can yeah I said that's how
you learn is made by making mistakes for
sure in like I mean I didn't I didn't
even know what WordPress was to let you
know like how clueless about the whole
process okay
but eventually I you know I got a couple
things rolling so I got a Amazon
affiliate site up and running making you
know a few hundred dollars a month
within a few months and then I think I
got it to like six thousand within the
first year in December and while six
thousand a month yeah yeah it was crappy
and then like all good internet
marketing stories I got penalized and
the revenue went to zero like yeah we've
all been there that was when SEO was a
little bit different it sure was
yeah yeah it was like I started was
going to quit my job and then after that
I thought well I'm gonna have to do this
and figure it out a little bit more so
okay well at least it happened before
you quit your job I guess that's a
saving grace in that story it's going to
say I just quit my job and then suddenly
I was penalized them ya know okay okay
that's a good story so what did you do
after that
so I actually continued on the trend of
like getting success and then being
penalized until I actually I was laid
off for my job in 2015 so almost two
years ago I got laid off I was there for
nine years and I guess it's pretty
common nowadays people just get laid off
for no reason exchange yeah so at that
point I knew I could like ramp up my
money niche sized business I guess you
got a little settlement or something to
keep you going to do a little bit yeah
yeah yeah yeah
so it'd be a little bit more time to
focus on other things where we am for
sure yeah okay carry on sorry oh yeah so
basically I started to ramp up the niche
site business and I knew it was possible
I'd done it before and a lot of my
friends and mastermind groups were
you're making full time income they had
you know continued to press on after
they're you know kind of locations as
well
and you know they were quitting their
jobs making more than they ever could in
their old positions and I knew I could
do it so I just kept moving forward with
that and I will mention because I come
from a project management background
avid I believe a unique set of skills
where I have this organization type
mindset
okay I'm my corporate job where I think
a lot of online entrepreneurs may have
you know they didn't develop those
skills but I spent a decade in the
trenches doing project management first
yeah we're big implementations and like
I brought that sort of organization and
like task management idea project
management idea yet to get a grand stuff
done yes okay yeah perfect yeah that's
what you need Esther way to say yeah
yeah yeah but look that's a maybe a
little floor or a challenge a lot of
entrepreneurs out there very good at
starting stuff they get really excited
and you know they maybe they start
building a site or thinking about doing
a site and they never really kind of
gets the end or get it pull it all
together to actually get something
finished and working you're sure so I've
been pressing on with you know the niche
site stuff for I guess four years total
really seriously after the last two
years since I got laid off and cancer
you know we were chatting just before we
hopped on yet and started recording but
yes I'm doing this full-time now after I
got laid off it's supporting me and I'm
doing you know better than I would have
if I stayed in my other job so yeah
that's perfect okay well if let's get
into a bit more of the details of Amazon
affiliate marketer you mentioned that
niche sites are very important so I mean
what would you recommend to them all how
would you advise someone if they were
you know thinking about their Amazon
affiliate marketing how would they go
about choosing a niche or choosing
products sure so there's a lot of
different brainstorming strategies but
probably the best and easiest way is to
just go over to Amazon and start looking
through like top-level categories of
which I'll try to remember the best I
can but you
look in maybe like like home in bath or
yeah maybe the outdoor category and just
start diving in looking at the different
you know products that are out there
just to get an idea like what people are
buying Oh kind of course that could be
overwhelming because there's so much
just on Amazon but you can use a keyword
research tool like it Alex do you have a
favorite keyword research tool I use
Google Adwords Keyword tool that's
because kind of I'm from a Google
AdWords background so it's always my
go-to tool but I'm sure there's better
things cool and also you need an AdWords
account now so excess it but yeah that's
what I used him buddy okay and that is
up until the point where they like this
I guess they shut down the amount of
information to people that didn't have
active like ads running so there's a
couple tools out there whichever one you
use like doesn't matter that much just
pick one there are some free options or
trial options that you could pick and it
actually doesn't matter so I won't even
suggest one I have no affiliations would
enter keyword you haven't you must have
you must have a preferred one that you
normally go into first there's one
called keyword CAG it's like the
cheapest option out there and here's my
startup and like I said it's the
cheapest one and that's why I recommend
it for people getting it okay and then
gives you an idea than at least of what
what sort of things people are searching
for I mean I always take the numbers on
these tools with a little pinch of salt
in terms of how accurate they are but it
gives you an idea of trends and then
possible volumes around certain here
some things you identify products that
you might not have thought of I guess
yes in that that's the amazing thing I
mean you could start it sort of a high
level and I usually try not to give
examples where it may actually be
someone's niche site so I'll just use
like I look around my desk often yes
post okay and I picked one that matched
my shirt which is not yeah that's good
I'll say it when you out of that I was
pink yeah yes good contrast here so
basically you would you could put in
something like posted notes and then you
would see like all these search terms
that people search in Google every day
over and over again for like post-it
note ty
products and what you may find is you
know post-it notes maybe that's not the
right exactly you should that's too
general yet yeah maybe it should be best
post-it notes for brainstorming
something like that yeah yeah okay at
that point it's very specific it
indicates someone is maybe interested in
making a purchase around you know
post-it notes and then you can write for
the niche site concept eventually right
the overall goal is to give someone
information about the product that
they're interested in and then get them
to click over to Amazon so you get the
commission so yeah a pulse yeah okay
that's good um so we've talked about
niches and and products so once you've
started you know you thought about a
site and you found some products and a
niche I say niche us a niche that you
want to get into and what was the next
step memory what would eating to do next
so at that point you basically develop
content around the the keywords that you
that you found so basically to get very
specific I usually tell people to launch
their site with ten pieces of content
just time okay now this is in like big
contrast to people that say launch your
site with 50 or 100 or 200 pieces of
content because most people will quit
before they ever publish that much kinda
yeah that's just the fact I mean this is
a long grind and again from the project
management background I'm looking for
quick wins this is a you know project
management you know sprint of work
publishing 10 pieces of content trying
to get a deliverable product as soon as
possible if you get that out there then
you're more likely to you know continue
on actually make some sales and then
repeat the process again ya know okay
and it's obviously when you say content
I'm guessing you're thinking articles
that sort of thing which that you then
link through to Amazon or if you're
running a Woo's own site or a wordpress
site you may be linked through to
products within your site either way for
refine but what if you're not naturally
a writer I mean how would you I mean I
don't know if you've got a writing
background but
I know it's a skill that we can all
learn but is there any kind of tips or
tricks or ideas that you can you know
help people get started writing content
because that's a hard thing for people
that maybe haven't written stuff before
that's super hard actually I like an
engineering background and I'm not a
very good writer I've gotten better yeah
I can appreciate the fact that it's hard
to write so two main tips one is around
the ability to hire a writer there are
gifted writers and you can go to a place
like upwork that's my you know just
choice of freelancing sites I go to up
work and I hire a writer and basically I
provide them this is point number two
but you can give this a template to the
writer or you can use the template
yourself so if you're using a template
to create your post then it's more of a
you know mad lib style fill in the blank
and yeah you'll get better the hard part
is if you show up this is what I used to
do I hit new posts in WordPress and then
try to start writing and the blank
screen is yeah not good and you just get
stuck in but if you can you know if you
have the outline basically the template
is an outline and then you can plug in
like any product you want and I have a
couple templates we could link it up in
the depression and yeah that'd be great
yeah and basically like at that point
it's just a fill in the blank you'll
develop it over time and make it your
own but it's a great place to start okay
and you'd give you a writer you'd say
I'm looking to promote these products or
I've got this keyword that I'm looking
to get some traffic from isn't that how
much information would you give them
sure I usually would give them a you
know the title of the the post and then
okay again it's all templates and
systems and processes so I have a
template for when I hire a writer and it
guides them by telling them about you
know the name of the post sort of the
tone of the article which is usually
like blog oriented conversational young
then it talks about a style guideline so
I get something with
you know h2 h3 tags subheadings bulleted
lists tables like stuff that you know
Google likes in the reader have to
relocate oh yeah yeah it makes it just
more interesting than yeah yeah and I
mean most people they're skimming we
skim the internet we don't read
everything you know we have a good time
those games really help so yeah yeah at
that point I mean that's the more
information you can give a freelancer
the better their work is going to be
like they'll know the expectations and
they'll deliver something a lot better
they know you're serious if you don't
give them instructions you're going to
probably get something back that you
don't want and everyone's frustrated so
yeah so it's being clear on what you
want and hopefully they'll deliver so
let's just talk about writers just for a
bit more um so you mentioned up work so
when you're on up work and you typed in
you know content writer and what's a
good way to kind of work out who you
need to approach who's good who's not so
good is there is there anything you use
the systems you use there I mean I'm
guessing you've got a writer now that
you work with on a regular basis or are
you always getting new writers always
getting new writers so one of my
approaches is to hire people that are
just getting started on up work so they
want to get good reviews and they'll
will usually work for a little bit
cheaper just in general so to give you a
frame of reference I usually pay about
fifteen dollars or so for a thousand
words give her okay
not less to call the lymph you're
looking for in your articles I guess
most of the time for more competitive
terms I may do longer contact five
thousand eight thousand ten thousand
words like Wow but in general a thousand
words is sort of the sweet spot that I
aim for so a 400 500 word articles
probably not going to cut it not usually
not usually I think if it's a very
narrow topic where there's not much to
say perhaps but most of the time a
thousand words is like the minimum that
I go for okay
so sorry yeah Carol so you go and sew up
what can you find someone who's new out
yeah yeah so if they're new they want
reviews and they'll work for a little
bit cheaper so you can get
like higher quality writer for a little
bit less about $15 4,000 words then the
you know the template and then the tight
description is a very good thing to just
if you're ever going to hire a
freelancer whether they're a writer or
not it's really good to be clear I'm
sure you've worked with developers that
you know if you don't give them very
specific instructions who knows what
you're going to get back yeah yeah so
then let's see some I'm talking myself
in a circle so we're talking about
writer yeah yeah so you go to writer
yeah you look at their work I mean so
the program got much works judgment
you're very clear it's very specific
about what you want you should be fine
yeah and then I guess like the big the
big extra thing is I'm usually looking
for native English speakers yeah so
whatever language is native for your
site right so not saying I have English
but whatever you need I try and get
native speakers and I ask them two
questions one are they interested in the
topic so let's say it's post-it notes
you know do you have like an inherent
interest in post-it notes
tell me about it a little bit my goal is
for them to say yes and here's why I
like post-it notes I've been using them
since a little tell me yeah yeah yeah
but but the thing is like if they if
they just give a one-word answer
probably not very good right and then
the other thing as I asked straight up
and they say do you speak American
English in quotes just to make sure
because I know I think Nisha is right by
the way Alex but yeah the I say niche
but I think you're right yeah but other
other countries even if they speak
English I know Canadians good people
from the UK like yourself you put a you
in sometimes for like favorite so yeah
yeah let me know you smell it yeah yeah
it's a it's been a an age long debate by
yes yeah the Americans they put they put
Zed's it was ease in everything right
well there should be an S yeah but
though that you're right that there is a
lot of difference between the two
languages yeah even though they're both
English right
and you know what I'll hire you know
I'll hire someone if they're like oh you
know I'm from the UK of course I'll hire
them and they'll say yeah I know we
spelled things differently so I'll use
your dictionary to make sure that you
get it back you won so yeah just that
little thing it weaves out a lot of
people because I have to go and answer
and you can tell immediately because
it's not a can to answer a lot of times
you'll get sort of canned cover letters
and I ask them to answer my own question
yeah okay so I guess you rarely use
writers maybe from you know the Far East
or the Philippines or India or anywhere
like that I mean because those guys
English isn't generally their first
language I mean they can't speak English
obviously but because there are a lot of
outsourcing services and guys that are
in those areas but you say that's
probably not what you're not going to
get the quality that you want from those
guys correct correct I think you know
it's it can be done but I think it's
just easier for me to not do it so okay
that's good so okay and so once you've
got this article and maybe you publish
it onto your WordPress site what do you
do with it next I mean how do you start
getting getting out there and getting
some traffic to it cool so this is the
promotion in link building and outreach
portion and basically I try to keep it
simple so back to the project management
and doing things that are effective and
just ignoring everything else I do blog
commenting on niche relevant sites and
then guest posting and we can go deeper
into it I know you know first off people
will say blog comments are not very
effective
they're nofollow links then yeah has
Google link juice true oh that's true
there's a little bit of a benefit I
believe just from like more referring
domains go into your site I think that
yeah I think Google still counts them
somehow I think definitely good okay and
how do you just go we'll just drill on
that a little bit so you go over to a
blog and you find an article about
post-it notes or whatever and also you
don't to dive in and be the spammy
comment that says hey you come and check
out my article on this whatever I range
I guess you need to be a little bit more
intelligent about how you do that yes
so just to take a small step back the
overall goal is to get a guest post link
so when you step back and you're
thinking we really want to be friends
with it we want to network we want to
have that person remember who I am and
interact with them a little bit so when
you think about it that way
then I know we have some time we have a
few weeks to you know get to know each
other and basically I would just go to
the blog and actually maybe I would try
to find people that aren't direct
competitors and you know so we're
talking posted notes I maybe would look
for sites to talk about pens because
okay that right they will they need
something to write on right on yeah and
if I went to other paper product people
it may be my competitor so I'd probably
go to a pen site and say you know really
enjoyed the article on the pilot g2 pen
I use you know fine points what if I
okay then you know just continue it on
from there and maybe you comment on two
or three other posts maybe you send them
an email just offline so hey I really
enjoyed some of the work you're doing
just wanted to let you know maybe ask a
question but again you're networking
more than you're trying to get a link
back yeah you want to try and get a
relationship going in yes then after you
have that relationship you can you know
one of the approaches I like to shoot
him an email hey I was about to publish
this post but I thought maybe it would
fit good on your blog if you want to
take a look at it maybe we can make it a
guest post you know no pressure let me
know what you sure I'll set point
yeah a pressure and then you know one
they may take it if it's good content I
mean everyone everyone was good concise
yeah and it's free
you know like level two would be say to
tell them that they could put their
affiliate link in that specific post
like hey I'm mentioning some products I
could be a great post for you to put
your affiliate link in and you know
through all that you know our goal is to
get a link back to our posted
so we're able to you know basically get
the link back to our affiliate content
yeah yeah and what kind of success rate
do you get and I mean how many how many
relationships and how many L schools are
we going to need to send out before we
get some traction so the conversion rate
varies a lot like when I've done this
like high-touch multiple touchpoints
over a few weeks it's in like the 30 to
40 percent range which is like crazy
high because I did a gen and out I used
to send out like hundreds of emails and
it was like four percent five percent
you just kind of hate people cold and
just trying to get it going straight off
the bat yeah so that doesn't work as
well now there's a lot more people just
sending out these emails yeah over and
you probably get some ourselves yeah
we've all tried it and I think people
have they get a lot of stuff in their
inbox as it is and you know they're not
going to spend any time on that so yeah
more kind of slowly slowly kind of
approach it's pretty pretty good that's
out that's really good good to
information then so any other to them
what you do once yeah you've got some
blog comments you what else were you
gonna yeah I would say like get about 10
to 15 like just post links so if you're
paying attention I said publish about
ten pieces of content on your site and
then try and do some outreach and link
building so I'm telling you that you can
get like more links to your site then
you have posts on your site so yeah
I mean your this is an important part of
course and like most people stop too
soon they say I got two or three links
you know when should I rank this stuff
takes time I mean it's really amazing
when you have the site set up it's kind
of passive I mean it just takes a couple
hours of maintenance per month but it
takes a little while to set up it takes
a little while to get the links so you
know spend the time getting those
backlinks and it may take a little while
for the the link juice and the rankings
to move up but once they do they tend to
stay there because everyone else yeah
they're fighting the same battle as you
yeah so I mean I guess that's the key
and I try and put this across in my
other videos is that you know you're
trying to move away from selling your
time and you're going to be building
something a money machine or whatever as
it were you need to invest your time
into now and maybe a little bit of money
and it's going to pay off in the future
and free up your time you know I think a
lot of people trying to get their get
ahead around that now and understand
that yeah there's a difference there and
you're not selling in your time for
money and you're going to invest your
time to build something that's going to
pay off in the future and you've got to
keep going until you get to that point
so okay and so you've got these guest
posts what about social media and things
like that
I usually don't worry about social media
so it can work right some niches are
really big on Pinterest or Facebook or
you know fill in the blank they're
really big
me personally I don't love social media
I'm really bad at it I kind of hate
Facebook so it's just not my thing I'm
better at SEO and form I like coming out
of effort and the time that I spend it's
more like you set up the SEO you get the
guest post like that's there for a long
time when you look at the interest you
got to keep pinning you yeah the place
where you go to keep posting you go to
keep tweeting whatever you have so you
can make it work but I would only go for
like one channel at a time one platform
at a time and really own it and
hopefully it's the one like if you love
Pinterest like go hard on Pinterest on
Pinterest
in your niche and then once you have
that solid perhaps you add you know SEO
if you want to or perhaps you go to
Facebook and you know grow there but I
think you have to focus on one the thing
I focus on is SEO side yeah so yeah
we've gotten around a little bit so yeah
you've done your guest posts and then
you and you all your other basic SEO
stuff you've marked up all your content
using you know Yoast SEO on WordPress or
whatever and make sure you've got your
header tags and all that kind of stuff
and so then you'd expect what Google to
start ranking your site and that would
be your main source of traffic on your
science yes so the time frame has
shifted
to just be longer so there's a so-called
Google sandbox period which is roughly
six months or so okay it's that long
well yeah I mean when I first got
started it was like two to three months
I mean you could get a site to number
one pretty fast did you have sites back
then yeah yeah yeah I know you can yeah
yeah you could so this is new sites that
maybe you're there on a new domain fresh
hosting fresh site is going to take a
little while for Google just to figure
out what your site's about and just to
make sure that it's happy with you
coming up in the results right yes and
you will start ranking like on page four
or farther but as you know if you're not
in the top like five you're really not
getting significant or going to get
hello yeah so it does take time now
there is there's like a I call it the
keyword golden ratio it's a sort of a
way it's a method to find keywords that
most people are not competing for so
it's kind of a apply less competitive it
should be quickly should be easier yes
in fact most of the time if you publish
I call them cagey are so keyword golden
ratio kgr turns if you publish a post on
a kgr term it usually ranks like in the
top 50 within like a few hours as soon
as it's indexed
it usually ranks because there's not
many other relevant results for them to
confirm yeah right yeah okay and it's
I'm not we can go into it it's like more
there's a four maybe maybe for another
day yeah yeah it's all data-driven so
okay so you get your keyword research
and then you've got a formula that
you're running through and you're able
to kind of identify the terms that are
the golden on the golden ratio as it
were
yes exactly okay and that's pretty
interesting so and when you are ranking
I guess you're getting traffic from
quite a lot of different keywords quite
a long tail keywords that we'll talk
about people are typing in quite
specific searches with quite a few words
in them exactly
yeah so there there will be you know
several different terms or often you
know long but it may be like I mentioned
best posted notes for brainstorming
maybe yeah best posted notes for middle
school kids or something with studying's
and things whatever yeah okay yeah and
then it's like it serves a specific
purpose for like a specific visitor it's
trying to get information and they're
they're probably more likely to purchase
something
okay so just touching on I mentioned
registering a domain and anything like
that when you're setting up a new site
you register a new domain or do you go
looking for a aged existing domain that
may be for sale or something less sure I
typically go for a new domain just
because it's yeah it's clean it's a
brand new double you know the history
here start fresh however if I had the
opportunity and you know wanted to spend
the time on it I would probably buy
either an existing blog or you know a
site that maybe is that an auction and
yeah you know I don't want it
necessarily an expired domain but if I
bought a blog that was like in place and
then yeah there's maybe someone has done
much one for the world needs freshening
up and okay well that does bring us on
to I'm going to write the separation
because I know we've been to a boil and
maybe we'd do this again and I don't
want I know people aren't gonna say I'm
watching a video that's an hour long
well they may be maybe you listen to it
in a car or something honest yeah when
you stare over and you mentioned before
that you've sold sites and maybe bought
sites in the past have you got any
advice or there's a lot of people they
may not be thinking of an end planned
they might be thinking I just want to
have an Amazon affiliate site and I want
to just have that monthly income which
is obviously very nice and but obviously
once they are earning a few hundred
pounds or few hundred dollars or even a
few thousand dollars a month they're
worth some money up they and to tell me
your story about selling sites
sure so just take maybe this will be the
headline I sold the site for two hundred
and thirty five thousand dollars okay
Wow so it's a lot of money and that is
Kelly was a story yeah you can get
roughly between like
you take the monthly earnings and then
you multiply it by a certain factor
usually it's between like 20 to say 35
or so times yeah okay yeah so this
particular site was in that you know
10,000 per month range well and we were
able to partner myself were able to sell
the site on Empire flippers at the
market place and yeah it was just a
simple Amazon affiliate site there were
about 45 pages when I started you know
basically planning on selling it and
then we added another like 50 or 60
posts on there to sort of beef it out
and make it more of a I guess offset
yeah and yeah I mean like just from the
monthly cash flow perspective it was 10k
a month but we wanted to sell it so we
listed it and yeah they're worth quite a
lot I mean that's I saw when they went
to auction and people were bidding on
him well the Empire flippers marketplace
actually you know it's a broker so they
vet the site they develop a ground check
on everything they work with us and they
work with the potential buyers so there
was a listing price and then you know
there were some offers that came in and
we work through the offers got the ones
there's a little bit difference of
flipper which is as I am familiar with
where it's more of like an eBay for
websites and people just list them and
people bid and that some kind of thing
but maybe when you get to that kind of
value then Empire flippers is maybe a
better way to go is yeah so when you why
online earning,make money online, earn money online, online earning, online earning sites,
make money online free, online money income, earn money online free, money online, best way to earn money online, online income site, money earning websites, best online earning sites, easiest way to earn money online, earn money payment bkash, online money income site
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment